2015-09-23 Moving the Rosebed

Linda's rosebed has changed a LOT since we moved here.  The place was a mess when
we moved here in 2009.  We focused on the interior for weeks and didn't do much with the yard.



Here's what the rose garden looked as we began to work a little on the outside of the place
in April 2009.  Obviously the dead Confederate Rose in the above photo would have to go.  

The hedges were 7 feet tall and WAY too close to the house.  You can't even see the Chinaberry
tree to the left in the photo below because of them.  I trimmed them away from the house
just enough to satisfy the home owner's insurance man.



Here's what the roses looked like by May 2010.  Turns out the Confederate rose wasn't dead
at all.  I removed all the dead canes from it and started coming back.  That's it which looks
like a patch of green leaves close to the ground on the right in the below photo.



By April 2011, we had gotten around to mulching the roses.  We also had an earth mover
remove the box hedges.  The flowers are beginning to look a lot better in this photo.

The Confederate Rose in the center of the photo below was coming along.  There was
a weedy looking bush growing next to the Chinaberry (top center) in the photo below
that we finally got rid of a year later.  The earth mover who took the hedges down
transplanted the Crape Myrtle for us that appears on the right.


Unfortunately, the people we rented to in 2011 when we left to live in Utah until Feb. 2012,
didn't take as good care of the roses as they did of the rest of the yard.  Some were dead and
some were missing by the time this photo was taken in August 2012.

That stupid Confederate Rose was taking over again!  Look at the thing.  It's the size of a
tree.  In 2009, I thought it was dead.  By 2011, I was wishing it had been.  I found out I
couldn't kill it!  I cut it down.  I poured fuel on it and set it on fire.  Nothing hurt it.  It
came back year after year no matter what I did.  I finally had it dug up with an earth mover.



We didn't take any photos of the roses in 2013 but here's what our rosebed looked like October 2014.  
That's the year we began having septic tank problems.  Guess where the tank is?


We moved her roses far away from the house.  I got Linda a 400 lb. bird girl statue.  
This is what her roses looked like in December 2014.


Linda wanted this flagpole which I put up for her.  The flowers were still out by May 2015.


Then we had a black vinyl fence installed.  Guess where it went?  Yep, you guessed it.  Oh, well.


Soooooo, Linda's idea was to do away with a "rosebed" and put the roses against the fence.
That's what we had started on when I took these photos the beginning of September 2015.


I laid out the landscape timbers and drove stakes to mark where she wants the roses.  


Here's the finished product in this photo taken September 23, 2015.  The bare spots will
fill in naturally as the grass expands and dirt settles by next spring.


The crape myrtle had low hanging limbs which I trimbed off.  In the process I discovered some
creatures had taken up residency.  There were a couple of old bird nests and something else . . .

These guys didn't appreciate me whacking on their limbs.  Fortunately, none of 'em stung us.



That's it for now.  We'll have to wait 'til next spring to see how our work turned out.


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