Showing posts with label Garage Pergola. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garage Pergola. Show all posts
Monday, May 18, 2009
An Extremely Aggressive Rose and a Garage Arbor to Be
Okay, okay, what monster did I create? Maybe not a Killer Rose as Frances once grew in her garden but a MONSTER rose nonetheless. I am kind of like Dave in that I like to propagate my own plants. I take many, many cuttings. Anything is fair game for me and I am game to try just about every pretty flower I see.
Three years ago during a beautiful spring I passed by a gorgeous rose bush in full bloom on my way to work. I stopped and smelled the roses-so to say. The next time I passed the rose bush, I had my clippers and snipped three four inch cuttings. The cuttings remained in a vase on my desk at work all day then got stuck in some soil when I got home later. One cutting took and the result is to the left and above. Or actually I should say this is the plant after a severe pruning and taming. It is not supposed to look this way at all.
Coming from New England I tend to have romantic views of my garden. I envision pergolas draped with roses and tons of windblown perennials providing non-stop riotous color in my garden. The problem is that I do not have much sun in my garden. The only really sunny spot is located on this south facing wall where my garage and office is located. I have visions of a pergola shading my garage and providing support to a lovely rose-the one I propagated. Something kind of like this pergola (picture from this website) will do just fine. Do you see the cedar shakes? Typical coastal New England if I remember correctly. I love it! The problem for me has been time and the availability of materials has slowed down my plans for the wonderful pergola and it has not been built, however, my rose will not wait. It wants to grow now!
At first the rose stayed kind of small. It is a nice rose. It blooms once per year with small white blooms which are fragrant. The foliage is semi-evergreen and free from disease all the time. It grows fast and has flexible canes, just perfect for a pergola. But this rose has many thorns and is a vigorous grower. So vigorous it was growing into the nearby clematis arbor and across the sidewalk, onto the parking area, into the house and across the garage door. Ouch! The rose was never bothered by misplaced footsteps or errant tugs when an unsuspecting victim walked by. Nope, on it grew and grew.
I decided to take action to control the rose until Mr. Fix-it and I can build our pergola. What to do? I did not want to chop the rose all the way down to a manageable height, but also could not have it growing willy nilly all over the garden. At the same time the rose had to be in a position so that when the pergola was built it could easily be laid over across the supports.
Fortunately I had a few trellises laying around. I took two and also two long boards (left over from another project), joined them all together in a ladder fashion, pulled and tugged and pruned the monster, then stood up my new trellis. The tallest board worked perfectly as it fit under the eave, giving me a place to secure it to the house. Problem fixed. The monster rose is secured and out of our way (at least for now), and the garden is tidied up. The rose had to be a full 15 feet tall, if not taller. I cannot believe it grew so fast in not even three years.
The trellises hold it up for now, and it is blooming...for yet another year has come and gone, and no pergola yet....
in the garden....
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