Roses

When we bought our house there was a rose bush in the front yard. I'll call it was a bush, because I hear that's what roses come from, but it resembled a tree. It had a single stem that was about eleven feet high. It gave us a few of roses the first summer, and also scratched me every time I tried to mow near it.

I talked to other people about pruning it back, and they all agreed that was an excellent idea. It would help the plant produce more roses, instead of wasting so much energy on maintaining a ridiculously long stem. I was no gardener, so I was a bit reluctant to do the work myself, but I was a homeowner now and everyone told me "There's no way to over-trim a rose. They're very hardy plants." So, during the winter, I cut the stems to what I felt was a more reasonable length.

The plant hasn't produced a rose in three years.