This was once a beautiful tea rose that I received one year for mother's day from my children. It is now 18 years old and for the last 5 years has not produced any flowers. This last winter was not very kind to it as the freeze/thaw cycles, freezing rain and snow have damaged it even more. There are mushrooms growing on the root stock which has died.
Yet there is life in it still even if there are no flowers. This is the same plant a few weeks later. I have pruned out as much of the dead bits as I could. I have decided to keep it out of sentimentality. Another year another battle with the aphids.
