Congratulations on discovering that you can get healthier even if you're no longer in the first flush of youth, and on enjoying working on your rose. For the last couple of weeks when conditions allowed I've been doing cleanup in my garden. As in your case, for the last couple of years it has been seriously undermaintained, and the weeds and grass to shear and pull, the dead and damaged growth to cut out of the roses, are a huge task. Such work as I get done, though it may be a drop in the bucket, I enjoy thoroughly. And once I've cleaned up a few square meters of the acreage, that patch at least looks pretty good and I'm pleased with my efforts.

Jackie, happy to hear you are restored to better health. I had not realized you were having problems, and I'm glad they are resolved. It is a joy to have a healthy body and be able to do your favorite activities. And I am also happy that Anna Olivier is prepared to get through the stress of root-pruning in good shape.

However, just as it is possible to do too little, it is also possible to do too much.

Currently I am on restricted activity due to seriously overusing my right hand weeding and pruning. I'm supposed to rest my hand for three months. I am trying.

I've also been trying to find someone to work in the garden for a couple of hours a week just to keep chaos at bay. So far I have not had much luck. Mow-and-blow guys are plentiful, but real gardeners, or even willing helpers, are quite scarce.

Our garden has also been neglected because neither my husband nor I can now work for any length of time, and you can tell that either old or sick people live here. The squirrels have shoved a huge amount of dirt off the hills and down onto the concrete, there are large mounds of dead sea lavenders that have been eaten by the rabbits that need to be dug up (good luck with the dry soil), leaves on the ground from the trees that have not been raked up, and the list goes on and on. We've also tried to find someone to help without any luck. I went out this morning while it was still cloudy and stayed a bit longer than I should have and my energy is tapped out for the day. To have an organically healthy body as we both do and yet to be rendered almost helpless because of autoimmune diseases is a bitter pill to swallow. Lisa certainly knows all about that, not to mention the pain from her hip now.

So why are we still ordering roses and companion plants and wearing ourselves out in the garden? There must be something inside of us that longs for beauty and magic and joy that transcends the everyday struggle for survival. For our little band here it's obviously roses, and more precisely roses that are survivors of long ago times and reminders of exotic places like Persia or China or even Europe, or even modern creations that have the appearance and particular beauty of another era. Perhaps that's even more important for those of us who through sickness or advancing age, or both, have an ever-smaller range of participation in everything we used to take for granted. It really means everything to us.

I wish all of us luck in finding help. I'm willing to pay reasonably, too. Casual labor around here is currently $20 an hour, and I would certainly go higher than that. However, I don't want a random stranger.

There is a horticultural program in one of our local community colleges. I've thought of contacting them. Also, if I could hire someone to work along side me, I could stop them from treating my teas as if they were hybrid teas. That fits in with your training idea.

I'm glad you're feeling good, Jackie. That is wonderful that you worked on your own self like that, and I'm happy to hear that you are now reaping the benefits; congratulations and compliments!

I haven't been able to even go out to my land, let alone do any work out there, for at least a month now, due to my own health issues,and can't forsee when things will change for now.

Finding the right sort of person to help in any garden would be difficult; in my case probably even more so, since it's such an unconventional situation. Also I'm a very "private" sort of person,my land is very personal to me,so my helper would have to be the sort of person with whom I could share a certain synchronicity and understanding.

I am glad you are feeling better and getting healthier. Its said that every 1 lb of extra weight puts an extra 4 lbs of pressure on the knees.

I know I always feel so much better energy- wise when I'm eating healthy. I hope you have fun in your garden this fall and are able to get someone to help out. Just getting outside (in good weather) really boosts one's spirits. I am looking forward to some cooler weather here.

Thanks, everyone.

I did spend 3 hours working in the garden yesterday. My original thought was to just work on a particular rose (the only bush I have now which was rooted from my ancient original Le Vesuve - I need to check it out, and take some cuttings to make more), but of course once I got out there I realized that I had to do something about the overgrowth of everything between me standing on the garden path and that rose! Mostly, out of control English ivy - it was rising up like a tide and trying to drown everything. Also huge Valerian plants, and some papyrus volunteers (We try to get all of those out, as one of our cats LOVES to eat the leaves, and they are so scratchy that she then coughs up bloody liquid.). Also tons of volunteer iris foetida, etc. etc. In my garden the problem is never that plants don't grow, or die, the problem is always that everything grows madly, all of the time, 12 months of the year! I have decided to post "before" and "after" pictures on here - here is the first one. You can barely see the Le Vesuve on the left side of this pic in front of the wall, because of all of the other stuff I have to get rid of - that is the rose I am aiming for.

Jackie

OK, after 3-4 hours of removing stuff, here is the result - you can actually see what is a juvenile Le Vesuve. I have not mulched it yet, but that is next on the agenda.

Jackie

You can see it better from this angle: