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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

i'm bloody pissed off but should i be grateful?

37 replies

warthog · 05/06/2010 22:15

i have just got back from hols.

i planted a rose bush about 2 months ago and have been watching a single beautiful, perfect bud grow that was clearly going to burst open while i was away. i was SO EXCITED to see the rose for the first time so imagine my shock to find it had been brutally chopped off!!!

and my beautiful red climber which is covered in roses has been chopped too!

aren't you supposed to prune roses in autumn anyway, AFTER the flowering season?

turns out my mil thought it would be a good idea and just did it. apparently she was planning on coming back today with a ladder to hack off prune the rest.

it's my garden! she's left a big pile of what were my beautiful roses in my recycling!! lovely big red flowers all dying in a plastic box!

i'm grateful that she came to check on the house. i do this for her when she's away. but can't she just chuck the post in the door and eff off? or should i be grateful that someone's done the pruning, albeit it 6 fucking months too early?

OP posts:
Tortoise · 05/06/2010 22:17

How strange. Is she jealous of your lovely roses?

LemonDifficult · 05/06/2010 22:22

Oh that does sound odd. Is she a bit weird in general? Or is this just a one-off misguided gardening episode?

Thediaryofanobody · 05/06/2010 22:25

YANBU I would be furious why would she do such a thing?!

Original poster
warthog · 05/06/2010 22:26

she's trigger happy in her own garden. always chopping things. things struggle. she's offered to help me in mine but i've always managed to wriggle out of it.

and i'm not allowed to touch hers.

how can you cut off someone else's rose that's flowering for the first time, so they won't see it? how can you just decide to prune a creeper in full flower?

i'm SO bloody upset. unreasonably so.

but i've got to say something now. i will probably explode and we'll end up not talking for months.

OP posts:
bibbitybobbityhat · 05/06/2010 22:27

Am not sure about climbers, but you prune standard roses in the spring, about March.

No, you shouldn't be grateful she's done the pruning. Ask her why she did it!

FlightyButPolite · 05/06/2010 22:30

God, that would definitely get on my tits frustrate me!

On the other hand, not to panic, it will try and flower again a bit later in the season!

OurLadyOfPerpetualSupper · 05/06/2010 22:32

Well, considering roses flower in the summertime, and it's arguably summer now, it's definitely not the time to be pruning them.
Might as well chop off the buds of daffs in spring.
February/March at a push is the latest time to prune roses if you want to see flowers.
You'll have to tell her you don't need her horticultural interference skills.

LemonDifficult · 05/06/2010 22:33

Oh no, don't fall out over the gardening! I can see why you're upset (I would be livid) but she sounds just really a bit eccentric in her approach to this.

Can DH just drop in lightly how upset you are? Don't think this is worth a showdown if avoidable.

Original poster
warthog · 05/06/2010 22:48

no, can't get dh to talk because he'll go in guns blazing. will be carnage.

i shall sleep on it and then casually mention it in conversation. will say i'm rather disappointed not to have seen the rose, and that pruning of roses is supposed to be done after they bloom, no?

followed by 'well, i know i'm a bit sensitive about this, but i'd rather do my garden myself. thanks tho. need any help with yours?'

hopefully that'll be the end of it. next time i go away i shall explicitly state that i can't bear to go leave it, but will be looking forward to doing it all when i get back. ie. hands off, you fruitbat.

OP posts:
OnEdge · 05/06/2010 22:52

My Grandmother in law once came round and told us to get rid of those suckers. They werent suckers but nice new stems or whatever. I said no and wouldnt give her the cutters and she actually kicked it to try and break it off Husband had to calm me down. Bossy old cows.

FlightyButPolite · 05/06/2010 22:56

As a rather sad keen gardener - the official rose pruning advice a la David Austin is to prune roses in mid December when dormant.

Although dead heading after flowering finishes significantly increases later flowering.

TottWriter · 05/06/2010 22:57

YADNBU. I'd be livid.

Still, I guess it's done now, and, like you said, all you can do is try and find a polite way to make sure she's never such an interfering busybody again.

Could you lock up the gardening equipment next time you go away? Do you rely on her to water the plants while you're gone? If so, might it be worth befriending a neighbour to do this instead so that she doesn't have to come round at all?

