Garden Musings

Cinnamon Spice Girl

2013-05-18T18:00:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, far back in my youth, the "in" crowd followed a pop singing group named the Spice Girls. ProfessorRoush didn't listen to them, of course, since he wasn't of the "in" crowd, and today I cannot name a single song they recorded for the life of me, but as I am of male persuasion, I can still name the Spice Girls themselves; Scary, Sporty, Baby, Ginger, and Posh Spice (the latter since married to and bending it like David Beckham). Let me tell you, though, them Spices weren't nearly as fabulous as is my newest rose, 'Cinnamon Spice'.

In immediate and full disclosure, ProfessorRoush is being a very bad boy this evening. I shouldn't show you this first picture of 'Cinnamon Spice', I really shouldn't. I'm afraid that I will be guilty of deepening the addiction of many rose lovers, setting back recoveries that have thus far survived these scant few weeks into Spring. Yes, I'm aware that a post on this very young rose is completely premature, and that I shouldn't be making any broad statements about her performance yet in the garden. But she opened up that first bloom and I fell, smitten in a glance. You might as well fall along with me into the rose abyss.

'Cinnamon Spice' is a "Griffith Buck rose," which I placed in quotation marks because she wasn't actually one of Dr. Griffith Buck's original introductions. The story goes that she was bred by Dr. Buck in 1975 and given to a friend, collected back again by family for preservation after his death, and then introduced into commerce in 2010 by Chamblee's Rose Nursery along with nine other Buck-bred roses of similar background. I obtained her, however, from Heirloom Roses just a few weeks ago because Chamblee's no longer lists 'Cinnamon Spice' on their website.

'Cinnamon Spice' is a shrub rose said to be from a breeding of 'Carefree Beauty' X 'Piccadilly', and she is supposed to grow 5 foot tall and 4 foot wide at maturity. My tiny plant is about 8 inches tall and just put forth this first fabulous bloom. I must apologize for my poor photo here because it does not do justice to her brilliant salmon-pink color, the delicate wine-colored stippling of the petals nor the contrast with her bright yellow stamens. It also doesn't hint at the fact that this first bloom was as big as my palm (5 inches in diameter; I measured), that there is a moderate sweet fragrance about it, and that every picture I took of her was nearly perfect; no focusing problems, no insects, nothing. No other rose I know is that photogenic at first attempt.

I don't know what the future holds for 'Cinnamon Spice' here on the Kansas prairie, but I can tell you that if she survives, she'll easily displace Posh Spice in my heart and soul, and ProfessorRoush might just have a new favorite Buck rose.

The Rose Year Begins

2013-05-16T21:18:00.000-05:00

'Harison's Yellow'

Finally, Finally, Finally. The earliest rose in my garden opened yesterday and for once, it was a three way tie. 'Harison's Yellow', 'Therese Bugnet', and 'Austrian Copper' all submitted entries for the contest as the pictures here attest. All are beautiful in their own way, and especially welcome given the delayed wait by the gardener.

Since protocol demands that there must be a winner for "First Rose of the Year," the question was submitted to the garden judge (me), who ruled that since the garden contains two specimens of each of these roses and since 'Harison's Yellow' was the only variety to bloom on both bushes, it is the 2013 champion. "Therese Bugnet' and 'Austrian Copper' both immediately lodged protests regarding the arbitrary nature of the decision, but the judge's ruling stands.

'Therese Bugnet'

'Austrian Copper'

Today was also my birthday, and by happenstance, five new roses arrived by UPS, just in time to join in the celebration. This was the first time I've ordered from Roses Unlimited in South Carolina, and I have been pleased with their communication and the nice one gallon size of these roses, three of which are already in bud or blooming. Left to right, in the picture below, they are 'Brook Song', 'Kronprincessin Victoria', 'Prairie Valor', 'Night Song', and 'Madame Ernest Calvat'. I can already see that 'Madame Ernest Calvat', like her sister 'Mme. Isaac Pereire', wants to sprawl seductively all over her neighbors in the garden, and so immediately after planting her, I tied her up to a nice strong stake. Lord knows, a firm hand is necessary to keep these two siblings from their wanton natures.

'Brook Song'

The beauty of the group at present, however, is that solitary yellow bloom on 'Brook Song'. I knew you'd want to see a closeup so I made sure to get her best side. Not bad for her first bloom, huh? Isn't she just a sunny little breath of air?

Thank God, the roses have finally arrived.

Yellow Bird Lives

2013-05-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, in answer to a reader's email, my 'Yellow Bird' Magnolia (Magnolia acuminata or Magnolia brooklynensis?) still lives and bloomed again this year. I was frightened for the display given our late unexpected snows and freezes this year, and I thought the last snow would knock off all the newly formed buds, but she still bloomed, although later and perhaps not quite as bountifully. I think I can now attest to the hardiness of this tree here. In the past three years she has withstood drought (albeit with a little extra water), early frosts, late freezes, and winter low temperatures of -10°F, and she has still grown and bloomed both years. I think the high winds bother her the most, ripping the leaves a little here and there.

The 3rd picture below is an overall shot of the tree yesterday morning just after sunrise. The peak bloom is already over as evidenced by the yellow petals on the ground, but some delicate flowers still remain to brighten my day. Some have also asked why she is enclosed in a wire cage, and my simple answer is that I don't trust the large furry rats (deer) in my area. Those fuzzy plump buds look so inviting, I'm afraid that my baby will be nibbled to sticks if I leave her exposed. And what they don't eat, the deer like to scour down to raw wood during rutting season. So, caged she'll be until she gets branches above deer height. She's grown about a foot each year since I purchased her.

Some garden experts and writers have written that Yellow Bird's flowers do not display well since they appear after the foliage, but I much prefer this arrangement to the "blooming on naked stems" look of my other magnolias. Blooming after the leaves open protects the blooms from the late frosts! The glossy yellow-green leaves of 'Yellow Bird' set off the flowers to perfection, in my opinion, and the experts will just have to suffer with the knowledge that they are wrong.

Here It Comes, Weather Ready or Not

2013-05-13T15:14:00.000-05:00

I suppose, as you can see from the forecast for the next few days, that we are finally leaving winter behind here in Kansas. Ninety-one degrees, that's 91°F(!) predicted for tomorrow. It is a wonder to me, sometimes, that I can grow anything at all here in the Flint Hills as I look at the temperature fluctuations that my poor plants undergo. Just for grins, I checked back over the past 43 odd days at the official weathersource.com data to the first of April to see how many days that the maximum temperature hit 70°F or above here. In the past 43 days, there were 10 days at 70° or above, with five of those days very early in April, from April 5-9th. On April 10th, the maximum temperature was 35°, a 38 degree difference in highs in 24 hours. On the 13th and 14th, we were back to the 70's and then on April 18th, the high was 39° again. On April 21st, there was a single day of 70°F, snow on April 23rd, and then on May 7th and 8th it was 76° and 77°, dropping back a little bit into the 60's before our current warm spell.

So, out there somewhere in my garden, I've got a bunch of new little rose plants that have barely seen the 70° mark in weeks, that haven't had to develop much in the way of a root system, and now they've got to survive at least a solid week in the 80's and even 90's. And, although the drought is easing here, there are a bunch of already-stressed mature plants who will be whipsawed further by the temperatures and wind. I guess ProfessorRoush is going to be doing some watering, whether he likes it or not.

I'll remind my readers that on April 23rd, 20 short days ago, at 9:10 a.m., my garden looked like this:

And now the temperature is going to be 91°F tomorrow? I'll put those temperature fluctuations up against any other spot in the country, maybe in the world. It is no wonder that the commercial horticultural test plots in Kansas City are so popular; as one K-State horticulturist is fond of saying, "the big nurseries know if it performs well here, it will perform well anywhere in the United States." Listen up, all you mail-order nurseries, now you know why I want plants sent sooner than your Zone-conditioned schedules, in order to get new babies acclimated before the hot weather hits. So don't give me any grief the next time I want band roses a month ahead of when you want to send them. You know who you are.

