Last year for Mother's Day, Chris bought me two knockout roses. The nice thing about them is you can basically ignore them. They don't need dead-heading, fungicide or pesticide. They also produce tons of flowers throughout the spring and summer and into fall.
This weekend, I spied my first rose bloom. There are also a lot of buds. I'll post pictures when it is in full bloom. It also has aphids; so much for not needing pesticides.
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Right out my back door is my jessamine. For those of you who don't know it is the state flower of South Carolina. It is a greedy, fast growing vine. It will take over anything if you turn your back on it. The blooms, however, have the most heavenly sweet smell.
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Last year, Chris had enough and tore most of it down. I was very upset until he found wisteria. The jessamine had taken over the wisteria and it barely grew. Now we have a huge vine of it next to the jessamine going over the porch.
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It's amazing that it was stunted by the jessamine vine. I'm so glad Chris uncovered it.