When I bought my first house almost 3 years ago the small amount of grounds around it was so overgrown and unkempt the house looked abandoned. To the side was a forlorn rose bush with a few scraggly flowers. I nursed it and weeded it and cut it back and fed it. This is it looking it’s best last summer:
The problem is– I don’t really like it much. It doesn’t smell like anything, it invades my front stairs in the summer and all the cutting back of canes didn’t not make it less leggy and more bushy. I think these roses are climbers because I see other people in my neighborhood with them growing up arbors and trellises. I don’t have a trellis or an arbor. This bush is just sort of off to the side of the stairs, reaching out long, thorny arms in all directions.
What I would like to see in this spot is a hardy hibiscus. Only I don’t have the heart to rip up the rose bush and throw it away. So I have two questions, one practical and one meta:
1. Can it be transplanted elsewhere and where would that elsewhere be if I don’t have anything for it to climb on.
2. Does anyone else keep unwanted plants because, well, you can’t bring yourself to kill a perfectly good plant?