Vervain Epiphany

2013-05-11T07:23:00.001-05:00

Some areas of my Kansas roadside have burst into bloom with one of the most noticeable wildflowers to be found here in early Spring. This is Rose Verbena, Glandularia canadensis, also known as Rose Vervain. I first noticed it two days ago on an eroding hillside just around the corner from my house. It also grows sparsely in my pastures, although perhaps not so noticeable amidst the growing prairie grasses. Rose Verbena grows about a foot tall here, and my reading tells me that each plant lives only 2-3 years.

Plants like this sometimes make me wonder what kind of a gardening idiot I really am. There are a number of Verbena hybrids in commerce that were derived using this very species, a species that literally volunteers to grow in my climate, and yet I don't have any of the hybrids in my garden. Those finely-lobed gray-green leaves are tailor-created for the dry, hot Kansas summers. Here I am, staring at proof positive that these plants will likely grow well amidst the Kansas sunshine and the occasional droughts, and yet none has appealed to me enough for purchase.

Oh no, like other gardeners, I spend a significant percentage of my time and effort growing magnolias and crape myrtles, both at the northern ends of their hardiness zone. There haven't been wild magnolias and crape myrtles here since before the last Ice Age. I've got two thriving clumps of Texas Red Yucca, which I've only seen wild in Texas or as landscaping in Las Vegas. I pamper witch hazel in dry full sun and Salvia gauranitica two full hardiness zones north of it's limits. It could be worse; at least I long ago gave up trying to grow azaleas in Kansas sun.

Hybrids of Monarda, Catmint, and Babtisia, each related to native prairie species, all grow dependably in my garden. My tallest trees are native Cottonwoods, transplanted from wild seedlings. Redbuds are distributed several places in my garden, healthy and happy after they appeared as weeds in flower beds and were transplanted to more acceptable areas. I think my morning lesson to myself is to ease back on the fight against Nature and "go along to get along".

I will resolve this year to try a few Verbena hybrids. Most are marketed in my area as half-hardy annuals, and they grow a little short for the scale of my garden, but perhaps I haven't given them a fair chance. There are a number listed as worthy of growing in Kansas in the Prairie Star Lists. Perhaps one will prove to be a dependable short-lived perennial to worship at the feet of my roses. If not, perhaps our native Glandularia canadensis can be enticed into my garden. I wouldn't mind the bright pink, and besides, one never knows when one might need a galactagogue or entheogen ready to harvest from the garden.

What A Robin Blue Babe!

2013-05-08T17:52:00.001-05:00

On upcurved wing, I scoured the wind,

So high above the earth midst stars.

Deep blue hues from clearest sky,

Stolen, carried back to earth.

Hidden deep, I kept them warm,

My russet breast a mother's cloak.

A nest of twigs, a watchful eye,

Sheltered in a dark blue spruce.

Soon to live, quick to grow,

Feathery sprouts on naked wings.

Hatchlings learn to flap and leap,

Then soaring, back to deep blue sky.

The picture of American Robin eggs on the left was taken deep inside my Wichita Blue Spruce. I thought the spruce was a surprising home for a robin, but it made good sense in afterthought. What other plant could host a nest as protected from the wind, rain, and harsh sun and so hidden from predators? The nest was totally invisible until I got too close with pruning shears and Mother Robin exploded into flight. Perched on top of the gazebo, she scolded me while I took pictures, chasing me from the garden with a sharp tongue until she was sure I wouldn't return.

In these days of Internet miracles, with the complete knowledge of Mankind available at a mere whisper of beckoning electrons, I was not surprised that posing "Why are robins eggs blue?" to Ask.com, would result in the return of some information. I'm happy to report, however, that this particular mystery remains mostly unsolved even by minds of a species that has proven the existence of the Higg's Boson. We do know that most birds contain pigment glands that deposit colors on the egg during passage through the oviduct, and we know that robin eggs contain biliverdin, a blue-green breakdown product of heme and a powerful antioxidant. Various theories for egg coloration in general include camouflage, protection from solar radiation, or as an aid in egg identification by Mama. It has been noted that healthier female robins may have bluer eggs which may have some selective effects on the species. Like everything else Darwin-related, that means that the blue color may just be all about procreation. One 2010 study in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology by Philina English and Robert Montgomerie suggests that male robins invest twice as much energy to help feed nestlings when the eggs are more colorful. Can't you just picture it? Somewhere, sometime, male robins must sit around drinking beer and saying "Hey, get a load of the blue eggs under that chick over there! Wowsa!"

But why blue? The actual reason, for this particular bird species to have this particular blue color otherwise described as Hex triplet #00CCCC, or sRGB color "0, 204, 204" or commonly as "Robin Egg Blue," is still unknown. And I, for one, pray God that it remains unknowable because I like a little mystery to remain in my world.

ALLRIGHT, That's IT!

2013-05-05T07:00:00.000-05:00

I've had it! Or rather I haven't had it. I'm fed up with the cold weather and the damp wind. If Spring won't come to Kansas, then I'm just going to have to fake it.  So I will. Welcome to Spring in Kansas!

The pictured lonely plant is a 'Declaration' lilac I bought already in bloom almost a week ago, a Sunday present to myself for the simple occasion of sub-Seasonal Depression. What, you've never heard of "sub-Seasonal Depression"?   That's a near-terminal condition that occurs whenever a gardener is disappointed by the late arrival of Springtime bloom. It's a depression born of desperation from viewing the detrimental effects of snowfall on lilac blooms.  Believe me, it's not pretty.

But I digress. After a few days of pulling the car into the garage and dodging the plants I have stashed there to wait out the cold spell, it finally occurred to me that I shouldn't let these beautiful purple, aromatic blooms go to waste. To paraphrase Bart Simpson, "DUH."   So I translocated the lilac to our sunroom, a place where I'd probably never try to keep it going year round, but where it seems quite content to wait out the remaining cold spell while the planted lilacs near the driveway shrivel up to resemble brown tissue paper.

'Declaration' is a 2006 release from the National Arboretum breeding programs, a purple-red bloomer to join bluish 'Old Glory', and white 'Betsy Ross' as the members of the "U.S Flag" group of lilacs from the Arboretum. Both 'Old Glory' and 'Declaration' are the selected progeny of a 1978 cross of  Syringa hyacinthiflora ‘Sweet Charity’ and S. ×hyacinthiflora ‘Pocahontas’.    'Declaration' is a vase-shaped shrub that will grow to approximately 8 feet tall and bears purple single florets on thyrses up to 30 cm long. Like other Arboretum releases, 'Declaration' is not patented, and so it may be propagated and freely sold.

But all of that is just "book-learn'n'", and not really important. What is important is the heavenly perfume that now spreads over the house from our sunroom into the living room and kitchen. What is important are the deep purple-red blooms that brighten up my currently-sunless sunroom. What is important is the lift in my spirits and the contented smile on the face of Mrs. ProfessorRoush. Based on visual evidence in my household, I believe that Da Vinci must have painted the Mona Lisa while she gazed on a purple lilac in the midst of an otherwise late and boring Spring. It's the smile of the cure for sub-Seasonal Depression.

Sweet Smell of Spring

2013-05-03T15:11:00.000-05:00

'Mohawk' Viburnum

Ask yourself, dear Reader, what is it that trumpets full-blown Spring for you? Do you stir at the first sight of snow crocus? Don your garden clogs at the glimpse of yellow forsythia and blooming redbuds? Rejoice at the sight of cheerful daffodils and deep red tulips? Instead of polls about politicians and social issues, ProfessorRoush would like to see CNN run a poll to determine the jumpoff point of Spring for the gardening public. I might actually care about that result.

I suppose I react to all of the aforementioned signs, but the concept of Spring doesn't really rise up and excite me until the first fragrant viburnums bloom, as they are now beginning to bloom in my garden. When I see those floral white snowballs open, when I suddenly run across a sweet current of air, that's when I really know Spring has arrived. I know it is Spring when my nose tilts to the air and I begin chasing scent across the garden to its source, almost always leading me to a viburnum.

