Showing posts with label Garden Rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garden Rant. Show all posts

Saturday, July 15, 2023

What's Wrong With Dark?

'TimberCreek Ace'
ProfessorRoush is gravely disappointed in both mankind in general and in the thousands of electronic engineers who design our modern appliances and circuits and he has a question.   Why, oh why, does every thing that plugs into a wall need to shine at night?  I mean, quoting our aged President, "Cmon man!"  Is mankind, long established as the primary predator on the planet, still that afraid of the dark?   I know the light-emitting diode (LED) was a near-miraculous invention and it puts out a lot of light compared to its electricity use (9 times more efficient than an incandescent light source), but does everything have to have one?   Efficient or not, they still use electricity.   And they're plain irritating when they're just randomly stuck onto electronics.

'Black Stockings'
I woke up early and wandered on a still-pitch-dark night into my living room and kitchen this morning (the rooms are roughly contiguous) only to realize that I could quite clearly navigate by the indicator LED that turns on when the TV is off (of all the stupid ideas), by the two LEDs on the wifi extender, by LEDs on two kitchen safety sockets (if I wanted to know if they were powered, I COULD plug something into them), and by the clocks on the microwave, double oven, and an undercabinet radio.  Of yeah, and by the lighted panel on the refrigerator (lest I not know which button makes ice or water) and from the "Clean" notification on the dishwasher (Mrs. ProfessorRoush had run a load).  

'Night Embers'
A similar problem exists in our master bedroom, where each of three surge protectors have LEDs to assure me that everything is okay (one glows from both a switch and a blue light by the USB connections), the satellite cable system has a small red light to let me know it is OFF (it has both a white and blue one when it's ON), and a bedtable alarm clock glows orange.   This is in addition to the fact that opaque blinds are insufficient to block out the light pollution from town that floods the room and that the previously mentioned alarm clock projects on a ceiling so I can know the time without turning over.   I never use the alarm by the way, blessed with an internal clock that is always running, even away at conferences.  This year we at least eliminated one light source; a Vizio TV with an LED that turned on when the TV was off.

Unknown, but dark
It is no mystery to me that the number of sleep-deprived people is growing rapidly and why we are all ready, between our various tribes and political groups, to tear down civilization.   For goodness sake, I beg you, join me in the revolution to eliminate LED's on "off" electronics in the bedroom and to turn off street lights and other polluters outside.   Please engineers and politicians, give us back our dark nights, so we can sleep properly and deeply, albeit perhaps troubled still by dreams of saber-toothed cats and cave bears. I'm willing to chance it.


'Vatican City'
By now, Dear Reader, you've realized that I'm just on a rant and this blog entry has nothing to do with the somber dark daylilies pictured here.  In my defense, without the labels, I'm not sure anyone could tell the first four apart anyway.  I'm sorry for luring you into a rant with false pretenses of daylily pornography, but I had to get it off my chest.   Also, I need to correct a previous blog error in that this last daylily is 'Vatican City', not 'Popcorn Pete' as I said recently.   It's still pretty, even though it isn't perfectly dark, isn't it?   And now I'm really done because I just used 5 variations of "it" in the last sentence and I've obviously spent my anger and I'm fresh out of writing talent for the day.  Good Night!


Sunday, March 6, 2022

Hortus Populous

ProfessorRoush was in Washington DC this week, normally my favorite city to visit, particularly if I have time between conferences to hit the mall.   I've been there a number of times and have visited almost every monument and museum, some in the days before terrorism and nannyism ruined access to them.  I have walked the steps of the Washington Monument to the top and yet lived to tell the tale.

On the plus side, the weather was decent in the early part of the week and, as you can see from pictures, I did get an afternoon to wander about, visiting a number of my favorite monuments and the Museum of Natural History.  

In fact, I ran flat into the FDR Memorial, not previously knowing it existed, and I was moderately impressed by the mountain of red granite moved for its creation into the former swamp of DC.   Certainly and appropriately the most ADA-accessible monument, I recommend walking through it, particularly spaced where it is on an almost direct line between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials.

On the negative side, I was, as usual, too early for the cherry blossoms, seeing only a stray early bloomer or two in a protected depression near the Constitutional Gardens.  And it turned cold and windy during the latter part of the week, and I learned that the cold winds of Kansas have a rival in the winds coming off the Potomac on a cold day.





Most exasperating, however, was discovering that the United States Botanical Gardens conservatory has been closed to the public for over 2 years, at least according to its website.  The outside gardens are open, but not the USBG conservatory.  When I go to DC, I always check the schedule of lectures at the USBG, just in case I get lucky as I did when I once saw Roy Klehm lecture.  This time, however, the website has not been updated for quite some time and there is no mention of a reopening date.  It seems that the USBG is within the "U. S. Capitol campus" and the fools on Capitol Hill, elected and despotic, are deathly afraid that perhaps a massive revolutionary coup will be staged from within the Children's Garden or perhaps the Orchids Room. Good grief.

My dear Representatives, Senators, Supreme Court Judges, and Executive; 

When in the course of gardening it becomes necessary for peoples with calloused hands and sunburned faces to dissolve the political idiot-cracy and allow visitors to the public gardens to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitles them, it is our right, nay our duty, to throw open the gates and allow the people inside.  Hortus Populus, Mors Tyrannis (Let the People garden, Death to Tyrants)!  You are right to fear the peasants who are most familiar with the proper use of pitchforks and shovels. Let Freedom Grow!

