I bought this yellow rose bush when I was living in an apartment in Lafayette. It stayed in its pot on my patio for a year or two, and it was planted here in 2007. It might have been 2008. I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s been in this spot for a couple of years. (And it survived a home renovation!)
It puts on these beautiful roses.
And I love looking out my front windows at it.
And then, on the other hand, we have this monstrosity. It was here when Hubby Doc bought the house. It was relatively under control for a while, but the last two years it has been obnoxious. It grows these long, thorny tentacles and would grab you if you wandered too close. Maybe it was just trying to get some attention?
I think it really wanted a trellis to climb on, but we didn’t have one. This rose did not survive the construction very well. It was trampled, run over, and stepped on many, many times.
But, like a cockroach from a nuclear disaster, it is coming back. There’s new growth coming up, strong and healthy (and thorny), from the middle of this plant.
Anyone need an attack rose? Plant it near your front door, and no one will come in!
You might have something there. Let it watch a few runs of "Little Shop of Horros." If it's trainable, start a new sprout for me! ;-) Or is it sprout a new start? UGH!
ReplyDeletemost roses have long growths like that every year. A little time and some pruning shears will take care of that. If you want to make some starts though, you'll need to wait till after those "tentacles" get blooms and the flowers die to trim the bush.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info, Gail. We don't have trouble with the fungus, and usually it blooms all summer long. This year has been so dry it seems to be done for now. I think we may try to yank the whole thing out of the ground soon...
ReplyDeleteMarybeth Feutz
alarmclockwars@gmail.com
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I'm afraid you've got a Dr Huey rose there. Notorious for their ability to come back from the most severe efforts to eradicate them. Probably the root stock leftover from a hybrid tea rose that it overwhelmed.
ReplyDeleteWe have one in our yard and my mother likes it, so I try to keep it from succumbing to blackspot fungus on the leaves. It grows faster than any rose I have ever seen, but it only blooms in the late spring and then gives up for the year, and hangs around greenly, until the blackspot fungus makes the leaves look awful. The fungus never manages to kill or even damage the rose; it comes back the next year with cheerful great energy. If you spray the living you-know-what out of it you can keep the fungus at bay.