More yard work

The weather wasn't quite as  nice as yesterday.  The sky was overcast all day, but the temperature was mild and the wind wasn't quite as strong so it was a good day to be outside again.  So we were back out doing yard work again.  Mr. G finished raking up the pine cones and pine straw and I began   pruning the roses,   getting rid of the honeysuckle  and greenbrier vines that were strangling the roses and cutting out the forest of privet that had grown up in the flower beds. We're predicted to get rain beginning late tonight  lasting through Wednesday so we were trying to get as much done as we could before the rain got here. Of course we didn't finish but we made a pretty big dent in it. I finally had to  stop because the  thorns on the briers and roses were   getting through my gloves and sleeves and sticking me. It's  frustrating  to have to be so cautious, but the nurses warned me to be very careful gardening while on the chemo since it is so easy for a cut or puncture to get infected and one of the drugs actually inhibits  wound healing. I was beginning to think I might need falconer's gloves  and a suit of armor  to tackle the roses and briers since we had let them go last year and they had gotten  quite big and out of hand.  Also the  vines had   wrapped so tightly around some stalks of the Zephirine Drouhin that the   wood was completely dead, so she looks pretty bad right now.

We got the Ballerina, Red Cascade,  Zephirine Drouhin pruned but still have some pruning  to do on the Katy Road Pink and the Perle d'Or.  I hope the ones we did today  put off a lot of new growth  and bloom well this summer despite the drastic pruning we  gave them.  Here are some pics from previous years of a few of the roses in bloom.  I was surprised that  I didn't have  many pics of the roses among my garden photos and none of the ballerina or red cascade in bloom. The first three are  pics of the Katy Road Pink and the last is a little vase of  several different ones from the garden, along with some blooms from the buddleia - they smelled heavenly, especially the Zephirine Drouhin and the Katy Road: