rose redux......

ok, so i spent the better part of saturday moving roses, trimming roses, or in major overheaul of....roses......the out-of-control roses are growing madly beneath the side deck......along with a snarl of wintercreeper that has trapped fallen leaves, dead branches from the oak above, and sundry newspapers that surely blew away when i was reading on the back deck.....at first glance the eglentine rose (an old rose that has leaves that smell strongly of apples....delicious!...when shakespeare mentions roses, think eglentine......).....had numersous dead shoots.......i must interject at this point that the dead shoots in question were over 6 foot in length....for these are no diminiutive plants......several hours of snipping, pulling, untangling later, i had removed most of the vines, most of the deadwood, and discovered 2 clematis vines and a third rose......maybe climbing cecille bruner.....i moved the rose elsewhere, did my best to prop up the clemetis......and went off in search of rest and recovery.......even without the rose, the removal of the vines was a struggle.......vines amke such an ideal ground cover because they grow by underground shoots....and the underground network must be removed if the removal of above ground shoots is to last longer than a week or two.....such a huge job........that was met with the quizzacle (is that a real word)) gaze of a spouse who asked......is that all you did today?.......that is the thing about gardening.....to the nongardener it looks all too easy......i assure you, gardening is not for the old of body or faint of heart......