Sporadic Spring

'Morden 6910'

ProfessorRoush admits, woefully, wistfully and wantonly, that this Spring season is definitively not living up to is hopes and dreams and expectations.  That early promise of so many buds on the redbud trees and lilacs so quickly turned to dust after a harsh and untimely freeze, and nothing yet in the garden is living up to the promises made in early March. 

'Morden 6910' (foreground) & 'Harison's Yellow' 

Even after I dismissed my anticipation for magnolias, lilacs, daffodils, redbuds, and Puschkinia, I maintained it for the waves of roses, peonies, and flowering shrubs to come, but so far, nothing is yet living up to my desires.  Roses are blooming sporadically and sparsely, one bloom at a time, while others wait.  Lactiferous peonies, normally dependable mass spectacles here, are also either sparsely budding or begrudgingly offering only single blooms one by one.  Even the Itoh peonies this year,  including my established bright yellow 'Yumi' and 'Bartzella', are withholding their masses of cheerful color.

'Nightmoss'

There are still a few bright spots, but I'm receiving only mild consolation from them.  Yes, 'Harison's Yellow' (above) put on a still-ongoing show, doing its best to make up for the shortcomings of its neighbors.  And I've been delighted by the large, single-flowered, bright red blooms of 'Morden 6910' on my still-young plant (above and top).  I hope that one has a good third season of growth ahead of it!  And the purple, Paul Barden-bred, moss rose 'Nightmoss' gave me a few scrumptious blooms in its 2nd year (right).  I love that deep moody purple!

unknown Itoh peony

There are the usual "surprises" also, those first blooms on new plants that I planted and forgot.  This peony,front and center on the walk to my front door, managed two blooms on a very small plant (left), and it's beautiful, but I have no record of planting it.  It is obviously an Itoh hybrid, but which one?  If I got it from Van Engelken, it is most likely 'Julia Rose', but it is much too gold-colored as it ages (below right) to confirm that identity.  Other than that, I don't have a clue of its provenance.  My frustrations and joys are mixed, as always.

unknown Itoh peony, aged

At this point, I don't know what to expect for the rest of the year, and it is only mid-Spring.  My daylilies, killed to the ground in the late freeze, have all grown back and look healthy, but was their bloom period affected?  I just don't know. The Orientpet, Asian, and Oriental lilies all look good right now, healthy and tall and starting to bud, but it only takes one good storm with lots of wind to change their outcome.  Yes, I stake them, some of them, but I can only do so much. As always, the nature of a Kansas garden is subject more to the whims of weather than to the intent of its gardener.

Is It or Isn't't?

'White Gardenia'

ProfessorRoush almost wrote the title as "Is it or Isn't It?"   Looking it up, it seems there is much debate over the use of "isn't", or "is not".  What I really mean, minus the contractions, is "Is it,?" or "is it not it?", so the use of the second "'t" seems sensible to me.   But, then, "isn't't" only saves a couple of letters and cannot be found online, so I think I've slipped the surly bonds of English and need to come back to Earth.  

'White Gardenia'

Similarly, my parsimonious nature has caused a matter of great controversy in my garden.  Three summers ago, I bought a bag of bargain peony roots (containing two roots) labeled as 'White Gardenia', a peony that I didn't have in my garden.  I suspected a scam from the outset, as big box stores seem to be prone to offering common and popular plant varieties labeled as something else, something new, and also because the store was selling another peony variety labeled 'Red Gardenia', which doesn't seem to exist.  I purchased them only after confirming that 'Gardenia' exists, the latter a 1949 introduction by Lins.  It is, by description, a very floriferous Paeonia lactiflora variety with 6+ inch blossoms of pure white and a strong Gardenia scent.

'White Gardenia'

Both my purchased specimens survived and have slowly built themselves into a nice clump, blooming just now.  However, the presence of a few red streaks on the blossoms makes me wonder, "Did I purchase two, more common 'Festiva Maxima' varieties, or the intended 'Gardenia'?  My identification woes are complicated by the fact that some online sources describe 'Gardenia' as "a fragrant, ivory-white peony cultivar with 6+ inch flowers featuring blush-pink outer petals and red-tinged tips", and by the fact that I can't distinguish the fragrance of gardenia from peony, having few, if any chances to experience a real gardenia aroma in this Zone 5 area.  I  will admit that the fragrance of these blossoms is lighter, and more pleasant, than most peonies, and that the blossoms are larger than 'Festiva Maxima'.  Online images of 'Gardenia' are also not helpful, as a few, but not most, show the red streaks similar to my specimens.

'White Gardenia' ???

I'm reasonably suspicious, however, that these are in fact, the historic 1851 'Festiva Maxima' cultivar, based on the fact that these plants lack the red stems that all online sources ascribe to 'Gardenia', and because the described pink blush is missing from all of the blossoms on both my plants.  Also, these plants are blooming at the same time as my established 'Festiva Maxima'.   Now, the question is, is my big box store source to blame, or are these two cultivars mixed up in commerce these days?

'Coral Sunset'

You are probably thinking that I shouldn't care; I should just be grateful to have two healthy peonies in my landscape.  But the "plant collector" part of me just can't let it go.   Thank God, my 'Coral Sunset' purchased in the same manner and around the same time, seems to be exactly that!