'Mohawk' bush form

'Mohawk' Viburnum has long been one of my favorite shrubs. It exists in my garden in my "peony" bed, next to a wisteria and the path around the southeast corner. 'Mohawk' is a cross of V. x burkwoodii (itself a cross of V. utile and V. carlesii) back to V. carlesii, and it has the distinction of being released into commerce by The United States Arboretum in 1966. My current 'Mohawk' is about 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide, but I had a previous specimen that reached 8 feet in all directions. When 'Mohawk' is blooming, I can never pass by it without a moment of deep inhalation and intoxication in silent reverence to the fragrance. To imagine Heaven, one must only stand downwind from 'Mohawk', close our eyes, and inhale deeply.

I also grow the Judd Viburnum (V. juddii, a cross of V. carlesii and v. bitchiuense), first introduced around 1920 by William Judd of the Arnold Arboretum, the Burkwood Viburnum "species" plant often seen labeled as V. burkwoodii (but really a cross of V. utile and V. carlesii), and I grow the species V. carlesii (which is later and not yet in bloom here). All are extremely fragrant, with burkwoodii a little larger and more aggressive in my garden than juddii. The blooms are impossible for me to tell apart without knowing the bush of origin.

Viburnum burkwoodii

Of the three viburnums currently in bloom, I prefer the bouquet of 'Mohawk'. It is less sickly sweet than Juddii or burkwoodii and it gently bathes my nasal passages in pleasure rather than assaults my schnoz with a wall of overpowering scent. 'Mohawk', to my uneducated nose, has more musky tones, which sound a note of deep calm in the fragrance, and it has a hint of vanilla that appeals to me, vanilla lover that I am. Juddii is also great, but almost too sweet for me to stand there and inhale long lest I overdose and collapse, and burkwoodii has some licorice undertones that I'm not as thrilled about as I am about the vanilla of 'Mohawk'.

In this week of yet another hard frost, another strong positive of these viburnums is readily apparent as well. I have not, for a single moment, contemplated them needing any covering or protection because their tough blossoms need none. The waxy petals shrug off frosts and simply resume blooming as soon as the air temperatures catch back up to the calendar. Here, as one gardener suggested to me, on this 83rd day of February in the Kansas Flint Hills.

Empress of Rose Reads

2013-04-30T21:36:00.000-05:00

I have been engaged, this past week, with a wonderful addition to my gardening library, a coffee-table-sized book filled with beautiful pictures and tales of roses such as those that I worship. The book in question is Empress of the Garden, by noted rosarian G. Michael Shoup of the Antique Rose Emporium and it was evidently "self" published by the Antique Rose Emporium Inc. late in 2012.

This one is a must have for all my fellow fanatics of old garden roses or "off-the-beaten-path" roses. For the rest of the world, pagan worshipers of Knock Out and its brethren, just move along please, move along: There is nothing for thee to see here, and Heaven forbid thee be offended, and forced to gouge out thy eyes if thou wert tempted to stray from the Knock Out altar.

G. Michael Shoup, of course, is the founder of The Antique Rose Emporium of Brenham, Texas, a garden that I was once blessed to visit with my family. Mr. Shoup groups the roses of Empress of the Gardens into 19 chapters that are titled according to the "behavior" of the roses within them; chapters such as "Drama Queens," "Tenacious Tomboys," "Supine Beauties," "Earthy Naturalists," or "Petulant Divas." Looking at the chapter headings, I was envisioning something different for "Supine Beauties," but the two roses discussed in that chapter, 'Red Cascade' and 'Sea Foam', were still satisfying, if only in a floral manner. For every rose in the text, Michael describes its background and characteristics, ending always with some adjectives to describe his imagined personality of the rose. For 'Red Cascade', for instance, he termed it "engaging, adaptable, exuberant." For 'Madame Isaac Pereire', she's "petulant, opulent, ravishing." You get the picture; actually you get lots of pictures, beautiful pictures of the roses and all taken by Shoup.

Through the pages are sprinkled a thousand sidebars, which turned out to be my favorite parts of the book. They are lessons all; how to peg a rose, the history of Bourbon's, a biography of Ralph Moore, and all written in a simple clear prose that kept me enthralled to the end. In fact, Empress of the Garden is the perfect gift for the ~~rose nut,~~ rosarian in your life, except perhaps for one drawback. This is a BIG book (12"X12"), meant for display, and it won't fit on your shelves easily, at least if they're like mine. I'd have preferred a more library-friendly format.

To this day, I still fondly recall our family vacation sidebar to The Antique Rose Emporium. My family thought we were only visiting friends in Texas and sight-seeing The Alamo and the Houston Space Complex. I sprung the Emporium on them on the way home, when they were at their most weary and thus least inclined to resist my passions. I gained some wonderful pictures from the trip, foremost among them the picture here of my then-very-young daughter standing next to 'Yellow Lady Banks' at the Emporium. And I gained some roses that still grow here in Kansas, squeezed into the back of the van alongside the suitcases and my children, who were only forced to endure occasional and random thorn attacks for the 8 hours or so it took to get out of Texas, cross Oklahoma, and come sliding up into Kansas. A small price to pay for the fragrant annual reminders of our trip, wouldn't you agree? Well, I think so, even if the now-teenager isn't as appreciative or cooperative today as she was when this picture was taken. What a trooper!

A Prairie Star?

2013-04-26T14:17:00.000-05:00

'Prairie Star' in June, 2012

It is time, I think, to set aside all my grumblings and cursings over the fickle weather impeding the onset of Spring here on the Kansas prairie, and to look instead towards the future bloom of my garden. One rose that I've briefly touched on before is the beautiful cream-white Griffith Buck rose 'Prairie Star', and while we are waiting for the bloom of new roses in my garden, I feel I should formally introduce her, a debutante coming-out party, if you will.

I've grown 'Prairie Star' since the very start of this current garden, some 14 years ago now. My neighbors and I, as part of a new development, were able to name the road we live on and we had chosen Prairie Star Drive to commemorate the starry night skies we live under. It was a quick decision, therefore, when I soon after discovered the existence of a rose named 'Prairie Star', that I purchased and placed her into a new garden bed, where she remains today, surviving the worst of heat, cold and drought that the Kansas climate has thrown at it.

I won't try to pretend that 'Prairie Star' is the best of the Griffith Buck-bred roses I grow, but she is a tried and true survivor here in the Kansas climate. At maturity, this shrub stands a little over three feet tall and slightly less wide, and she is always clothed in dark green, glossy, disease resistant foliage times. I never, ever have to spray 'Prairie Star' for blackspot prevention, and she drops very few of her lower leaves even in the worst of summer. More than that, I can't remember ever having to prune this rose, for she rarely has a dead cane or dieback to contend with. Introduced in 1975, she has a moderate fragrance (although I cannot detect the green apple tones she is rumored to have)and very voluptuous double form with 50-60 petals per each 3 to 4 inch diameter bloom.

Where I differ with official reports is that everywhere you look, this rose is described as being pale chrome-yellow, with pink undertones. Helpmefind.com, Heirloom Old Garden Roses, Iowa State University, no matter where you look, they all talk about a yellow tint to the blooms. I have two bushes of 'Prairie Star', purchased from different nurseries (one was, in fact, Heirloom Old Garden Roses), and neither regularly shows any signs of yellow undertones here in Kansas. Perhaps, in the right light, in the center of the bloom shortly after opening I could acknowledge a hint of a tan, but it disappears quickly in the sun. I would have described her as white, with pink undertones that increase in cooler weather. Extremely sensitive to climate changes, in hot weather she'll open and stay a virginal white but she almost rivals 'Maiden's Blush' in pink tones in early Spring and late Fall.

