bush in the back yard. I love the RoS bushes--the flowers are beautiful and they attract hummingbirds and the occasional cardinal or blue jay, plus Mom always loved RoS blooms so they make me think of her--but man, they have sprung up all over the backyard. We have probably a dozen smaller RoS bushes in the various flower beds but there's two pretty massive (for RoS, anyways) bushes that are free-standing in the back yard, about 10 feet or so from the flower beds along the back of the house. Weirdly, and seemingly overnight, the one bush has two large branches lying almost horizontal between the trunk* and the house.
* Trunks? I've never quite been able to tell if this particular RoS is one large bush with a trunk that splits off in several directions only slightly above ground level or if it's several bushes that have sprung up in the same spot. For years we had three bushes that were intertwined and looked like one big RoS bush; I *think* it was three separate bushes mainly because it had three different color blooms. I Googled whether or not a single bush can produce different blooms and of course I got both a "yes" and a "no" answer <g>.
Anyways, when I went outside to see what was up with the horizontal branches, I noticed about half a dozen branches in the inner part of the bush were dead. One had toppled over, right between the two "downed" branches; maybe it took them out? But they still have leaves on them. After about an hour of removing the dead branches and dragging them to the back of the property to toss on a dead wood pile we have in the tree line, I got tired (and a little sore--it's a pretty good walk to the back of the property and back--and a little hot) and came back inside. It's looking like it might rain right now; if it's still dry outside after dinner, Dad and I are going to try to tie up the horizontal branches. We wouldn't much care but it makes it harder for the lawn service guy to go through on his riding mower back there with the branches down.