Sunday, June 6, 2021

Plant Pets and Plant Zoos

'Hope for Humanity'
I was stunned speechless, stopped instantly in my tracks last week, by a random statement in a GardenRant.com column by Ann Wareham.  In the column, Ann, a British garden writer, was pushing back against the societal pressure to change our gardens into more ecologically-sound, "pollinator friendly," "sustainable," "drought resistant" or "rain" gardens.   Ann threw the following statement in an early paragraph as one of the many reasons why it is difficult to start a new garden:  "Given that most people treat plants like pets and are reluctant to kill any apart from those rather arbitrarily defined as ‘weeds’, it is truly hard to imagine how any of these clean slate, ethically sound gardens are supposed to emerge."

People treat plants like pets!  Of course!  ProfessorRoush treats plants like pets!   I nurture them, I feed them, and I water them; I'm thrilled when they grow and perform well and I'm disappointed when they crap in their beds.  An epiphany, like so many others, right before my eyes the entire time.   Here I am, veterinarian and gardener for a lifetime, and I've never realized that so, so many of my plants are pets.  The rose, 'Hope for Humanity', pictured above and at left, blooming so perfectly red and bountiful, is a favorite of my treasured plant pets.   So is the 'Blizzard' mockorange below, covered in white and perfuming the garden.  And the fringed and crazy 'Pink Spritzer' peony, a wild Klehm creation, seen at the feet of the mockorange and in the closeup at the bottom of this blog.  Inside the house, a collection of different Schlumbergera and a few pet orchids make up the indoor garden.

'Blizzard' Mockorange
In fact, as I take my new pet-colored vision further, I now realize that I don't have a garden, I have a zoo.  ProfessorRoush's garden isn't about having just a few treasured and well-cared for companions, it's about collecting the uncommon or unusually beautiful, a thousand individual specimens to draw my attention and time.  There are few repeating plants in my garden; repeating families or genus's perhaps, but few cultivars that I divide and spread in repeating waves.   A few daylilies perhaps, particularly vigorous and worthy, and the rampantly suckering 'Dwarf Pavement' rose have multiple locations in my garden, but where some have a single viburnum, I have 6 or 8, all different species and versions.   How many different peonies or daylilies or roses do I really have?   I've lost count. 



'Pink Spritzer'
ProfessorRoush's Garden Menagerie.   Come take a horticultural safari with me, my friends, as we stroll in the evening around the garden.  Knautia macedonia has made the front bed a burgundy pincushion, soon ready to pass the torch on to Orientpet (notice the group name?) lilies.   Roses are fading from their first flush of flowers and peonies are dropping petals everywhere in the back garden, while the daylily buds stretch towards the sky, soon to dominate the scene.  Three different Mockorange's are in bloom now, in three different beds, and the Russian sage and the Persicaria polymorpha are demanding attention from viewers.  Grasses and sedges aim for fall, biding time and withholding flowers until the heat of August forces them out.

Plants as pets.   Gardens as menageries.  Maybe not so socially-conscious, but satisfying and educational at every turn.   That's my style.

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Interesting Times

I was mowing the other day, my commonplace first mowing of the year that consists more of whacking down precocious weeds than cutting actual green grass, and as my mind was wandering during the interminable yard laps, I was mulling over the COVID 19 pandemic and my mind recalled the phrase "May you live in interesting times."  We've probably all heard that backhanded blessing in the past and not thought much about it, but right now, in the midst of "stay-at-home" and global economic and human catastrophe, my immediate thought was "What adrenalin-junkie, world-class ADHD nutball authored that statement?"  Benjamin Franklin?  Edgar Allan Poe? Rasputin?



Curious, as I'm sure you now are, I stopped the mower, whipped out my trusty iPhone, and quickly google-searched my way to the conclusion that "may you live in interesting times" is widely regarded as the English translation of a traditional Chinese curse.  Isn't that just all kinds of ironic, given how and where this pandemic started?






I don't think I need a national poll to find out that none of us really want to live in interesting times.  We don't really want to go through pandemics or 9/11 terrorist attacks or foreign wars or Recession or the Challenger explosion.  I'm pretty sure we just want to live our lives, love our parents, spouses and children, be productive and kind to others, and leave the world a little better.





I've been so engrossed in the "interesting times" that it took me until yesterday to realize my Redbuds haven't bloomed this year.  Last week it appeared they were getting close, but they have done nothing yet and my other magnolias have also not followed up on the beauty of my Star Magnolia this year.  Tonight, I took a closer look at the flower buds on the Redbuds and saw, as you can see from the two pictures above, that the cold dip into the 20's of last weekend has killed the buds, all but a very few who will likely get smashed by the cold snap and late snow coming this weekend.  This 'Jane' Magnolia was also quite damaged.  She's struggling to come back, but if you click on the picture and look closer you'll see three brown buds for every mangled blossom that has managed a little color.  I'm not even going to talk about the damage to her sister 'Ann'.

I don't know how I'm going to tell Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  She might not even notice the magnolia didn't bloom, but the redbuds are special in her heart and their bloom a special time for her and she will miss them dreadfully this year.  Daylilies and hollyhocks, beautiful as they are in mid-summer, just won't fill that void for her.  Interesting times?  No, she will just see it as disappointment.

I'm really concerned at present that the flowering crabapple blooms at top, and my just-opening Red-blossomed Peach, will be walloped this weekend, further victims of this lost springtime.  Interesting times, my posterior patootie.  Oh yeah, and these wormy web-things are now active.  Why doesn't the intermittent freezes kill them?  I want a beautiful garden, not one of "interesting times."