Nyctinasty

Quit yer giggling, some of you! "Nyctinasty", or "nyctinasties" in its plural form, is not etymologically based where you're thinking, but on the root word "nastic"; of, relating to, or constituting a movement of a plant part caused by disproportionate growth or increase of turgor in one surface.  "Nyctinasty", a new word for ProfessorRoush's vocabulary, is the term for the circadian movement of plants (such as the closing of flowers or reorientation of a leaf position) that occurs in response to changes in light intensity and temperature.  This circadian rhythm is carried out by by a special organ in some plants named the "pulvini", a swelling at the base of a petiole or petiolule.  

For those "in the know", as you now are, nyctinasty differs from tropism, which is the term for plant movement in response to growth stimuli, such as when sunflowers follow the sun.

'Prairie Moon' at night

I was prompted to look up and learn the proper label for the phenomenon because I noticed for the first time, that when the peony 'Prairie Moon' blooms, it closes its flowers each evening; something I learned out of frustration one night when I thought, "hey, 'Prairie Moon' is probably blooming at its peak and I should get a picture and blog about it."  Needless to say, I learned something new that very night about this cultivar after its many years in my garden, and I had to go back the next morning to photograph its open and voluptuous blossoms.   The photos here in this blog entry were taken the same day; the "open" photos at 3:25 p.m. and the "closed" at 7:38 p.m.   Interestingly, in my blog about 'Prairie Moon' on 5/3/2023, there are photos of both closed and open states, but I was evidently curiously incurious about the process then.

If you read the Wikipedia entry for nyctinasty, it will veer into a sleep-inducing paragraph of phytochromes and protein Pr and PFr states and potassium gradients, but all those subcellular processes add up to the fact that in the pulvini, water moves into the lower cells (ground-sided), swelling them and closing the petal. Wikipedia also tells me that an alternative mechanism exists through hydrolysis of bioactive glycosides.  I am fortunate to have a scientific education that helps me understand all this, but I am also fortunate that understanding the process doesn't diminish the wonder and "awe" of it for me.  "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork": Psalm 19:1 KJV.

'Prairie Moon' midday

Online sources theorize that nyctinasty is likely a response to preserve pollen, decrease nightly predation, and minimize temperature decreases and water loss at night.   It occurs in many plants, but I haven't see Paeonia listed among those.  Most legumes close their leaves at night.  Flowers that close at night include daisies, California poppy, Lotus, Rose-of-Sharon, Magnolia, Morning glory, and Tulips.  Some flowers, pollinated by moths or bats exhibit nyctinastic flower opening at night (for example the Nicotiana).

Anyway, now you know.  If you're looking for me at dusk, at least for a few weeks, you'll find me in the garden looking for nyctinastic behavior in other peony species.  I think 'Prairie Moon' may be unique in that respect, at least in my garden.

Truncated Spring

Merely a few weeks back, on March 14, I wrote a blog full of hope for a gradual and beautiful Spring. "Irrepressible Spring", I titled it.  At the time, we'd had warm weather and it looked like everything was in place for a gradual, unprecedented garden year.  The plants were all greening and budding up.  Redbuds and lilacs looked like I've never seen before.  To borrow the style of our current President, "no one in Kansas has ever seen anything like it before, it was going to be spectacular!" 

It turns out that Spring can he suppressed. Now I'm reminded of Euripides; "Deus quos vult perdere, dementat prius", which Google translates as "God first drives mad, those he wants to destroy."  One very cold night about two weeks ago, as in my last blog, my hopes turned to dust, to browned buds of yet-unborn flowers and shriveled leaves. Early growth on the roses was wiped out, daylilies were killed down to the ground, and most buds on lilacs browned and fell off.  My redbuds never bloomed, nor did the forsythia to any great degree.  The bloom of Magnolia stellata I featured in the previous blog is, alas, the only one I am to see or smell this year.  To give you some idea of the losses, the picture at left is Magnolia 'Jane' just 3 days ago, a few stray buds blooming near the ground, nearly every other bud on the bush a dried and shriveled husk. 

Of all my lilacs, only 'Declaration', a Syringa hyacinth cultivar, bloomed in any abundance, an entertaining treat to the bumblebee as pictured above.  Three or 4 years old, it struggles in a dry summer, but is now repaying my efforts to periodically give it some extra water.  I'll gladly accept its tribute to my toils.

Paeonia tenuifolia, the Fern-leaf Peony, survived the cold, which didn't surprise me now because I know the delicate foliage hides a resilient nature.  A month ago, this clump was 6 inches high and the new foliage felt like velvet, its promise still curled against the cold.  Now it blooms alone in my front landscape; a bright red remedy for a broken heart.  

Of all my Magnolias, only the blooms of tardy 'Yellow Bird' survived the frozen night.  Now, it lights up the back yard, the only sign of its struggles perhaps that its yellow hues are a little lighter  than in previous years, at least it made it through the cold.  A lot of my Spring optimism rides with 'Yellow Bird' each year, so I'm thankful to see that its delayed timing strategy worked once again.

Now, I bide my time, waiting to see what recovers; to discover what will develop and flower normally and what may still yet be affected.  The peony, rose and daylily seasons come in rapid waves of succession soon, and, chastened, I hold no anticipation now that all will be normal in the year to come.  I merely will wait and hope the garden will provide.