Garden therapy

I had an absolutely terrible day but the sun was out and it wasn't raining so I pruned the roses. I have TWENTY FIVE of them in the front yard and my sweet neighbor has been taking care of them for years. She came to me last spring and told me how much she loves those roses, and how she took care of them when my house was abandoned for four years, and oh-by-the-way, she wouldn't be taking care of them anymore. She was cutting me off.

I rewarded her years of selfless volunteerism by not pruning them and letting them get leggy and unruly this summer. It was bad.

I made up for lost time by doing a hard prune. Really hard. I checked out a book from my library and downloaded a guide from the Portland Rose Society, all of which was too much to read, so I just tried to make them look like the pictures.

And everyone on Facebook was like, "They'll be great! Roses love that!" so I'm sure everything will be fine.