'Prairie Star' in September, 2012

The drawback to 'Prairie Star', at least in this climate, is that she rarely has a bloom without a blemish of some sort. These defects can be almost invisible as in the picture above, or quite distracting, as in the picture taken in cooler September weather at the right. I love the white or blushing purity of the blooms, and she reblooms continuously after a large early flush, but the blemished blooms, worsening in cold wet weather, leave me often disappointed. I view her as an otherwise ravishing maiden perceived to have a flawed moral character deep down inside. Her strong suits are rebloom, disease resistance, and form, so as a landscape specimen, she certainly holds her own from a slight distance away. In an environment where she could be raised without blemish, I predict that she would have no peer, as perfect as you could ever want a rose.

Utterly Ridiculous!

2013-04-23T08:46:00.000-05:00

All right, who's responsible? Snow? On the 23rd of April? Unheard of. I have never seen snow this late in the year in the 24 years I've lived in Kansas. The latest I can remember was the devastating late snow of April 5th, 2007, the year I now refer to as "the year without flowers." It is 32°F here this morning, heading for a high of 43° and a low tonight of 25°.

I can only surmise that this is yet another predicted calamity resulting from The Sequester. It's being blamed for everything else right now, why not this aberrant weather? The Feds must have furloughed the guy responsible for Global Warming. If not, then I want that guy fired immediately because he's not fulfilling his promises. At this rate we're going to slip back from zone 6A to 5B. According to the Midwest Regional Climate Center we are 13 days past our median last FREEZE of 28°F in Manhattan, 8 days past our median last FROST! Our 95% frost free date here is May 9th. Will we be extending that this year? Will we break the freeze all time record of May 27th, set in 1907? I'm starting to wonder.

The plants here knew what was coming. Everything is late to bloom, and I've had little reason to blog. Unlike 2007, not even my earliest lilac has yet bloomed, but it was only a couple of days away, as was my ornamental Red Peach tree. But they're not delayed enough. Tulips in the snow? I've seen daffodils in the snow several times, but never tulips. My peaches and apples were blooming this weekend, so I can kiss those crops goodbye. The star magnolia and 'Ann' and 'Jane' magnolias are in full bloom right now. Goodbye magnolias. My 'Yellow Bird' magnolia is still in bud phase, but I don't know if those fuzzy buds are tight enough to stand tonight's freeze.

I stand here in Kansas, rejected, dejected, and neglected, as the snow continues to fall. The picture below was taken early this morning at first light. It has since snowed another inch and it is still coming down. The prairie grass is completely covered now. I've got 11 new rose bands currently in transit, with delivery expected on Thursday.

There is a predicted high of 81°F this coming Sunday. Just in time to roast the just transplanted roses.

Burning Day

2013-04-17T14:21:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday was "burning day" for myself and my neighbors, as we took advantage of cool temperatures and the recent rains to "safely" burn the prairie surrounding our homes.

Prairie burns, as I've discussed before, are an important factor in prairie maintenance. Burns act to keep the prairie clear of invasive trees and non-native "weeds", and they increase the quality and protein levels of grassland intended for livestock pasture or hay.   As a consequence, of course, our intrusive government tries to regulate and prevent this useful and quite natural act, particularly during April when the burns are carefully monitored to limit their contribution to ozone pollution in overcrowded cities to the east. For untold millennia, prairie burns occurred as a result of lightning or the actions of Native Americans, but widespread burns today are unusual and it falls to the homeowners to nourish the prairie and to protect humans and human property.

This year, we burned starting early in the morning. Night burns can be spectacular, but our quiet morning burn was still beautiful and fretful and frightening, all at once. Our primary goals are to keep the burns from escaping into town, and to burn our pastures thoroughly without burning our homes and outbuildings and my garden. Hence, we usually "backburn" the perimeters of our landscaping into the wind, and then set fires to run with the wind to hotly and quickly finish the job. In that final phase, sometimes it seems like the whole world is on fire.

Based on long experience together, none of my neighbors trust each other with a match in hand, and so burning is coordinated in person and by cell phone and burn tactics are chosen by consensus. I view my neighbors as crazy arsonists hell bent on roasting my garden, but in their defense, the largest uncontrolled fire in this area occurred as a result of me trying to clear a bed for tulips a decade or so back. Every year, somebody's pine trees get singed or a burn eats into someone's landscape mulch, but this year it was a perfect burn and there were almost no casualties, except for the accidental burning of four large hay bales owned by a neighbor (his own fault).

I say almost no casualties, but at approximately 6:50 pm, several hours after the burns died down, our electricity died as well.  Pack rats often infiltrate the ground-hugging transformer boxes and nest there, and the nests will catch fire occasionally and smolder for hours in the boxes before finally taking our electricity with them.  Sure enough, on a neighbor's land, a blackened box was smoldering away and there was a large hole dug underneath one side. Even in death, pack rats will get their revenge.

I'll leave you teased with the view above, the blackened hills leading into town after the burn. You can clearly see both the brush that gets burned and the rocks that litter what I call soil in this area. In about 2-3 weeks, I'll post this view and before's and after's of others, to show you the emerald paradise that burning creates on this Godforsaken land.

Warning for the UnWary

2013-04-14T20:20:00.000-05:00

NewsFlash! Read All About It! This is a Special Edition of the Garden Musings blog written to you from breezy Kansas. ProfessorRoush, your renowned gardening investigator, has caught a big box store in the act of practicing horticultural fraud!

Actually, Folks, ProfessorRoush just wants to remind you that sometimes things aren't always what they seem at the big-box gardening centers. I was at a local vendor today, looking for shelves, not garden plants, but I couldn't resist wandering through the newly arrived shrubs and perennials to see what was available. 'Sky Pencil' hollies are on a wish-list for me, so I was drawn to these 3 foot tall specimens from across the parking lot. Unfortunately, as you can clearly see in the front container, these specimens were recently transplanted from a one-gallon container into these three gallon containers, presumably so that they could be sold at the $25.00 price, instead of the $6.95 or $12 price that a one-gallon plant would command. Unaware consumers that buy the other plants lined up behind this corner specimen are paying at least $12 for the 2 extra gallons of mulch. Quite a steep price for mulch, isn't it?

Please remember, my gardening friends, that it is a good practice to shop only reputable nurseries and even then to occasionally slip plants an inch or two out of their containers to see if the roots have reached the edges of the pot, or, in the other extreme, if the roots are pot-bound and tangled. Plants like the one above are the worst of both worlds; a pot-bound plant that was recently "planted up" without any effort to free the roots into the new soil.

I have a feeling these 'Sky Pencil' hollies are never going to grow tall and reach the sky. They haven't been given the chance.

Marriage and Magnolias

2013-04-10T22:38:00.002-05:00

After years of study and accumulated evidence, ProfessorRoush has reached the conclusion that in an infinite number of universes, there are only three possible gardening relationships between spouses.   First, there are those sad couples where neither person gardens but where one grudgingly assumes the duty of pushing a roaring machine across a postage stamp lawn every week from April through October.  Often, such couples ultimately retire to a high-rise apartment with a potted and dehydrated cactus on the balcony.  Second, there are those mythical unions where both spouses share equally in the garden's triumphs and disappointments, planning and working together in perfect harmony. The only documented example of such a relationship, of course, ended when Eve gave Adam a bite of the apple. The third marriage, a land where there is an unequal and uneasy union between an avid gardener of vision and a less knowledgeable but still mildly enthusiastic spouse, is the one that most of us navigate, bouncing between the shores of two visions for our garden.   In these ungodly unions, in the interest of marital harmony, the gardening spouse must, at times, be willing set aside his or her grand vision to accommodate some ill-considered whim of the partner.

My latest personal sojourn into such a gardening quagmire came last weekend, begun in an ill-considered moment when I asked Mrs. ProfessorRoush if she'd like to accompany me to one of our favorite local nurseries. Presumably I was feeling a weak moment of the guilty pleasure of a weekend spent alone in the garden, and Mrs. ProfessorRoush was missing human contact, even if such contact occurred only in the presence of a sweaty, dirty, and sore older gentleman.  My punishment came quickly upon arrival at the nursery, where the only visible bloom was from a group of Magnolia 'Ann' and it was announced loudly that I had to purchase one immediately, regardless of my whining protests and the squeak and groans that occurred during the act of prying apart my wallet to purchase the $70.00 extravagance.