Monday, July 2, 2018

The Eight Ex-Beetles

ProfessorRoush is NOT, of course, referring to a mythical reunion of Paul, Ringo, George, and any ex-band members who may exist, because if I was, I would have spelled the noun of the title as "Beatles."  Instead, I'm obviously referring to to the barely-visible rear end of the demonic chitinous lout on the lower right side of the white flower here (and not the other long-snouted insect to the left).  Do you see the hiney of the Japanese Beetle in the lower left of the flower?  Look closer.  Click on it to blow up the photo if you need to.  See the bristling patches of white hair along the edges of its abdomen?




I was simultaneously amused and alarmed eight days ago, when, as I visited a local commercial horticultural facility, I overheard a gardening couple asking a store clerk what they could buy to kill Japanese Beetles.  Thus alerted that the blankety-blank beetle season was upon us, I vowed to be ever-diligent over the next few days, and, sure enough, on July 1st I found the first Japanese Beetles of 2018 on 'Snow Pavement', 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup', 'Polareis', and, of course, 'Blanc Double de Coubert'.  The first two victims can be seen at the left, taken moments before I squished them into beetle pulp.  In fact, I found and squished eight beetles on that first evening.  The Ex-Beetles of my garden.





In another more typical picture of the damage that Japanese Beetles can cause to a beautiful bloom, I give you the traumatized bloom of 'Earth Song' that I discovered this morning, seen in the photo at right complete with the Japanese Beetle hiding in the center of the flower (please ignore the Melyrid at the bottom.  I see the latter insects all the time and they don't hurt the flowers).  By the morning of the second day of the 2018 invasion, my total kill is now 14 squished beetles.  Unfortunately, it should have been 15 squished beetles (one male escaped this morning by leaping off the edging brick before I could lower my foot in his direction).

With a little research however, I just tonight discovered that, despite my vaunted prowess as a Japanese Beetle Terminator (Hasta la vista, beetles!), I'm winning a small tactical skirmish, but losing the strategic war.  As if Rose Rosette Disease and Japanese Beetles don't cause enough damage in my garden, the long-nosed brown insect to the left in the first picture above is NOT a harmless flower beetle.  The Internet informs me that it is a Rose Curculio Weevil (Merhynchites bicolor), another flower-eater and civilization destroyer sent to my garden by the demons of hell.  I should be just as diligent handpicking these little snouted monsters as I am the Japanese Beetles, and yet I knew not of their existence prior to this.  It seems to not be enough that I have one beetle enemy, the crunchy critters  have now enlisted allies.  Saints preserve my roses!

Sunday, July 23, 2017

It Could Be Worse

I just keep telling myself that there are many situations that could be worse than trying to keep a garden alive in Kansas in July.  We've only seen one substantial rain in two months and the temperatures have been hovering near or over 105ºF for a week, but it could be worse.  Lawn grasses have completely dried up and the trees are voluntarily shedding half their leaves, but it could be worse.  Daylilies are yellowing and drying on the ends, despite all the advantages of their fleshy, water-retaining tubers, but it could be worse.  That's daylily 'Beautiful Edging' at the right, not so beautiful at present as it edges my garden bed.
Yesterday, for instance, I was headed into my local Walmart at 10:00 a.m., clawing my way forward through the humid already-102ºF air, when it suddenly occurred to me that it would be worse if I had the job of the Walmart employee who had to round up all the carts.  Imagine the despair you'd feel to spend your day walking to the parking lot in that heat and humidity, bringing back a long line of carts, only to watch them disappear from the front end even as you were pushing them back into the busy store.  That entire job would be an endless, mind-numbing circle of frustration equal to that of Sisyphus ceaselessly rolling the stone uphill only to watch it roll back down.  I say that with every intention of not belittling the efforts of the struggling Walmart cart-person, but in sympathy for them.  

But then again, the cart-person knows exactly what lies ahead and is not endlessly teased with possibilities and relief.  They don't experience rain in the forecast for weeks-on-end, constantly present several days in the future, only to see the rain chances diminish as the appointed day nears. They don't experience what we did last night;  a large storm from the west that dissipates and dies within sight of our gardens, just as it meets the air mass of a large storm north and east that we watched form a few miles away and move away from us.  We received 0.4 inches of rain last night, penetrating only deep enough to nourish the crabgrass, leaving the poor lilac bush pictured here to languish in the oppressive heat.  When thick, succulent lilac leaves start to turn up their heels, you know the drought is bad.  You're from New York and afraid of coming to Kansas and experiencing tornadoes?  We hope to see them for the rain they'll bring in their paths. 

It could be worse.  In July, in a Kansas garden, I just keep telling myself ,"it could be worse."   At least I don't want to trade places with the cart-person at Walmart yet.  And I've got a great thriving stand of crabgrass.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

Inkling of Spring

Magnolia stellata 02/19/17
I had an inkling of spring.

In the garden today, while tearing down a bit of old fence, I had an inkling of spring, provided by my Magnolia stellata.  I had an inkling and I'm ashamed to say that my first thought, after having the inkling, was to wonder about the exact definition and origin of the word inkling.  You might think I should have been more concerned about the Magnolia, but such a straight-forward journey seldom occurs inside ProfessorRoush's attention-deficient mind.  It was inkling first, and then Magnolia.

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary: inkling derives from the Middle English word yngkiling, meaning to "whisper or mention," and perhaps further from the verb inclen meaning "to hint at."   Okay, so now I know that even the linguists aren't sure of the origin of the word, but at least the definition is fairly straightforward, meaning "a slight indication or suggestion."  Okay, I got it, I had a hint of spring today.  If so, why didn't I just think "oh, there's a hint of spring?"  No, it couldn't be that simple, could it?  I had to make inkling my vocabulary word of the day.

