Roses round the door.

When I bought the house I noticed a small rose bush. I thought nothing more of it. Then I moved in and everything was lovely. At least at first.

As time passed the garden grew, I tried to look after it, but it just kept growing. The roses were beautiful, white, perfumed. But it kept growing, entwined in the fence, creeping over the path.

But inside the house I felt safe. It was warm and comfortable, the colours were muted, pastels, old soft furnishings, blankets, a happy place.

Then one morning, I tried opening the double front door, the handle would not move, something was wrapped around it? I looked out of the window, sideways, I saw it. The rose had grown round the door handle, as I watched leaves sprouted and perfect white flowers appeared. The house was happy, the rose was happy. But me? Not so much.

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16 thoughts on “Roses round the door.”

  1. It’s incredible how quickly and quietly plants will start to creep out and take hold over other areas like that. I got some small ivy and trellis years ago now and even though I could see them growing I didn’t realise there were other areas they started creeping too.

    My Dad was a big gardener and I asked him what else I could put in the yard that would go well with the ivy and not need any work at all – I don’t do gardening and could kill a plastic plant so just something that I can plant and leave.

    Dad – “WISTERIA! Telling you get some of that stuff it grows that buggery and you don’t have to touch it”

    The man was not wrong it’s an absolute jungle out there and the wisteria roots made their way into the outhouse, actually grew and started to travel underneath the decking seated area and Mark had to get out the super man tools and saws to cut through the roots which were so thick I couldn’t quite get my entire hand round. Incredible.

    Beautiful when it flowers but it only does for a month or so and then it’s back to just thick green leaves getting caught up with ivy and now houses at least two blackbird nests.

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      1. Never heard of that before so I Googled it and in the top few results was “Russian Vine – Mile a Minute Plant” 😮

        Mark recently had to get a full survey and then arrange extensive work to remove Japanese knot weed from site before he could get the green light to start work. God that stuff is wicked I never realised it was still a big problem.

        The ivy and wisteria plant has driven me crackers but trouble is during the summer it’s an absolute heaven for butterflies and bees. I record the ones that visit during the summer and upload them to the butterfly conversation watch that tracks and maps which species have been seen and where.

        Buddlea is also out there so butterflies rock up to ours like hippies at Woodstock so for the last two years we’ve had the most stunning, bright almost ice blue butterflies I didn’t know were thought to be rare as hen’s teeth but are now making a comeback and numbers rising. So now I can’t get rid of the bloody jungle out back cos it’s housing lots of wildlife I know like it as their home.

        Just get rid of all the excess hanging leaves and shoots but I cant’ get anywhere near to the trellis or wall and know there’s a blackbird nest under it. Just have to suck it up and be glad we’re giving some birdies and butterflies a place to stay.

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      2. When we moved in the previous owner had grown a stand of knotweed because she liked the way it looked! I weedkilled it in October and the same time the next two years. It takes it down into its roots in autumn. Killed it! Never use weedkiller or slug pellets now. So we have frogs and hedgehogs and sometimes smell fox. X

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      3. Little hoggers are great. I’ve mapped our house on the British hedgehog preservation site as having a “hole” for hedgehogs to safely get in and around gardens, fences and walls etc.

        We have three overall there’s one in the stone wall leading to the river, one near the pens and another going in and out of the yard but I recently noticed when I went to map another new sighting there’s loads of new sightings others have made too all in the same area.

        Got all “Ooh yeeeee hedgehogs are getting around look!!”

        Need to put the camera back up outside and see what goes trotting along. I know they do cos they trigger the security light regularly and make the dogs nuts.

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      5. Yeah I have one that’s a really simple thing I used to have at the yard. I just love spying and seeing critters mooching around. We had something living up at the paddocks that kept trashing the cover Mark put over a big ditch that dropped into a brook that ran underneath. Was worried sick in case the horses ended up going in it and breaking a leg but on a regular basis it was ripped off and trashed. Same with a section we fenced off to keep the horses out until we did work in that area.

        Camera picked up a pair of stoats that were living there – cheeky buggers appeared and were there ragging the cover off to get into the pipe underneath the paddock.

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      7. Oh man… I couldn’t leave it uncovered because of the very real possibility it could end up with one of the horses breaking a leg cos it was a concealed drop that just straight down about 2ft so Mark put up some small timber posts and made a little square around it, tied white tape round the sides and then added florescent stickers so the horses could always see it day or night.

        The little sods ripped off the tape and dragged if all over playing with it! 😂 😂

        So that having failed he put a small entry hole like a chicken safety run and nailed down mesh at the top but still left an opening on the far side nearest the hedge.

        Found the posts all rickety and leaning like they’d been playing cricket overnight so he had enough and put an actual manhole cover over it and a traffic cone on top.

        “They can still get in and out of the pipe but they’re gonna have to just use the entrance down the bottom field from now on.. little shits I’m not arsing around for stoats that don’t even appreciate what I’m trying to do for them”

        The manhole cover and cone remained. Saw them or at least caught their eye shine a few times when it was late and I had to do everything by torchlight but that horrendous winter we had to move off in an emergency because of the drainage issues we had was sadly the last. They’ll still be living up there for sure.

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      11. Also you can set up a little hedgehog trail of sand or grit leading to some dog food and see if you have signs of little feeties that have been in and out. I don’t have any but know from the Hedgehog Street site there’s some simple way of leaving a trap that’s safe but let’s you see if there have been visitors.

        Be all exciting to see when they have been like when we used to leave muddy prints inside my house on Christmas Eve and the kids were mesmerised looking at actual real evidence Father Christmas had been in our house 😀

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      12. We’ve got sand on the shed floor so we’ve seen prints. They were using it as a latrine but that seems to have stopped. When they eat and drink they often knock the bowls over. There was one big and one small one, but after over a month of nightly visits they are both big now! I’m going to blog this if that’s OK, save writing it twice!

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