As background information, it is important to note that I had long ago considered and rejected the feminine wiles of 'Ann' for several reasons, not the least of which is that my garden already contains her lighter-pink sibling 'Jane', purchased for far less at $10 several years back. I really don't need the sisterly rivalry to disrupt the ambiance of my garden. Another deterrent to her purchase was that, although I am fond of magnolias, they are still reluctant participants in my garden regardless of the best efforts of global warming trends.  The more hardy magnolias will bloom occasionally here, but the blooms seldom last long in the strong prairie winds and they are sometimes caught out naked in a late freeze. Finally, I had no inkling of where to possibly fit 'Ann' into my garden, although I freely admit that such a consideration has never stopped me before. Thus, I grumbled and gritted my teeth, but Mrs. ProfessorRoush twisted my arm, and home we came with a pot-bound and prematurely blooming 'Ann'.

I have since planted 'Ann' in a site where she is destined to be the centerpiece of a new bed, a burgundy-colored beacon to explore deeper into the garden. Anticipating a few days of gentle rain and mild temperatures, I lovingly teased out the root ball and fought my way into the anaerobic clay to bed her down, and I've now had two days to fondle her thick petals and inhale her thick musty fragrance. Tonight, of course, the unpredictable Kansas weather is rolling back the clock with a predicted record low of 28°F and possible snow flurries on the 10th of April.  Tomorrow night there is a similar forecast. There were evenings, in my younger gardening days, when such a prediction would have sent me scurrying around the garden with armloads of blankets to cover tender plants but I am long past such foolishness.   I have instead bid 'Ann' a reluctant goodbye and cast her fate to the Gods.

Next time, I have vowed to swallow my guilt, stay home, and divide a daylily or three.  Such an action may not provide any traction towards marital harmony, but at least my wallet will be more thick.

Lightning Fast App

2013-04-07T18:24:00.001-05:00

This afternoon, after a day and a half of strenous garden work, ProfessorRoush quit working and took a number of photos to convince himself, and all of you, that Spring was beginning in Kansas. I was sidetracked, however, by the quick appearance of a small storm with a negligible offering of rainwater, but a little bit of lightning and thunder.

Many of you will remember how excited I was last year to accidentally capture a lightning bolt while I was taking prairie-storm pictures (if not, it's HERE). Least year's photo was indeed fortuitous, and at the same time it was likely the end of an era, for this year, there is a new app for iPhone that will capture lightning, fireworks, gunshot flares, and other flashing phenomena. You see, folks, some genius has taken the luck right out of it and now everyone will have their own lightning pictures.

I read about the app, called iLightningCam, a couple of weeks ago and the wait since for a thunderstorm has been near unbearable. Just a few moments ago, as the sky darkened and the flashes began, out I went onto the covered porch to see if it worked...and within 5 minutes, I had the picture above, a bolt of lightning flashing over my slowly greening and newly cleaned south garden beds. Lightning pictures are now idiot-proof and I have the evidence.

The iLightningCam app is inexpensive (disclaimer; I get no sales revenue from mentioning it), works on both iPhone 4 & 5, and is simple to use. There is a trial Lite free version as well. It claims to use the iPhone light sensor to set off the camera, but I theorize that it is running a continuous loop of video and just capturing some set of frames that were taken just before a spike of light notifies it that there has been a flash. At least that's what I believe the "15fps" in the upper left corner of my screen indicates.

Once I get over my initial excitement with the app, I'm going to try to get more artistic with garden lightning combination photos, but for now, I'm still a kid in the candy store; a kid with the gift of magic bestowed by an iPhone genius named Florian Stiassny. As my Jeep tire cover says, "Life is Good."

Farewell to Brittany

2013-04-01T21:44:00.002-05:00

Winter IS ending just as ProfessorRoush's endurance is waning, but Spring is accompanied this year by a heavy heart here in the Flint Hills. I regret to report that the chief Rabbit and Snake Chaser of my garden, our aged Brittany Spaniel, has passed on to greener hills and sunnier skies than yet exist here on April's rolling prairies.

"Brittany" was 14 years old and her strength had been fading for some time, but her young spirit never left.  From the start, when we brought her home as a small puppy while we were building the house, she was a free spirit, running for the hills whenever she was let off a leash. She would head straight for the golf course on my south fence line and on towards town, greeting the first golfers she saw, and then running on to the next hole to be petted by the next foursome. She became a known and regular visitor at the golf course club house. Finally, it became a game;  she would slip past one or the other of us and disappear over the nearest hill. Several hours later, the golf course supervisor would call us to tell us they had caught Brittany and tied her up at the cart house and we would make a quick trip to bring back a happy, tired, and often extremely muddy dog.

These impromptu escapes continued on a regular basis until one summer, not so long ago, when she jerked the retractable leash right from Mrs. ProfessorRoush's hand, disappeared, and never reached the golf course. We searched high and low for a week, walking the pastures and golf course, and had sorrowfully concluded that she had met a bad end or been adopted by someone in town.  One afternoon, though, there returned a thinner, scratched up, and dehydrated Brittany, followed by our neighbor who had found her hidden down in a ravine, the leash tangled up in brush where she at least had access to a small spring and a little shade to fend off the hot July days of her adventure. After that, she stayed closer to home, content to roam between the house and cow pond, or to go with Mrs. ProfessorRoush to a nearby 50 acre dog-park.

Her health had been good over these 14 years, with only two little scares   At 8 years old she got into a little rat poison somewhere and developed a large sublingual hematoma, but recovered quickly.  At 10 years old, on Thanksgiving day, she came out of her kennel one morning and fainted right in front of her veterinarian owner. A few tests and a few hours later, I had diagnosed and surgically removed a 10 lb spleen filled with marginal lymphoma ( a benign form of lymphocytic cancer) and she recovered once again and never looked back.

Recently, however, we noticed that she had begun to lose appetite, energy and weight, all quickly and simultaneously. I've been first a veterinarian and later a veterinary surgeon for 30 years now, long enough to know what I'd find if I went looking, and sure enough, she had a different type of cancer, spread all through her lungs and liver and past a treatable stage. All we could do was make her comfortable and pray for a few warm days to enjoy with her while we could. She still wanted to be free, not kenneled, so we allowed her out every day to roam around the yard where she would pick a warm spot in the grass to lie down and watch the prairie come to life around her. She collapsed at the dog park on Easter Sunday with Mrs. ProfessorRoush and her diminutive clone and I helped her pass quietly there, lying in the warm Spring sun and held by the girls.

One last story; I'm sure some of you are wondering about a veterinarian who came to name his Brittany Spaniel "Brittany". That moniker can be blamed on my children, who were experts at unimaginative names for our pets. During their childhood, we've had a cat named "Dane" (named by my then-4-year-old son because his grandparents had a dog named Dane and "he didn't know many animal names"), a brown cat named "Hershey", and a calico cat named "Patches".   Their crowning attempt at original naming, our beloved "Brittany", now rests near "Hershey" in my garden, in a spot where I had, in knowing preparation, fought my way down through the loose rock into the deep clay last week. I'll let the faithful readers of Garden Musings know what rose I plant on that spot later on this summer.

(P.S. I forgot about my daughter's current Italian Greyhound. Named "Italee").

Sprawling Fantin-Latour

2013-03-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

The selection of roses for planting is such a fickle action at times. I sometimes seek out specific roses based on their reputations, while at other times I'm struck by a photograph in a catalogue, or an intriguing hint dropped in another blog. As a result, there are roses in my garden that I take almost for granted. Hardly noticed for their temporary beauty, they fill in spaces and trundle on year after year, never causing trouble sufficient to sentence them to elimination by spade, nor causing enough excitement to move them to a more prominent position.