Pussy willow 02/19/17
Returning our attention to the Magnolia stellata, however, it is important to understand that my inkling derived from the fact that it has decided to begin peeling off its fuzzy winter coat quite prematurely, enticed by a few days of warm sunny weather.  Those delicate buds are exposed far too early, no proper garments under the coat, just lacy undergarments exposed before full consent is obtained.  I fear that the cold spell predicted later in the week will send a chill deep into this flower's innards, an ill wind blown up its skirt.

Likewise, I also noticed that the pussy willow (sorry the photo is blurry) on the other side of the garden is showing a little fuzz at the end of its prepubescent buds, an enticing bit of maturity destined only to fall victim to the icy reality of this cruel world.  Why, oh why does everything want to hurry along at a breakneck pace of living in the garden?   You want to shout at them, "Hush little darlings, go back to slumber, it's far to early to grow up and bloom."  But, nay, they heed not, speeding towards the inevitable damage of a reckless youth and headstrong nature.

Now I have an inkling of disaster.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

1!$@%!^ Time to Change

$@%&^#$&% ...time change.... @1!51%$!$% ....dog awake....   A pox on all politicians, State and Federal, who persist in messing up our schedules, our lives, and our very cellular metabolisms.

I woke this morning at 4:48 a.m. Standard Time, which was 5:48 a.m. just yesterday, the latter normal for me on my sleep/wake schedule.  I laid still for a few minutes, wondering at the time, but Bella came creeping up the bed to remind me that it was high time to get up and start the day.  Bella doesn't know that nameless bureaucrats have imposed an arbitrary time schedule change, decisions based on an America engaged in the Great War, the War to end all wars, about 6 or 7 wars ago or a hundred years back depending on how you want to count.  Bella doesn't care, it was simply time to get up and potty and eat and play.

The sun didn't know that it was back on standard time either.  The sky was already starting to lighten shortly after I woke, and it rose at 6:54 a.m, an hour earlier than it did yesterday.  The idiots we keep electing don't seem to have the same power over the sun that they do over my life.  Now I'm back to driving into the eastern sun during my morning work commute, endangering cars and walking students, blinded by the glare four times yearly instead of twice.

The bee, above, doesn't know that the time has changed.  It probably only knows that winter is nearby and it needs to grab whatever nectar and pollen it can, while it can, even this aging pollen from this blown blossom of a miniature rose that I know as "Little Yellow Beauty".  I can't find any official record of this rose, but that's how it's labeled in the K-State Rose Garden.  The g'vernment has forgotten to inform this bee and flower that the time changed.  The flower is probably thankful that it doesn't even appear on a government census.

As you know, I try to avoid politics on this blog like the onset of the plague, but, I'll state here and how that I pledge my vote for any candidate, even The Donald or Bernie Sanders, if they're the sole supporter of just staying on one time.  I'm a single issue voter on this one.  Daylight Savings Time would actually be my preference, but I really don't care, either Time is fine.  If, like me, you want this madness to stop, please visit and sign this petition to Congress, or this petition to the White House, or if you're like the rest of America, at least spend time "liking" this idea on Facebook.  Politicians, being the dolts what they are and an election in their future, they'll probably listen to Facebook better than anything else.  Grumbling over, soon back to your regularly scheduled program.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Duplicitious Bulbs

I believe that I must be the last gardener on the planet to realize that John Scheepers and Van Engelen are sister companies, but I offer this information for others of my unbaptized and unknowing ilk.

They tipped their hand this year, bulb emperors without clothes, because I received both catalogs by mail on the same day, a seeming coincidence that initially elicited my amusement at the acute timing of the two companies.  That night, as I feverishly looked through the luscious, colored John Schleepers catalog for some desired lilies and alliums, and then through bland Van Engelen, I realized that both catalogs had the SAME OFFERINGS listed BY THE SAME EXACT ORDER!  Always slow, and one to easily be fooled, I looked at the information for ordering and found both companies had the same exact address and phone number.  Fool me for a decade, but never longer.  I was somewhat chagrined to search the internet and discover that such a treasonous bit of advertising sleight-of-hand was certainly not an unheralded secret.

I have ordered from both over the past few years, and I was initially a little angry that some devious advertising executives had taken me in, but further investigation revealed that the Van Engelen website freely discloses that both companies had the same owner and the same offerings and it tells me the reason why I (and you) want BOTH catalogs;  "John Scheepers offers flower bulbs in smaller units with significant volume price discounts while Van Engelen offers the flower bulb collection in larger, wholesale units with volume discount pricing."  John Scheepers and Van Engelen were, in fact, both owned by the late Jan S. Ohms, as is John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds.  Ohms acquired Van Engelen in the 1970's and John Scheepers in 1991.  



For my purposes, the well-illustrated John Scheepers catalog allows me to see and pick items by appearance, but after identifying my shopping list there, I turn to Van Engelen, which offers better pricing for both small (5 bulb) and large (>100 bulb) lots.  Oddly, Van Engelen doesn't offer lots of 10 bulbs and other intermediate sizes, so for some items, John Scheepers is the better source.  This year I've identified 14 items, 10 of which I'll purchase from Van Engelen, and the other four from John Scheepers.  I still don't understand why the companies publish and mail me two separate catalogs, a duplicate expense that surely must be reflected in the price of the bulbs, but I recognize that the answer may be entirely logical but beyond me, tied up in some Federal red tape of bulb importing and wholesale laws of which I'm happy to remain ignorant.  Or, it could be that the blue-blooded upper crust of bulb gardeners spurn the colored-flower pornography of John Scheepers and stick with the tasteful lists of Van Engelen.  And I suppose that Van Engelen sounds more Dutch and authentic for a bulb source than John Scheepers.   Regardless, if you've only been buying gluttonously large lots from Van Engelen, make sure you receive a John Scheepers catalog as well, if only to look at or drool on the photos of each item.

