a glance out the window...

finally finished!

 it took more than a month, but the rose garden is pruned! i have an abundance of pictures because you can only see around the garden when first pruned, very quickly it will be nothing but a mass of blooms and greenery. at one of the entrance gates i planted forsythia for a bright blast of spring, with an understory of daffodils. 

the white clematis, is reaching to the tippy top of the gate. 

the two shade arbors are planted with white banksiae

there are two rose tunnels flanking the fence.

as ecstatic as i was to finish the mammoth task of pruning 100s of 7' high rose bushes, my work is never truly done, now its time to heavily mulch the roses so whatever moisture they get will last that much longer. in one day i spread ten yards, laundry basket after laundry basket, pitch fork after pitch fork, I WAS EXHUASTED! the bad news is that 10 yards only covered 20% of the rose garden....

this is 40 yards of mulch, i will be moving this to smother the rose garden, every ounce of it will be used. to be honest, last year i used over 400 truckloads of mulch, at 10 yards a truck, its my full time job around the property! 

exhausted after my long morning mulching i was rewarded by this one bloom in the courtyard, knowing that soon all this labor is worth it!