Our roses are dying...

... and that's a good thing!     ...at least in this case.

This picture shows a fairly large multiflora rose bush that is dying because of some blight that seems to be spreading. Multiflora roses are invasive, exotic shrubs. They were introduced from eastern Asia - China, Japan and Korea. In some places it is even classified as a "noxious weed."



Wikipedia has a nice picture of it blooming.

I have been cutting it off at the base, but it's hard (and sticky) work. The district forester says I should be sure to NOT clean my pruners between plants to encourage the blight to spread. It doesn't seem to affect any other plants.

I tried to take a picture of an area, about 20 feet in diameter, from which I had removed just one rose. But it's hard to show what isn't there in a picture. Next time I'll take both a before and an after shot.