TEAM Rolfs: How Stuff Works: Roses

Sunday, May 30, 2010

How Stuff Works: Roses

This is the fourth and final 'How Stuff Works' post left over from Mother's Day Weekend 2010. Links to those first three episodes are at the bottom of this post. Thanks for your patience.

How Stuff Works #4: Roses

We have a nice rose bush just outside our front door that provides us with numerous blooms throughout the year.

Every year it grows to monstrous proportions and without an annual scalping it would probably block our front walkway by fall.

We may not really have much of a clue about what how rose bushes such as this one are supposed to be maintained, but it seems to have held up pretty well to our haphazard maintenance (pruning). In fact, this year we seemed to receive numerous unsolicited compliments, from independent sources, on this particular plant.

The latest compliment was on Mother's Day this year.

Our neighbor saw us out working in the front yard jungle/garden and stopped by to chat with Tanya. The conversation mostly took place just outside our front porch... just 5 feet or so away from the rose bush.

It had grown about 5 feet since we last pruned it and was now jam packed with rosebuds. They discussed how beautiful it will be in just a few weeks when they all bloom at once.

The topic of discussion then transitioned to some other variety of topics, but I ran off to do something else, leaving them to their chit-chat.

Meanwhile, Mikayla finished weeding the soil around the rosebush and instead of disappearing to go text message her friends or train dogs or read a book, she decided to take some initiative and prune the rose bush.

To the best of my knowledge, she has never pruned anything before. We still aren't clear on the how or why she felt compelled to do this.

As I emerged from the garage, there she was... lopping off unbloomed rose buds by the dozens.

Assuming that Tanya and the neighbor were aware this was going on (since it was happening within arms reach of them) I bit my tongue. Clearly, someone must have assigned this task to Mikayla... so the pruning continued unabated.

Luckily, the neighbor departed moments later, allowing me to ask delicately ask Tanya about her master plan for the rose bush.

Tanya issued a loud *Gasp* and Mikayla immediately sensed that trouble might be brewing. Maybe she should quit pruning and go plant some flowers instead.

So... we now have a one-of-a-kind two tier rose bush.
It's the latest thing.
All the cool kids have one.
You should special order yours now.

==================

For those of you who may be wondering, the rose bush is rapidly recovering and the remaining rose buds are just starting to open, and it still looks lovely.