Mom's Rose garden

This is the house that we grew up in. As far back as I can remember there have always been roses in this little garden. Until this year. About five years ago THE WEED moved in.

There it is mocking us! We have been pulling this stuff out by the handfuls for the last four years. And not just the two of us - both of our husbands have been sent out to do battle when we just couldn't face it anymore. Last year I'd pull out buckets full and go in the house to have Mom tell me that Country Girl had just finished weeding a few days ago! It had been choking out Mom's little roses so we decided enough was enough.


I told Country Girl to pull out the roses and cover the whole thing with several layers of newspaper and top it off with mulch. Yes, I'm the bossy, older sister. She and Ron rescued the roses and took them home with them for the summer. (And I hope they had no stow aways!) They also did a great job edging as there are no signs of the stuff coming from the lawn.

Now I can understand that it found a weakness in our defenses around the lamp post but it's coming up through all of the newspaper and mulch smack in the middle of the bed! We no longer have to worry about the roses so I used all the weed killer Mom had. I sprayed the the leaves. I moved mulch and newspaper and sprayed all of the runners I could find. I sprayed around the lamp post and then I sprayed some more. The next time I go, I'm taking my giant jug of weed killer and then I'm going to buy some more because Mom will have roses again!

(Yes, the rose garden is as small as it looks. I should have waited to take the pictures until I was done weeding. I left THE WEED so the poison could do it's work but I did pull out the weeds at the driveway edge and the few others that were growing on top of the newspaper. I also got most of the bed in front of the windows done. What did I find there? Pokeweed!)