Such a rose, in my garden, is the Centifolia 'Fantin-Latour'. I obtained her ten or eleven years ago, I believe, from Suzy Verrier's former Royall River Rose Nursery, and she has long been one of the non-remonant roses that border my back patio. Of unknown provenance, discovered before 1938, she is undeniably beautiful in bloom, a light blush pink with sometimes a green center, and her fragrance is sweet and very strong. When she is without bloom, however, she's a stiff, rangy shrub that wants to sprawl 4 feet in all directions and stands about 4 feet tall as well. I would give her better marks for appearance if she was the sole rose at the party, but placed in my garden next to my favorite 'Madame Hardy', she always comes off as a poor second choice for a dance partner. 'Fantin-Latour is less-refined and more loosely arranged in blossom than 'Madame Hardy', she hasn't nearly as tight or shapely legs, and she's much more awkward in appearance. Her stiff canes are gawky and never clothed with short stems or flowers, completely naked, in essence, from the waist down. In a Romance novel, 'Madame Hardy' would be the prim and proper Lady of the manor, 'Fantin-Latour' the blushing but willing peasant milkmaid who pleasures the Lord on his daily travels.

I don't intend, by that comparison, any ill will towards peasant milkmaids, many of whom star in my nightly dreams just as 'Fantin-Latour' graces my garden. 'Fantin-Latour' is of hardy stock, whoever her parents were, and she has no winter dieback here in Kansas. She gets a little minimal fungus occasionally, so I watch her for blackspot a bit when the weather is most humid in order to keep as many leaves covering her angular frame as possible. The blossoms, cupped and very double, are a little disheveled at times, and they also get a smidgen of botrytis blight in cool wet weather, but in warm dry sun they are the equal of any beautiful rose in my garden. The biggest positive of 'Fantin-Latour', in my mind, has been the absolute lack of care she needs. The picture above is from 2008, blooming her head off in late Spring, and the picture at the bottom is from this past summer, halfway through a drought. Her appearance is almost identical and I haven't taken a pruner to her at all during those years, except to remove a dead cane or two. No gardener could ask for an easier rose to care for, nor a more beautiful one. I, for one, will always be able to overlook her wanton desire to sprawl across my garden beds just as long as she is willing to provide an annual burst of fragrant blooms.

A Spring Proposal

2013-03-24T09:51:00.002-05:00

It is Spring, correct? Because ProfessorRoush is having a difficult time this morning discerning a difference from the Winter he experienced just a few days ago. On this, the fourth day past the Spring equinox of 2013, it is currently 27°F in Manhattan, Kansas and the wind is out of due North at 15mph with gusts up to 22mph. We have, as of last count, 4.6 inches estimated new snow on the ground since 7:00 p.m. yesterday.

Enough for statistics. Mark Twain, once said there "are three kinds of lies, lies, damn lies, and statistics." Well, at least most scholars attribute it to Mark Twain; Twain, himself, claimed to be quoting Benjamin Disraeli but the statement cannot be found in Disraeli's private or published works. So the authorship of this quote may be as misleading as are statistics themselves. And anyway, Mark Twain was just a pen name for Samuel Clements; why do we attribute quotes to Mark Twain instead of Samuel Clements? Anyone?

Enough for both Mark Twain and statistics. What the statistics of the daily weather hide is that, as you can plainly see, my little "sun face" on the garage wall looks a little blue at the moment. And that, as you can see in the picture below, part of the ground in my garden is almost clear and other parts have drifts over a foot tall. And that, if I take a step outside the door to pick up the Sunday morning paper, I'm liable to freeze solid in my boots. Of course it would be a minor miracle that the Sunday morning paper has even been delivered. I always scoff at television meteorologists who stress "wind chill" data to scare their viewers, but the wind chill for me outside right now is in the 10°F range. The real joke is on me this morning. because I moved my "new" tractor up to the garage in preparation to clear snow this morning. I'm convinced, however, that if I sit on it and drive it outside right now, the next time my carcass will be discovered is in 10,000 years when some scientist cores into the glacier now forming on my driveway pad.

And enough, by the way, of whining by the global warming crowd. Take notice, I'm not going to listen to any such decrepit creatures for a few days, and maybe not until August. I've been suspicious of their sincerity ever since they started talking about "climate change" instead of "global warming" anyway. It is pretty tough to convince me that we're in the midst of global warming when this year's real Spring is over a month behind last year, whatever the calendar may say. I propose here and now that we do away with calendars and equinoxes and go back to "Earth-centric" time. Copernicus was a heretic and a lawyer and his opinions should have been more suspect even in his own time. How about if all gardening folk agree that it's not Spring until the daffodils bloom, wherever you are? Heck, we have time zones whose strict interpretations are enforced by our Federal government, why not "Spring Zones"? They'd just run north and south instead of east to west, so that's no big deal, especially to those gardeners who never know what direction they're facing and plant sunflowers on the north sides of their houses. And for those of you who live in USDA Zones so hot that daffodils don't thrive, who cares when Spring is for you? It's always just Spring or Summer for you. You can say that it's Spring when you can't fry an egg on the sidewalk and Summer when you can. Here in the Flint Hills, ProfessorRoush is not celebrating Spring until he sees a yellow daffodil in his garden! Which is evidently going to be awhile yet.

Old Plants And Old Landscapes

2013-03-22T15:11:00.001-05:00

A marketing email from K. Van Bourgondien with the subject line "Do you know how old YOUR plants are" caught my eye the other day. The email continued with a discussion of antique or heritage flowers available from this large mail order source, but my mind had already tripped down another garden path before I read the body of the email. I was immediately thinking "how old is this or that individual plant in my garden?"

At this point, after thinking about it for awhile, I'm not sure how I would, or should, answer that question. My garden, from when I began to think of it as a garden, began with the construction of the house and is now 14 years old, give or take a month or two.  But because I've been adding a bed or two each year to the "garden", some plants are much younger than others. The house landscaping was first, and so there are hollies on the north side of the house that will be 14 years old come this May. The back patio came a year later, and thus 'Madame Hardy' and 'Marie Bugnet' are 13 years old.  There are 'New Hampshire Gold' forsythia to the West that are also 13 years old and who are unlikely to get much older because I've tired of them and they are not the showiest varieties available. Farther down the garden, there are plants of every age, right down to the one week old 'Madame Hardy' sucker that I just detached from the original and replanted down into another bed. And there are some garden plants on this land that I planted before it "was" a garden. Several years before building, I planted, and lost, and planted again a few fruit trees down on the western hillside.  In a similar fashion, there are asparagus roots in the vegetable garden that date back to 1996.

There are, of course, other ways of looking at plant age.  I would argue that an open-pollinated heirloom Sweet Pea, 'Painted Lady', for instance, is only as old as the seed that I saved from last year.  Identical as the flowers look, there is still variation in the genetic makeup from vine to vine. But in our current "Era Of The Garden Clones," how old should I really consider my week-old sucker of 'Madame Hardy'? Barely rooted, it is a "division" of my 13 year old, purchased original plant. It is also the same exact living continuation of the rose first introduced in 1832 by Monsieur Hardy himself. That 'Maiden's Blush' in my garden dates back before 1400, before the North American Continent that I live on was known to my forefathers. Many plants, if not most, don't slip into senescence as animals do. Pando, a clonal colony of Quaking Aspen in south-central Utah, is believed to be the oldest living thing on earth at an estimated age of 80,000 years.  When the same genes continue year after year, century after century, how old do we say our cloned cultivars are?

And I'm leaving out the plants of the prairie that surround my garden. The Big Bluestem that populates the Flint Hills prairie, and the False Indigo that brighten it, I know that each clump started from individual wind-blown seeds, but how long ago? How long does a clump of drought-resistant Little Bluestem live? Are there grasses on my land that have survived climate changes and prairie fires and tornadoes for thousands of years? Were some of those same grasses grazed by Mammoths? How would I know?  How long will my pampered 'Northwind' Panicum clumps survive after me?

I don't know the answers to these questions, and metaphysical subjects are too exhausting right now for this winter-weakened gardener.  I'm just going to pretend that my one week old sucker from Madame Hardy is a baby, and I'm going to baby it until it blooms true and strong. And I think that those 'New Hampshire Gold' forsythia are far too old and need to go quietly into that gentle night, helped along by my gardening Dr. Kevorkian look-alike. I'm also going to believe that somewhere out there in the Flint Hills, there is a healthy clump of Big Bluestem which is secure and happy that it no longer gets regularly squashed under the hoof of a Mastodon.  Just because it makes me happy to think about it.

