A Gardener's Lament

Our garden helper was here for a couple hours and we worked hard to bring down the runaway rose to a manageable size. The goal is always to have a fan shaped plant on the trellis, but the reality is an enormous biomass that once climbed into the nextdoor neighbor's upstairs window. A loaded pickup truck later, and it looked very much better. Most alarming is realizing that at the base there is evidence that a couple of stems bigger the size of my arm had been trimmed way before we ever knew this plant. It came with the house over 40 years ago. I don't like to remove established plants, but I do threaten it frequently. It's the kind of rose that only blooms once a year, and although it does have a couple weeks of loveliness, I'm not sure it's worth all the maintenance. 

Anyway, the bee is on a different rose that only comes up to my knees and blooms frequently.