Original poster
warthog · 05/06/2010 23:01

ironically i was worried that if i asked her to water, she'd take that as a license to cut. so i got a friend to drop by instead.

she and friend met co-incidentally before rose-gate and discussed it. friend said she didn't think it was a good idea, but mil trilled that she knew exactly what she was doing. fortunately friend persuaded her not to come round today with the ladder

she is the type of person to carry secateurs around in her car to sort out wayward roses.

OP posts:
Tn0g · 05/06/2010 23:07

Very odd thing to do, but there is a gardening technique called the chelsea chop where you quite brutally prune plants which are about to flower and then the following year you will be rewarded with an absolute abudance of flowers.It makes the plant stronger and healthier, apparently.

I'm giving her the benefit here, btw.

LemonDifficult · 05/06/2010 23:15

Sorry, warthog, but this thread has made me laugh.

Your Mil sounds like the vet off The League of Gentlemen who is completely well intentioned but utterly blind to how ill-suited he is to his calling, wreaking absolutely disaster. Sounds like she's similarly drawn to horticulture with mesmerisingly dire results.

It's possible you might have to accept she just has a crazy gardening blank, and enlist everyone you know to help keep her away from your plants by the most tactful method possible.

MarshaBrady · 05/06/2010 23:22

O bloody hell that would have me in tears.

(Very protective of my beautiful roses, garden and what not).

TeaOneSugar · 05/06/2010 23:28

We got back from holiday today, and we are grateful that the mil looked after the dog, but slightly less grateful that she switched off the plug to the fish tank which is not green, luckily the fish survived.

She's obsessed with unplugging everything while we're away in case the house bursts into flames while she's in charge.

Original poster
warthog · 05/06/2010 23:36

i'm still so angry. i waver between trying to understand what she was thinking, and then understanding what she was thinking.

i'm tempted to go over to hers with a hedge trimmer.

OP posts:
TottWriter · 05/06/2010 23:39

Can you confiscate her key? (Or at least have idle fantasies in which you confiscate her key?)

I think in your position I would want to make sure she never had a free run of the house and/or garden again. But I'm too much a pacifist to do anything more than dream.

Still can't believe someone would snip off a rose in flower. I mean, once the bud has come to flower, what the hell is the point? Even the arguments for making it stronger for next year fall apart.

MinkyBorage · 05/06/2010 23:41

omg my mil did exactly the same! Well nowhere near as bad because the rose was not on the verge opf flowering, but she snipped our climbing rose about 30cm from its base. It had grown to about 4ms long and I was very excited abnout it flowering this year. She said it looked spindly!

ChickensHaveNoEyebrows · 05/06/2010 23:48

I would go absolutely mental. Full on tantrum mode. I adore my (many) rose bushes/climbers/ramblers, and if anyone went near them with secauteurs ever, I would hex them. If they cut off soon-to-be flowering buds, they would earn themselves nemesis status.

Otterlybotterly · 06/06/2010 09:44

er... are you sure she wasn't just deadheading? You don't leave faded roses on the bush.

MrsChemist · 06/06/2010 09:52

YANBU, I would get massive clown rage if someone did this to my plants.

My DH nearly shit with anger when his dad hacked away at our ivy. It wasn't just that he chopped it back to nothing (it does need chopping back after all) it was that he made such a crap job of it.

FIL is no longer allowed to prune anything in our garden.

Original poster
warthog · 06/06/2010 10:57

otterlybotterly, yes. i could forgive her cutting off the single rose on my new bush. but does not account for cutting masses of big branches off my climber, which is very old. i can see now that in the winds some of the branches might have started leaning over, so i'll have to tie them up again. doesn't give her a license to just hack them off though! without asking.

i'm more pissed off than i was yesterday and we'll probably see her today. i know she's going to be huffy if i slightly hint that i think she was in the wrong. she will be expecting adulation.

help me restrain myself!!!

OP posts:
lazarusb · 06/06/2010 11:33

I'd set fire to her garden...You have every right to be pissed off (I swore on mn!!!) but, it's happened now and you can't remedy it However, I would make it clear next year that this will not be happening again...