"OH MOM! What happened to Little Lucy?!" came the anguished cry from Sweetheart G as she came home from girlscout camp. G's stricken look suggested our family pet lay mangled in the street and her eyes were full of tears.
The source of her distress was our rose, Little Lucy. We are in the process of having our house painted (another one of those necessary, but frustratingly expensive homeowner joys), and Lucy had to be pruned away from the garage she's been consuming. Granted, Little Lucy needed some tough love; there was a lot of deadwood that needed to be culled and her plans for world domination needed to be quelched. And, as I was quick to reassure G, Little Lucy will return next year with vengence on her mind. Still it does look rather bleak over there.
(Here is a before photo from earlier in the summer. We did wait until her bloom cycle was complete before the "resizing" began.)