-cvj

You used to, back in the day. Lots of wildlife actually, and i suspect more than you imagine now even.

A great identification website i have used (there is a huge summer rose garden in the local park near me) is:
http://www.justourpictures.com/roses/yellowroses.html

A) telling folks back east how lovely the roses are in december
B) pruning the roses as if we lived back east

and we seem to be happier for it-the roses don’t need to put so much energy in regaining their height requirement for bloom production and hence give forth ridiculous amounts of flowers(to keep secret!)

i do a moderate pruning-the thin stickly branches-the brown leaves-the branches growing at odds w the rest of the bush-bringing the bush to about 2/3rds its height-
all the while remembering they are thorn bushes w/ flowers!

and how lucky we are for it!!!

as for the bouganvilla-they seem to love to get, what they dish out- don’t they!
and for me, they work as a security fence.

and PS-yellow is the color that says hello-the first color we see-the color of the sun that says good morning etc…..
and if your looking for a wonderful yellow that smells great, try the graham thomas from david austin-it takes a couple of years to settle in, but then- watch out!

No, I’ve no idea what type those are. I inherited them from the previous owner and have since trnasplanted them…. I’ll look. These are so fragrrant that I’m tempted to turn some of the clippingsi into new plants, alhough I really don’t want to have more high-water use plants in a Southern California garden….. but they are so nice…. The anvil clippers are fine if the blade is razor sharp, which is how I keep it. I know what you mean, though. Yes, I did whack them quite a bit down…. They seem to like it a lot, they grow a huge amount in the year and so I’ve cut them way back to restart….and it gives me a lot of room to work on some other things in their vicinity…. rebuilding the ground around them (skunk attacks) and turning an adjoining bit into a gravel garden. I’ve yet to do the fight with the Bougainvillea….thick gloves for that. I might pop a bit of sugar in after 24 hours.

Thanks for the thoughts and advice,

-cvj

Aaaggghhh… are those ANVIL clippers? They crunch the stems. Please, for the sake of your roses (which, by the way, in Southern California need pruning only for shape – I hope you didn’t whack them down to a foot high) go invest in a pair of bypass pruners.

Hope you’re not too damaged from pruning the bougainvillea – I finally got rid of mine because pruning it was so brutal.

-cvj