Roses

Hi everybody!!!! I kind of took Maggie and Mitch's advice to delete everything in my reader and start over so I'm pretty caught up. I didn't delete everything, I just scrolled through looking at pictures and read anything that looked like it was really important or would make us laugh until our sides hurt. I'm glad we have such funny friends!!!!
Last week Mom and I went out and took pictures of her rose bushes. There's a bunch!!! At our old house Mom couldn't get flowers to grow and now she's got a bunch of rose bushes and other flowers growing. She would get jealous when some of you would show off your flowers and gardens and Mom didn't have anything to share. Not any more!!! Today we'll start off with the rose bushes. Mom is working on doing some work on the rose bushes so when you see a bunch of brown sticks in the rose bushes, just ignore them because a lot of them aren't there anymore. Mom and I work on them a little bit every day, but it gets too hot to work on them too much and once in awhile Mom gets scratched up pretty bad and needs to take a couple days to heal.
We didn't get to share Peony and Iris pictures with you because the wind blew all the petals off! Mom's Lilac bushes bloomed earlier than any of the other ones in town and didn't bloom very much and then they were done and gone. There's lilac bushes all over town blooming so Mom is confused why her bushes quit so early. We have a feeling it is the same reason the rose bushes have a bunch of dead stems. Our house was vacant for almost a year when we moved into it so everythign got a little neglected. Mom has been doing lots of weeding and pruning and talking to everything so hopefully next year the Lilac bushes will bloom longer and later.
Okay, now to show you the roses. Here is a pink normal size bush. See those 5 buds behind the one flower? Those buds had opened up 2 days after we took this picture. Here is a red rose bush that opens up really wide to show a yellow center.

This one Mom needs to do a lot of work to. It's a little pink rose bush mixed up in a bunch of iris plants. Towards the end of summer Mom will take out some of these iris plants and transplant them up in front of the house where there aren't many flowers (where she wants to put them is full of weeds right nowand it's going to take awhile to get them out). This little bish also needs lots of pruning. We haven't made it to this bush yet, so it looks pretty bad right now, but still pretty cute.

This bush was the last one to blume. It has pretty yellow roses. These buds finally bloomed just a couple days ago!

This bush confuses Mom. It has thorns like a rose bush, but the flowers don't look like a normal rose. PLUS, when the flowers bloom, they're a very vibrant yellow like the ones in the front, but after a couple days they start to fade to a really pale yellow like the ones in the back, then right before you thing they're going to turn all white the petals fall off into the grass.

This red rose bush has a bunch of blooms on it. This bush also has some crowding issues because there's a small lilac bush growing right beside it (Mom might move it to the front yeard, too), some tree thing that smells funny and looks bad (Mom cuts that out whenever she sees it trying to grow) AND there's also a Russian Olive Tree trying to grow in the middle of the poor rose bush! Mom cuts the Russian Olive Tree out because she hates the thorns on it.

You can't tell in this picture, but this rose bush is one of them that is 2 colors. It is a light yellow and light pink color.

Here is another redish/pinkish rose bush. This one also has a bunch of blooms and it is also the one that has needed the most pruning. Mom works on it for awhile and then has to move on and do something else for a little while because she gets frustrated and scratched up a lot.

This one makes Mom laugh. it's a pretty yelllow with a little orange highlights but if you look, ther are only 2 stems on the entire bush. The little bush to the left of this one only has a couple stems, too but there aren't any blooms on it yet.

This red rose bush doesn't have many blooms on it yet, but it has a bunch of buds. The picture makes it look kind og pink, but it really is red.

This red rose bush has a ton of blooms on it! It has the most blooms on it out of all of the bushes. It's crazy!These are roses, but Mom really likes them a lot. We thing they're called Sweet Williams, but we're not positive. The reason we think that is because Grandma thinks that's what they're called. Mom hasn't reasearched them yet (cut she's been busy focussing on the roses) so if any of you know what they are, please let us know. They came back this year so we're pretty sure they're an annual of that helps. Ignore the grass growing in it, that's not supposed to be there. Mom and Dad were trying to fill in some spots in the grass that needed reseeded and the winf and birds decided to blow the grass seed all over the place.

This is one of Mom's favorites because it one of the 2 colored roses again. You can really see the pink and yellow in this one.

This picture is supposed to be turned and we can't figure out why it won't - probably because there are so many pictures in this post. This is the only rose bush in the front of the house. This is Mom's most favorite bush for a couple reasons. It's a multi colored rose and when Mom and Dad came to look at the house for the first time, it didn't look very happy, then when they came the next week to do the inspection there were some buds and then when Mom came to do the final walk through there were a bunch of smaller sized blooms and then when they brought Sasha and I to the house later that day after the closing they were big blooms like this all over the bush. Mom says it was kind of like the bush fell n love with them when they first came to look at it and just kept getting happier and happier every time they came back. It was one of the first bushes to bloom this year and needs the least amount of pruning.

That's all of Mom's roses. I'm going to go take a nap now. That post made me really tired!