Note:  I am not associated with either Van Engelen or John Scheepers, nor do I receive any favors from either firm beyond the services they provide their average customer.



Thursday, May 7, 2015

Cynical Composting

Some years back, ProfessorRoush ran across some compostable water bottles at a Starbucks in Seattle and, because of the skepticism deeply embedded in my academic soul, I thought it would be a neat idea to try to bring them back in my luggage and test their compost-worthiness at home.  Unfortunately, the TSA must have deemed the empty bottles in my checked bags as a potential terrorist threat because the bottles were not in my suitcase upon my arrival at home.

I was more fortunate last year when I ran into these certified compostable cups at a pizza parlor in Fort Collins, and I was able to ultimately get them into my 65 gallon Lifetime tumbling compost bin by sneaking them home in my car past the marijuana-alert sentries on the Kansas border.

These Eco-Product® cold cups are, as printed on the cups, certified by the BPI, or Biodegradable Products Institute, to be compostable in a municipal or commercial composting facility.  The BPI is a "multi-stakeholder association of key individuals and groups from government, industry and academia"....that tests products by written ATSM standards and certifies them.  I should reveal here that whenever I see the popular buzzword "stakeholder" these days, my cynical hackles are immediately raised and my blood pressure rises.  Materials tested by the BPI must include the ability to "biodegrade at a rate comparable to yard trimmings, food scraps and other compostable materials, such as kraft paper bags," and they must "disintegrate, so that no large plastic fragments remain to be screened out."

I placed the new cups pictured in the top photo into my tumbling compost bin on 5/26/2014, along with mature compost and grass clippings.  You can see immediately above this paragraph several periodic photos taken over last summer, a time span when numerous additions of kitchen scraps, grass clippings, other organic materials, and water were composted in the pile alongside these cups.  The cups did not disintegrate, as you can see, although they flattened and tore, probably from the repeated tumbling alongside wet and heavy clumps of compost.  The organic materials in the bin repeatedly became decent, black homogeneous compost with which any gardener would be happy.

This week, almost 11 months after the start of the experiment, I again opened the compost bin and found the cups as photographed yesterday and shown at right.  Now, in fairness, I should note that the BPI website states clearly that these products are not meant for home compost piles, but only for "well-managed municipal and commercial facilities."  Home composters "typically do not generate the temperatures needed to assure rapid biodegradation of this new class of materials. For this reason, claims are limited to larger facilities."

That's all well and good, friends, and I can accept that ProfessorRoush is likely a terrible composter, but shouldn't we at least expect that now, 11 months later, the ink would faded and illegible?

Furthermore, and while I'm on a rant, what exactly constitutes an "acceptable municipal facility?"  Does my local county recycling facility, which routinely composts leaves and other materials, qualify?  It isn't listed at the findacomposter.com website printed on the cups, nor is any other facility within 50 miles of me.  How many of these cups would actually make it into a "well-managed commercial facility" anyway, rather than just being tossed into the restaurant waste cans with all the other debris and taken to the usual county shredding facilities?  How much more energy and chemical processing is involved in making these cups over the standard red plastic cups that we love to make so much fun of?  Which is more likely to be recycled and have the least long-term environmental impact?  Is this merely more marketing misinformation to muddle the minds of the masses?

I can't help thinking that while compostable cups make us all feel good, this whole certification system seems designed just to keep us from noticing the man behind the curtain while we slurp the Koolaid of environmental ecstasy.  It is only a matter of time before we'll hear offers for a free carton of these cups with every thousand carbon credits we purchase.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Wee Bit O' Wind

A week or so back, I was awakened at 2:00 a.m. by the rising wind outside my window and, seconds later, the patter of rain against the pane.  Knowing that we desperately needed the rain, I smiled, relaxed, and went promptly back to sleep.  
Okay, okay, that's an understatement at best, if not a complete misrepresentation of the incident.    If I am fully disclosing what happened, the wind suddenly began to howl, there was a thunderclap that sounded simultaneously with a lightning flash that seemed to strike right above the bedroom ceiling, and I instantaneously levitated two feet off the bed and vertically onto the floor.   The rain began to pour like the Second Flood, and the nearby lightning and thunder continued for two hours while I lay awake and fretted that the house would explode into flame at the next bolt.  We haven't seen a lightning storm like that in years.
There were no  storm warnings on the TV or radio or Internet for our area, and so I didn't think much more about it (except to be happy about the 1.9" rain) until I got into the garden this weekend.  There, I saw the true nature of what must have been a straight line gale or downburst during the storm.  My Purple Martin houses were leaning and the bird feeders were askew (picture above, left).  I also lost a portion of a trunk off the Smoke Tree as illustrated (at the top, right).  Worst of all, the wooden post that held up my 'American Pillar' rose snapped off at the base (photo at right).  Replacing it will be a difficult and painful task due to the nature of the prickles on this rose, so keep me in your prayers.
 On the bright side, I recently salvaged a piece of Baltic Brown granite from our kitchen island during a remodeling of the kitchen and I made it into a wind-proof garden bench which, despite its unprotected placement to the north side of the house, stood up well to the worst the storm threw at it.  I think it provides a really nice formal touch to this area.  The new bench also proves once again that gardening in Kansas is often a simple matter of over-engineering and weighty solutions.  So now all I have to do is apply that knowledge and create a cement post for the 'American Pillar' rose, anchored down about forty feet into the bedrock.   That shouldn't be too hard, should it? 