An-ti-ci-pa-tion

2013-03-17T17:32:00.000-05:00

Scilla siberica

ProfessorRoush is haunted today. Haunted by a 1971 top-twenty song by Carly Simon on the album of the same name. Do you remember it? Outside today, in a static landscape held hostage by the last gasps of winter chill, the lyrics played over and over in my head, Carly's syrupy tones warming the damp air around me. Anticipation is said to have been written by Ms. Simon during her wait for a date with the formerly-named Cat Stevens, who is now called Yusuf Islam, although he was born Steven Demetre Georgiou. Whatever the name of her date, Ms. Simon missed her calling because instead of pining over a wandering minstrel, she could have been writing for Spring-hungry gardeners. Look at the beginning lyrics:

"We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway
And I wonder if I'm really with you now
Or just chasing after some finer day."

Rose 'American Pillar'

Is that not a perfect description of the gardener's thoughts in late Winter? Visualizing the garden, not brown and stiff and dreary here at the end of Cold Days, but green and glorious in the coming Summer? When I walked through my garden today, I wasn't really there most of the time. I wasn't really talking to those naked rose canes, nor were my finger's caressing the soft bud of that magnolia. I saw only the rose that will bloom here tomorrow, only the sweet-perfumed magnolia that will soon welcome the warm rains.

'Mohawk' viburnum

And the repeating chorus of the old hit song keeps bringing us back to the present:

"Anticipation, anticipation
Is making me late
Is keeping me waiting"

Sedum 'Matrona'

Why, Scilla siberica, are you keeping me waiting? It's time to open those pale blue buds and color the old gray mulch with the reflection of the sky. Come on, Viburnum fragrans 'Mohawk', come blow me away yet another year with that otherworldly sweet fragrance. Daffodils, bring forth the sunshine that hides in your heart and release Spring with your joyful trumpets!

Sometimes, I wonder that old gardeners bother to enter their gardens at all during the dark months. I know, right now, the glorious tulip that will bloom in this spot. I know that from these tiny thick green leaves, a magnificent Sedum 'Matrona' will bloom to close the door on the Fall garden. I know...I know...and yet I must see it again. Or, as Carly put it:
"And tomorrow we might not be together
I'm no prophet, Lord I don't know nature's way
So I'll try to see into your eyes right now
And stay right here, 'cause these are the good old days."

Thank you, Ms. Simon. These are indeed the good old days.

Paradigm Rose Shift

2013-03-12T21:49:00.002-05:00

I have not entirely neglected my garden reading this Winter, but I must confess that I've struggled at times to keep a high interest level in the books that I chose to read (more on that in a later blog). I did, however, recently pick up a copy of an older rose tome by noted rosarian, Rayford Reddell, titled A Year In The Life Of A Rose, and written in the ancient times of 1996.  My second-hand volume, by the way, seems to be autographed by the author, and thus well worth the marked-down $2.50 price.

Mostly, this short book reminded me exactly how much rose gardening has changed within two short decades. Mr. Reddell wrote the book in a time when the AARS program reigned supreme in the rose world, annually introducing beautiful but finicky princesses who often weren't worth the trouble of growing. He wrote at a time when Jackson & Perkins and Week's Roses were thriving and turning out promising new varieties by the dozens every year. I expected, and was not disappointed, to find suggestions and advice based more on the classical formulas for growing good show roses, advice aimed at production of massive Hybrid Tea blooms grown in blessed coastal or southern climates. There were many prunning and spraying and fertilizing instructions that were used 20 years ago when the modern shrub rose class was still in infancy, but few suggestions for environmental consideration or organic care.

I respect Mr. Reddell's expertise and knowledge without question, but I did not agree with his recommended rose choices and, given my Kansas climate, I'm sure he would understand. The chapter entitled "The Future For Roses" did predict the growth of the shrub rose class and the trend for breeding disease resistant roses, but Reddell proclaimed 'Carefree Delight', in my opinion a real yawner of a shrub rose, to be the "quintessential Landscape rose." I don't think so, Mr. Reddell. And then he goes on to worship at the roots of 'Scentimental', the wine and white streaked 1997 AARS winner. Every reader here knows my love for striped roses, and yes, I do grow 'Scentimental', but the rose struggles mightily to survive for me and every year I consider uprooting and composting it. The blossoms are nice, but I'm not sentimental about 'Scentimental' at all.

The text was most fascinating to me for what it didn't predict; the breeding of Knock Out and the subsequent disintegration of the commercial rose world that we knew in 1996.  There is a section in the book titled "Roses by Zones," In it, Mr. Reddell picks a well-known rosarian in every USDA Zone to glean local advice from, and, by chance, for Zone 4B he chose to repeat advice from Bill Radler, the breeder of 'Knock Out'. This was Radler pre-Knock Out, discussing winter protection and fertilizer choices in Wisconsin. Not a word about the revolution to come.

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn defined the concept of a "paradigm shift", postulating that scientific advancement is not evolutionary, but rather is a "series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions" replacing one world view with another. Within the Rose World, there have been at least 3 paradigm shifts, first with the introduction to the West of the "China Stud roses," then the breeding of the first Hybrid Tea in 1867, and more recently, with the rise of disease resistant shrub roses, like Knock Out, that bloom madly and healthy in our landscapes in a very un-rose-like manner.  A Year In The Life Of A Rose illustrates that 'Knock Out 'was the catalyst for a classic paradigm shift, a change unforeseen by the arguably foremost expert of the field in his time, only five years before the paradigm shift to disease resistant landscape roses began.

Slow Changes

2013-03-10T12:08:00.002-05:00

My apologies for leaving Garden Musings alone so long. ProfessorRoush has been in a gardening funk of major proportions, accompanied, I assume, by many of my Zone 6 and lower friends. My garden is incorporating the local signs of Spring at a snail's pace, with the warm days of yesterday faded into the cold afternoon of today. And likewise it's Gardener has also been absent-without-permission, unable to get excited even at the daily opening and closing of his snow crocus.

The garden is completely static, unable to rouse itself from winter at the recent pace for Kansas. As I review my notes of years past, this Spring seems to be "normal" and I would predict the redbuds and forsythia bloom at the end of the month, with daffodils in early April, unlike last year when we had redbuds and daffodils in full bloom by now, and iris and Scilla had already graced my presence. This year, the redbuds and forsythia are still tightly closed. Scilla hasn't appeared above ground and the daffodils are barely peaking up in places. ProfessorRoush only hopes that all this means a wet Spring to break the drought and shortened weeks of furnace temperatures in July and August.

I blame the semi-annual Time Change, of course, for the combined sloth of my garden and myself, as most of my regular readers would expect. Just this past week, around Monday, I had finally adjusted to the Fall change, sleeping in at long last several days this week until 6:00 instead of waking to frozen darkness at 5:00 a.m. As a consequence, this morning I awoke after the time change at 6:45, which on a normal work day will make me late. So now I have to readjust to life awakening in darkness again, although the extra hour at night in the garden might start to be useful. Daylight Savings Time also seems to have brought a return to the cold. Yesterday we had rain and +60F. Today, we have rain,+35F, and gale winds from the north, with snow forecast this afternoon and evening. When, oh when, will Spring come again?

Construction on "The Barn" continues, with a roof in place, but no doors. I did briefly rouse myself yesterday during the warm hours to fill bird feeders, pick up trash in the yard, and water a few cloched baby roses, but my only real garden progress was the planting of a daylily start from my parent's farm. I chose this division in December from among about thirty others because it looked vigorous and strong (my father has no idea which one it is). It has proved its vitality, because tucked away in a unheated garage in a black garbage bag for 2 months it grew over a foot of pale yellow foliage in the darkness, and so it was far overdue for planting. With my luck and looking at the vigor of this daylily, I probably chose a clump of ugly orange 'Kwanso' to transplant. I had plenty of that already!

