There are reasons. Good ones.We could start with exhaustion... mine of course. I think it was a two hour project. I could have continued to put it off, but the longer it took to start, the more the job bugged me. I'm talking absolutely CRANKY!
It's not that some pruning hasn't been going on already. There was the bit just after we moved in when the rose and the hydrangea tried to take over the sidewalk. The pruning was ugly and not terribly successful. For sure it wasn't lasting. So another pruning followed, plus deadheading the rose hips that were forming, which only encouraged more flowering. That's how it works.
I suppose about this time into the tale I need to start defending my actions. Those two roses bushes were planted with love by the previous owners of this home. I get that. But they're dead. (Sorry if that's too blunt.) So they don't care any more. I never took a liking to these two bushes. First, they're yellow, so-o-o not my color. Second I can't smell them. It's me, not them, I'm told by a daughter whose nose hasn't been made useless by covid. But each blossom is pretty (enough) for a day, then turns very pale and drops petals. They seem healthy enough, though so much dead wood was left unpruned and unremoved it's hard to tell for sure. But their death sentences were issued because they are just totally a pest. The thorns on these are the worst I've encountered since leaving Arizona, reminding me of a foothills palo verde we'd nicknamed "the thorn tree". But these are hard, sharp, and recurved, so once they dig in they DIG IN! I'm used to roses with more thorns, meaning they are thinner, more fuzzy than lethal, and don't interfere with all other activity in the area.
I can understand why the hydrangea was left to grow so wild. It simply couldn't be approached. For the same reason, the maple trees were ignored while growing up inside both bushes, and any winds meant the hydrangea came knocking at the window screens. I did manage to force myself behind it once to do some pruning after the first big storm, but only part way, leaving that job unfinished and waiting for fall and heavy frosts. Ironically that job will allow air access to the AC, long after we need it. But more maple trees will have to get removed before they have a chance to grow taller than the hydrangea next summer... we hope.
I'll also be able at long last to find out whether the bleeding heart which got smothered under the mess survived. I know they die back mid summer, so I'll have to hunt around among other short weeds which have thrived in that particular habitat. We'll have access to the bird houses and their post, so a decision can be made about their future. Paint? Replace? Remove?
There had been several close calls but my gloves managed to prevent any actual blood loss, though they did not prevent mild stabbing. When I say mild, don't even try to confuse it with painless. I did manage to draw the line at actual impalement. I also kept my clothing mostly intact, though I confess to not bothering with a close inspection. Perhaps tomorrow. If there are major snags in my knit top, it'll simply be cleaned and tucked into my "winter pajama" drawer, where imperfections won't bother anybody, and the long sleeves will be a bonus. It's a very comfortable top, so no point wasting it.
Did you think I was done after the rose branches were cut down? There was cleanup required. The sidewalk was totally blocked with those nasty branches, themselves branching out in all directions over the grass as well. I'd made a serious pile, in more ways than one. So my loppers had to be employed once again in cutting them into much smaller segments so that they fit more or less into our huge garbage can. (Maybe 60 gallon capacity?) Luckily it was emptied that morning. Not so luckily there is a holiday coming up delaying the next pickup. Garbage will back up. There is enough room left between branches and lid once it's fully closed for about four bags of trash to get packed in. In this house, that means the bags that local stores pack your groceries into, like maybe holding 4 cans of baked beans, or two loaves of unsquashed bread, at least up to the point where they are optimistically piled into your shopping card with hopes of them not being under the beans somewhere along the way home. Anyway, since we can't recycle those plastic bags, we use them in wastebaskets as liners, then tie the handles together before they go outside. Why buy bigger bags when you can just squish the trash?
At any rate, cleanup took almost as much time and effort as the cutting down did. The reason it didn't take more was because the really thick bottom stuff only needed to be cut through one time, and that had been done. It took both hands and feet to accomplish that, since my arms are pretty wimpy, but I could use my feet to pin the bottom arm of the loppers in place on the ground for cutting the thickest part of the plant off the main trunk while using both arms together with my weight behind them to force the top arm down to the ground, thus forcing the cut.
Amazing how much rotting rose wood can sit there just off the ground without rotting the thorns into harmlessness. In hopes of never having to repeat this job, never ever ever, I painted brush killer on the end of any green stump still connected to the ground. Now that I can see the stump remaining I can keep an eye out for signs of new life and nip them in the bud. I'm not going to bother digging up the roots, and have neither saw nor the ambition to cut the stump back to the ground. At least not until it proves necessary.
I thought about leaving the cleanup part of the job go, but knew it would just mean I'd trip into it at oh-dark-thirty when I headed out to the car for my new job. I'd been stabbed enough, thank you, and only while wearing older clothing. Plus I do tend to occasionally pop out barefoot. No way I wanted to give the rose a chance at revenge on my good wardrobe or skin the next day. So cut. Stack. Toss. Tamp down in the can with an end of the loppers. No need to risk me again. Repeat and repeat and.... finally head into the house for a broom and dustpan for a final cleanup. The people in this park being as fussy as they are, I was far from done yet. Tools had to be put back in the shed. The garbage can had to go back on the side of the shed to spend the next week plus. My chair needed to be folded, returned to the shed, and shed door locked. The broom and dust pan came back in the house with my last dregs of energy, so after collapsing in my chair I asked Steve to please put them away and bring me some ice water. I did manage to stroll past a pair of granola bars before sitting down, and grabbed a blanket to snuggle under, because suddenly after all that exertion I had nothing left in terms of warming myself up. We didn't even have a house fan on with it being a lovely cool day, but I was near shivering.
Once the garbage pan is emptied next week, it will be time for the other nasty rose bush out front, and the maple tree (trees?) growing up out of that patch of foliage, long ignored for the same reason. After this I cannot guarantee there will only be one maple. Nor do I care to try to check at the moment.
September is soon enough.
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