Saturday, April 5, 2014

Oh, Bother!

"If memory serves"....but memory often seems to fail to serve the old gardener, doesn't it?  I'm always exasperated when I find that I failed to write the name of a plant down or failed to note when I moved it.  I like to call things by name and know where they are.  It is partially a surgeon thing; it's comforting to be able to name the warm and glistening organ beneath your fingertips, and also to know where it should or shouldn't be in a body.  As a gardener, it is especially taxing to me if the plants in question are beautiful and even more if they're a rare and special shade of blue that isn't often seen here.   As Winnie The Pooh often said, "Oh, bother".

These few beautiful iris pop up every year in my "viburnum" bed, protected and shaded during summer beneath a number of roses and viburnums, but they rise early in spring in the dappled shade of the bare stems of the neighboring shrubs.  They are likely Dutch irises (Iris xiphium or Iris hollandica).  Except that I have no memory of planting any Dutch iris here.  I do remember planting some Siberian irises (Iris siberica) in this bed.  And the cultivar names 'Harmony' and 'Sapphire Beauty' ring a distinct bell in the back of my mind.  Except that the latter cultivars are Dutch irises, not Siberian irises.  Oh, bother.  

My planting notes say absolutely nothing about planting anything but tall bearded irises in this border.  In fact, my planting notes say nothing about planting any Siberian irises anywhere in the garden (and I'm sure that I have).  My notes do say that I planted 30 bulbs of the Dutch iris 'Sapphire Beauty' in the "peony" bed in 2006.  That's nice, but there are no iris of any kind in my peony bed.  What happened to all those Dutch iris bulbs in the peony bed?  Internet sources say that they often fade out and disappear, but all of them lost in a few years?  Did a squirrel root them all up and move them to another bed?  That would be a fine theory but there aren't any squirrels (or large trees) within 300 yards of my garden.  Did I write down the wrong name when I noted the planting bed and these are the few survivors of those 30 bulbs? That might make sense, but I seem to recall these iris blooming in this bed long before 2006.  Oh, bother.

I shouldn't care.  They're there and they return and they are beautiful, a sight for sore eyes after a long winter and their quiet tones are much more restful than cheery yellow daffodils or bright forsythia.  I'm darned well going to plant some more around.  Just as soon as I remember what they were.  Oh, bother.

I need to stop saying "oh, bother" too.  I already vaguely resemble Winnie The Pooh as I putter around the garden, tottering slowly from plant to plant.  I avoid bright red t-shirts in the garden for that very reason. Adding "oh, bother" to the mix might further dampen my manly appeal to Mrs. ProfessorRoush.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Mr. Higgin's Folly

Yes, ProfessorRoush has not blogged for quite some time.  January has frankly been dismal here in the Flint Hills, and I've been leery of planning the return of green and glorious landscapes lest I awaken the wrath of the Winter Gods and precipitate another late April snowstorm.

I was rudely roused, however, from my winter slumber this morning when my local paper printed the January 29th column of the esteemed Washington Post garden columnist, Mr. Adrian Higgins.  Mr. Higgins, normally a sensible and knowledgeable garden writer, titled that column Prune Rosebushes in Winter, a bland and partly inaccurate title that led the reader on to eventually crash blindly into the shores of poor rose advice.  Thankfully, Mr. Higgins rambled over the first half of the article, presumably filling column space, before he got to rose care, else the damage done to Washington's roses could have been much worse.

In his last few paragraphs, Adrian opens the rose-related conversation by stating that "roses are inherently sickly, but the vigor of modern hybrids far outpaces their woes."  Apparently, Mr. Higgins is only acquainted with the inbred, over-pampered, disease-susceptible Hybrid Teas and Floribundas of the 1960's-90's, a time when monstrosities such as 'Tropicana' and 'Chrysler Imperial' ruled the rose world, commercialized and hyped to the point of nausea.  He never mentions the hardier roses that our forefathers grew, nor the disease-resistant, sustainable rose shrubs created over the last two decades by breeding programs such as that of the late Professor Griffth Buck, or test programs such as the Earth-Kind® program of Texas A&M University.

Adrian doubles down on his rose ignorance by recommending the annual pruning of all roses to a "goblet of five or six canes...cut back to 18 inches," making no exceptions for once-blooming Old Garden roses, nor for leaving many modern Hybrid Tea and Floribunda cultivars taller or bushier.  My local newspaper compounded the omission by also deleting the last two paragraphs of the original column, where Mr. Higgins briefly mentions pruning exceptions for  "utilitarian landscape roses" such as Knock Out and larger Ramblers.  I appreciate Adrian's demeaning characterization of Knock Out, but his description of appropriate pruning for these ubiquitous blights will only perpetuate the attempts of home landscapers to turn these shrubs into flowering topiary such as elephants with flowering ears.