Perhaps I should begin a campaign to hurry Spring along by planning some garden changes. I need, for instance, to revise the pictured corner of my landscaping (right), which was originally a triangle of purple- and yellow-needled evergreens in front of the bluish "dwarf" spruce at the corner. Over 13 years, Juniper 'Old Gold' has overgrown and covered the plum-winter-needled Juniper horizontalis 'Youngstown Andorra' , and it threatens to move on to the adjacent roses. Additionally, I think it has become home for several critters, as evidenced by the trails leading under it, and it needs to go. What to replace it with? The only danger here, as every gardener will recognize, is that I allow my Winter's despair to influence ill-advised changes in the overall garden by, for instance, inspiring me to rip out this healthy sunny border in favor of a doomed shade garden, or a 1 acre pond, or a 75 foot long pondless waterfall Moderation is the key to garden planning by restless gardeners in Winter.

UnMundane Mundi

2013-02-26T15:21:00.000-06:00

If a budding rosarian....interesting phrase...what exactly is a budding rosarian? Is ProfessorRoush referring to a person who grows roses only to create flowers, rather than one who wants to promote the development of hips (a hip rosarian)? Surely I am not referring to a rosarian who is asexually reproducing by the formation of outgrowths (buds) from their bodies? That would be a little too sci-fi-ish even for this old Isaac Asimov fan, although it might be a useful and non-icky method of procuring spare parts for oneself. No, I think it can be easily surmised that I'm referring to a "new" rosarian, at "an early developmental stage but showing potential" as "budding" is defined by the Free Online Dictionary.

Let me begin again. If a new lover of roses whimsically wants to grow a very old rose, they could scarce do better, in my humble opinion, than to grow the old Gallica 'Rosa Mundi'. I've grown this ancient rose for a decade, this sprawling, running, short-statured clump of a bush, but I've yet to tire of it. Perhaps it is the matchless freedom of the unique simple blossoms, each one different from another, striped or plain, as it sees fit. Perhaps it is the understated presence of the bush when it is not in bloom, no more than three feet tall but popping up again and again as it suckers its way across the yard. It is a stealth invader, masquerading itself within an adjacent viburnum or lilac until it announces its acquisition of territory at bloom time. Maybe it is the history of this rose that attracts me, bound forever to the memory of a king's mistress.

The birth of 'Rosa Mundi' was not recorded, so ancient a rose that she is only referenced as existing prior to 1581. It should be exhibited by the name of Rosa gallica versicolor, but it is known by a hundred other names. The Striped Rose of France. La Panachée. Provins Oeillet. R. gallica variegata. Fair Rosamond's Rose. Gemengte Rose. Garnet Striped Rose. Polkagrisrose. The "Rosamond" reference is to Rosamond Clifford, one of the mistresses of Henry II, a 12th Century monarch. Henry's wife, his cousin and the previously-married Eleanor of Aquitaine, must have hated this rose, although stories that Eleanor poisoned Rosamond are dismissed as only legend. The Latin phrase, "rosa mundi", means "rose of the world," and was doubtless chosen instead of "rosa munda" (Latin for "pure rose") as a clear reference that Rosamund, a mistress, had her own worldly failings matched by these rose-splashed white petals. This large, hugely fragrant, semi-double rose bears all these names and the weight of history without complaint, however, growing disease-free for me in the afternoon shade of two tall viburnums to its south. The oldest and best known of the striped roses, 'Rosa Mundi' is bushy and dense, very hardy and once-blooming, its only failing a tendency to sucker into a thicket if I turn my head for a season. She produces lots of thin canes, and it might be best to occasionally prune back the oldest canes to thin the bush. 'Rosa Mundi' is believed to be a natural sport of Rosa gallica officinalis and recent DNA analysis seems to agree. She has some decent coloring in the Fall on occasion, and she does set hips, but I wouldn't call the hips ornamental. They're downright ugly in fact, brown and bland, fading to black

I tried to find out the significance of the year of our Lord 1581 regarding this rose, but my google-foo was weak and it took some time. Finally, in the Winter 2013 newsletter of the NorthWest Rosarian, and in the Heritage Roses Northwest Spring 2012 letter, I found the re-publication of Jeff Wyckoff's ARS website article, The Trails and Tales of Rosa Mundi, which states that the first reference to a striped rose, presumed to be 'Rosa Mundi', appeared in Mathias de L’Obel’s herbal Plantarum seu stirpium icones in 1581. I can't find the original article on the web, but if you can read Latin, you can find the original text in the archive of the Missouri Botanical Garden, along with a PDF of the book.. It's simply amazing what information is available on the Web these days, is it not?

Where've You Been, Baby?

2013-02-24T11:47:00.000-06:00

In preparation for Christmas, as per my usual pattern, ProfessorRoush planted an Amaryllis bulb, 'Red Lion', about 2 weeks prior to Thanksgiving. This year's selection was purchased as a dormant bulb at a local nursery, so one could say that I splurged compared to my usual purchase of the bulbs at Sam's Club or another big box store. All according to my new resolution to support small nurseries.

In most years, that 6-weeks-prior-to-Christmas-potting results in some welcome bloom and bright colors just at Christmas, so imagine my surprise this year when the bulb just sat there. And sat there. It had a greenish skin color at the top, obviously still viable, but it sat there. I kept it watered and in full sunlight and still it stubbornly stared at me, reluctantly unwilling to reciprocate with regal red flowers or, for that matter, even stems. Christmas came and passed without a hint of growth from the bulb.

Finally, sometime after the New Year, my prima donna bulb decided it was time to come out of dormancy and it teased me over for weeks with the slow development of a sturdy stem. I added rotating the pot every other day to my chores since the stem kept slanting towards the light. At three feet tall it decided to put out three buds, just in time to lull me into anticipation of bloom by Valentine's day. Valentine's day came and went. And then, on February 15th, it decided that since St Valentine's day was over it could finally come out of hiding to bless us with its presence. Three large beautiful bright velvety blooms in three days. On the 17th, as the third bloom opened, we left for Las Vegas. When we returned on the 21st, all the blooms were sagging, their energy spent, their beauty gone.

I may never know what was so obviously amiss this year. Perhaps the bulb was weak? Perhaps the pot too small? The water or light too slight? At any rate, at least the birds got to enjoy it through the window; a red beacon of Spring, shining from the sunroom of an empty house for a few scant days.

A Little Work and Pleasure

2013-02-21T15:09:00.000-06:00

Some of you may be wondering where ProfessorRoush has run off to the past week, and, truth be told, I've been away from the bleak Kansas landscape on a working trip where I was scheduled to give 7 lectures (dogs, not roses), and a wetlab. Let's see if you get a clue where I was from the picture at the left:

No? How about this one?

And the winning answer is: Las Vegas! The conference I was speaking at was the Western Veterinary Conference, held annually in Vegas at the Mandalay Bay. The topmost photo is of the Bellagio Conservatory, whose theme this year is a bright red-colored depiction of a Chinese New Year celebration. The second picture, of course, is the famous Bellagio fountain at night. The recently empty-nested Mrs. ProfessorRoush was able to accompany me to Vegas for the first time (I've been 4 times previously), so I felt it necessary to be on my best behavior and show her the sights and, of course, the shopping areas. It cramped my style a bit, but hey, a good husband should take his wife to Vegas at least once in her lifetime. While I worked, she shopped and rested, and at night there was fine dining and we were also able to enjoy the free concert given at the conference. Kenny Loggins was the featured performer this year and gave a fabulous concert, a perfect end to our time in Vegas.

We returned, luckily, just ahead of the snowstorm that is passing through Kansas, so I woke at home this morning to the winter wonderland in the picture at the bottom of this entry. It is surely a stark change from the brown horizon that I left. And while I was gone, work on the barn continued, with the roof trusses placed before the snow drifted into the barn this morning. I'm thinking now that it is going to be a few days before any more work on the barn gets done!