Adrian, you did well with your recommendations of pruning for once flowering shrubs, shade trees, and hydrangeas, but please, leave rose-pruning advice to those with a broader view of the rose world.  I retire now, left to cope with my resultant nightmares of hacked down 'Madame Hardy' and 'Variegata di Bologna', butchered in their prime in the refined neighborhoods of Washington D. C. because of your need to fill column inches.  Oh, the horror.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Shutdown Absurdity

Friends, in his own opinion, ProfessorRoush has done an exceptional job at Garden Musings, avoiding any mention of politics here over the now 3+ years I've blogged.  Only those who know my tendency to rant over seemingly minute issues can fathom what a struggle that has been, but I'm going to make an exception today.  The dam has broken.  The die is cast.  The Rubicon has been crossed.  The....oh, you know what I mean.

Last night, I was at a Riley County Extension Board meeting and the local Horticultural agent reported that he and the Ag agent had recently seen a new "weed", Tragia sp. and had visited the plant experts at K-State to identify it.  Now, Tragia, also known as NoseBurn,  is not new, since two species have been reported in Kansas, but it's fairly rare and I hadn't seen it before either.  In fact, it's not described at www.kswildflower.org, my go-to Kansas native plant site.

So I pulled out my trusty I-phone and went to http://plants.usda.gov/, where, to my surprise, I received the following message:


 
My Fellow Gardeners, that is way beyond absolutely ridiculous. It tells me clearly that the bureaucrats are playing games.  I'm in a fortunate place in my life, not old enough for Social Security or Medicare, not directly dependent on the Federal government for income, and not planning any trips presently to a National Park.  So I've been personally unaffected by the "Shutdown" and as long as the military and senior citizens get paid, I have enough of a Libertarian streak that I'm happy for the respite from government.   I was a little aggravated yesterday over the news of shutdown of the WWII memorial; I mean, the place is for walking around, do we have to barricade it off?  But to shut down a running informational website?  I understand that the information may not be immediately updated, but I'm sure that I can manage without the absolute latest information on a botanical specimen.  I suppose someone might offer the feeble explanation that no one is around to make sure Server #2115 doesn't overheat and subsequently burn down Washington, but the USDA Plants database isn't the only thing on those servers and I suspect those computer technicians are on the "critical" list of personnel anyway.

Recognize that I'm not pointing a specific finger here.  Blame the Democratic Senators, blame the Tea Party if you want, but they are all representing the people who elected them and we got what we asked for;  stalemate, which is almost as good as not having a government.  Shutting the USDA Plants database down, however, is nothing but a political ploy.  A pox on both their Houses.


Saturday, August 17, 2013

'Knock Out' Purgatory

I suppose that I should have expected it, should have foreseen the horrors. Once 'Knock Out' became ubiquitous in the suburban landscape of America and moved beyond usefulness to cliché,  I should have known that this paradigm-changing rose was inevitably destined to be even more misused, abused, and perverted; to ultimately be used in manners so hideous as to defy the imagination of gardeners born with a vestige of good taste.

I was still shocked, however, to stumble across the mutilated specimens shown here, these professionally scalped and shaped green rectangles and balls that I fleetingly mistook at first glance for privet or yews.  These, my friends, are not evergreens, yews, privet, or box.  I was horrified to realize that these monstrosities were 'Knock Out' roses, identifiable by the sparse murky red blooms visible at the back of the rectangular-shaped specimen.  For a fleeting moment that recognition caused me to reach for my eyes in a fruitless effort to gouge out the offending images from my soul, but alas, I was too late, my sensibilities pushed over into the abyss, plunging into the bottomless pit of 'Knock Out' purgatory.

What was he or she thinking, this misguided landscaper?  I assume this job was "professionally" done since these misshapen demons lay next to the door and walkway of a large medical center whose working doctors and nurses are not likely to moonlight as hedge-trimming psychopaths. But these blobs were even trimmed "wrong" as hedges; the tops and sides wider than the bottom, shading out the lower leaves and destining them to naked stems and thorns.  Why remove the blooms?  'Knock Out' cycles rapidly enough that spent blooms go unnoticed amid the off-red tapestry of current flowers.  Does no one realize the value of orange rose hips for winter appeal?  Where do we go next to misuse this rose?  'Knock Out' topiary?  A nice 'Knock Out' elephant with a red saddle on its back and a red stripe along its trunk?  A 'Knock Out' clown face with bright red hair?

Please, I beg of you, those who just must plant 'Knock Out', at least give it freedom to still be a rose; to branch stiffly and awkwardly, to bloom a spine-grating red shade and to retain dingy orange hips.  Give it the freedom to be more than another green gumdrop in our landscapes.  We've got enough shrubs that can be shaped at will into your favorite football mascot.  If 'Knock Out' it must be, leave them unfettered and free to grow as they were meant to, as random unshaped colorful masses in our lawns.  Please.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

To Trap or Not To Trap

I hope that Shakespeare will forgive me for my corruption of his prose, but that is the million roses question, isn't it?  Conventional wisdom holds that the use of Japanese Beetle-specific traps will increase beetle damage on plants adjacent to the trap sites.  You can find that "wisdom" repeated everywhere, Extension articles, Internet blogs, over and over, accepted and final.

Well friends, ProfessorRoush had a mentor who once said to me "If I wrote that the sky is green in a book chapter of an authoritative text, in 10 years the entire world would be repeating that the sky is green."  Phrases like "conventional wisdom" just raise my hackles, because if we've learned anything from the past millennium, it's that "conventional wisdom" often isn't worth a darn.  If we followed "conventional wisdom," all maps would still be Flat Earth-oriented, we would still believe the Sun revolved around the Earth, the New World would never have been discovered and I wouldn't be trying to garden in the hell-hole of Kansas.

In the throes of anguish that Japanese Beetles have finally reached Manhattan, Kansas, I set out to look at some of the actual research behind the no-trap recommendation, and I can already tell you that the question is far from settled.  Most of the statements that Japanese Beetle-specific traps increase plant damage and don't affect beetle numbers are referenced back to two papers in the Journal of Economic Entomology, 1985 and 1986, authored by F. Carter Gorden and Daniel A. Potter from the University of Kentucky.  The papers indeed reach the referenced conclusions, but if you examine the materials and methods of their research you'll discover the interesting fact that they placed their traps at 1.2 meters above the ground in both studies.  I already knew that a more recent study, by Alm in 1996,  found that a height of 13 cm above the ground was the most efficient trap height, which just happens to also be the average height that Japanese Beatles fly around a garden.  The 1985 and 1986 papers, for those metrically-disadvantaged, had their traps at 120 cm, so, in essence, they were expecting these lumbering insectoid rocks to find the traps approximately 10 times farther off the ground than they normally fly.  Thus science advances gardening.

 I also reviewed a 1998 Journal of Arboriculture paper by Wawrzynski and Ascerno that found that mass trapping over 15 acre area caused a 97% reduction in Japanese Beetles within 4 years.  Consequently, I really question if "conventional wisdom" hasn't been keeping gardeners from using the best tools for this particular job.   Commercial traps that use both floral attractants and pheromone lures are demonstrably effective, and the one pictured here is readily available and performed pretty well in a 2003 report by Alm and Dawson. 

What does that mean for ProfessorRoush's garden?  It means that I'm going to buck the conventional wisdom and trap the bodacious beetles out of my garden for a couple of years to see if I can slow down the Beetle Invasion (For baby boomers, I'm referencing the current Japanese Beetle Invasion as opposed to the 1960's Beatles invasion of the U.S.A).  Based on the research available, I will place my traps as close as possible to the recommended 13 cm height and I will place them at least 30 feet away from the nearest important plant so as not to attract beetles right onto my roses.  I will empty the traps regularly so the dead beetle stench doesn't drive others away and I will make sure the lures stay attached.  I'll let you know how it goes.

I've already caught three hard-shelled fiends that won't be breeding little beetles for next year.  I hope that it is simple logic.  Less breeding, less beetles, more roses.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Purple Leaves Me Crabby

Please listen to ProfessorRoush:  you MUST plan your garden carefully rather than submit to the whims of spontaneous plant purchases and spectacular momentary blooms!  Science suggests that in an infinite number of parallel universes, almost anything can happen.  I'm almost sure, therefore, that somewhere out in the gardening universe, there exists a gardener who plans everything on paper, circles and borders and hardscapes each perfectly sized, and that mythical gardener later proceeds to shop for that clump of 'Stella de Oro' or that purple barberry planned to provide just the right size and color blob for each spot on the plan.  It's even conceivable that in one of those infinite parallel universes, there is a ProfessorRoush who plans his gardens before he plants.  In the rest of those infinite gardens, however, there is a crabby ProfessorRoush who planted too many purple-leaved crabapples.

Like many great artists and gardeners, I have evolved through a number of creative periods; my bedding plants phase, my daylily extravagance, the iris collection mania, the weeping evergreen saga, and my ornamental grasses affair.  My most notorious fleeting passion, however, was a "purple-leafed tree" period, which resulted in an entire front landscaping dominated by dreary dark-burgundy blobs, all individually beautiful, but collectively presenting a distressing and depressing display.  You all know how it happens.  In early Spring, you are seduced at a local nursery to purchase a 'Royalty' crabapple by the perfectly beautiful pinkish-purple blooms as seen above right.  Those claret, delicately-veined blooms are gorgeous, aren't they?  The fact that the plant will have burgundy leaves throughout the summer only adds to its theoretical interest and garden usefulness.  Price doesn't matter, we must have it!

Unfortunately, those burgundy leaves serve as an uncontrasting backdrop for the burgundy flowers and from over a few feet away, the flowers disappear into the foliage. Witness the tree in full bloom pictured at the left.  Now you've just got a dark, dirgeful blob in the lawn, and you're never sure when the plant is in bloom from a distance.  Deep in your addiction phase, now add in a similar 'Red Baron' crabapple purchased before you've learned your lesson, and a 'Canada Red' Prunus candedensis tree with purple leaves, and a Fraxinus americana 'Rosehill' Ash whose leaves turn burgundy in the Fall, and you've accidentally created a doleful landscape in purples.  Thankfully, a copper-red 'Profusion' crabapple died under my care as an infant tree and the 'Canada Red' has since enlisted the Kansas wind in an assisted-suicide pact, both proof that God exists and is attentive to foolish gardeners. 

A little variety, friends, goes a long way in a garden, and so does a little hard-won wisdom.  We've all done it, and those who missed their purple phase likely just substituted a white phase centered around Bradford Pears or suffered some other colorful catastrophe of their own making.  Although I later succumbed to a minor "shaggy-bark" tree infatuation that caused a smaller area of my landscape to appear as if massive dandruff had afflicted all the trees, I learned a substantial lesson during my burgundy fiasco and have since added maples and oaks, magnolias and sycamores, and cottonwoods and elms to the garden.  Given age and actuarial tables, I may never see the mature outcome of these efforts, but perhaps, someday, my landscape may look more like a planned garden and less like a watercolor scene created by a two-year-old with a penchant for purple.  I still don't have a garden plan, and I'm still subject to spontaneous purchases, but I persevere with the knowledge that time and nature will help correct my mistakes.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Lightning Fast App

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."

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...