Dandy Standout

Any ideal hobby should have variety, and gardening seems to have it in spades (yes, pun intended).  Gardens provide variety of species, cultivar, and plant size.  Variety of color, variety in foliage (in fact, some foliage is "variegated"!), variety in season of bloom, and variety of leaf shape, petal shape, and plant form.  Gardeners induce variety (or chaos) themselves by how they site a plant, how they fertilize and care for it, and how they protect it from temperature extremes or insects.

And every season, it seems, some plants seem to decide all on their own to step up and stand out, to shine or sparkle.  This year the first plant to do so seems to be the lilac 'Yankee Doodle', a relatively recently introduced (1985) cultivar of S. vulgaris selected by the late Jesuit priest, Father John Fiala at his farm in Medina, Ohio, the acreage he called Falconskeape.

My 'Yankee Doodle' caught my eye today as I was engaged in my first spring mowing, mowing not so much grass as a crop of rampant henbit, chickweed, and other spring nuisances.  'Yankee Doodle' was planted in 2003 among a line of right lilacs along the west border of the garage pad, a line that perfumes the entire yard if provided the proper temperature and a gentle breezes comes out of the south or west.  My intention at the time of planting it was to both screen out the two-foot tall ugly concrete wall that constitutes the edge of the garage pad, and, to create just the sort of saturated fragrance showstopper that it has become.  My lilacs amply fill both roles.

Most years, 'Yankee Doodle' struggles, lanky, tall, and sparse, its stems prone to borers and breakage, as are the cultivars that flank it, 'Nazecker' to the right and 'Wonderblue' to the left.  I should complain less about them since this bed is labeled "Forsythia Bed" on my maps and contains not a single forsythia, all perished or shovel-pruned for their inconsistent bloom.  This year, somehow, 'Yankee Doodle' bloomed extra-prolifically and it is the most prominent lilac of its immediate group, indeed of the whole line.  It is at the end of its bloom cycle as pictured here, the deepest purple single flowers of lilac-dom faded just a bit here by age and a recent rain.  And yet, still it caught my eye as I mowed, a 'Yankee Doodle' all dandied up and showing off its best side in this, its seemingly random year to stand out.   So now, 'Yankee Doodle' fading, I'm left to wonder what species, what variety, what plain, regularly overlooked plant will step up to be the next Cinderella or Dandy.

And Where Did YOU Come From?

By the question in the title, ProfessorRoush is not trying to be nosy of you, the reader, but of this precocious Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) that suddenly appeared as I was puttering around outside, doing some trimming, some weeding, and a little planting.  I was shocked in the moment, first to see any butterflies at all this early in the season, and then shocked again to have it cooperate for these closeups.

You see, really I was out taking stock of things, because for the past few days, I've been in Washington DC, where I took the photo on the right during some moderate rain and wind at 6:41 p.m. (isn't it amazing that because of phone cameras, I will always know exactly where I was at 6:41 p.m. on Friday, April 11, 2025, because the data is forever embedded with the photo)?  If you're going to walk near the White House, I can now recommend doing it on a chilly, rainy Friday night because the streets were deserted at that hour, no protestors ranting and chanting and messing up my "chill", just a few tourists on the sidewalk and a half-dozen watchful Secret Service and Capital Police agents (that I could see at the time).  I was only sorry the landscaping lights weren't on yet, and, no, I didn't ask to knock on the door and see if President Trump was receiving visitors.

I was also fortunate on Saturday to have my return flight fly directly over near our home, and so, on April 12th at 2:40 p.m., I was able to capture this photo from the window of the plane.   Our home and gardens are in the white circle center left, surrounded by the darkened prairie ground exposed from our burn last week.  Click on the photo to enlarge it (hitting "escape" will then bring you back to the blog).  Mrs. ProfessorRoush was presumably not at home at the time and in route to pick me up.

But I digress.   The Swallowtail that prompted this blog entry (a male, easily gendered by its less colorful "eyes") seemed to be focused on the female holly plant sited on the northeast corner of the house, and the inconspicuous white blooms of the holly.  I didn't read anything about holly being a host plant, but both roses and magnolias are larval hosts for the species and there are plenty of those about.  Other host plants include lilacs and Cottonwood trees and those species are each in my yard as well. 

I was saddened that this specimen seems to have a damaged or missing left "tail", and I hope that won't hinder its search for a mate or its long-term survival.   For what little I know of Swallowtails, this male might also be just out of its chrysalis and maybe it just needs to unfold the left tail, temporarily rather than permanently deformed.  Either way, I wish the little guy luck and happy mate-hunting.  As there are either two or three generations of Tiger Swallowtails in a season, depending on the latitude, the Swallowtails I see in September could be his grandchildren.

The White House, from Lafayette Park, 04/11/2025, 6:41 p.m.

Redbud Respect

ProfessorRoush, is appreciating the multiple Eastern Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) that are this year, if ever-so-briefly, the shining jewels of my world, focal spots of happiness who seldom get the recognition they deserve in the landscape or in print.  In fact, I am taking special notice of redbuds popping, intentionally planted and wild, all over town, bright pink-red blooms beating the crabapples and Bradford pears into bloom and stealing the spotlight from the sparse lime-green Spring foliage of other trees.  Soon, they will fade into the background, underappreciated understory trees lost among their distant lignacious cousins.  

A prominent specimen in my yard, pictured at the left, was a volunteer in my back landscape bed which I have allowed to remain in its self-chosen spot and nurtured to adolescence.  In fact, "nursed" might be a more accurate term than "nurtured", as this tree split into two during a violent windstorm several years back and I braced and bandaged and pruned and healed it to its current form.  Among the many storied uses of Duct Tape, I can add "tree bandage" to the list from personal experience.

Of the 7 or 8 redbuds in my yard, only one was intentionally planted, the aging specimen pictured here at the right, the favorite tree of Mrs. ProfessorRoush and planted just outside the laundry room window. Viewed from the road in front of the house, it frames the right side of the driveway and decorates and anchors the house.  Seen "down the hill" and into the garden, it serves as a complimentary backdrop to the floriferous 'Annabelle' lilac terraced below it, the latter the first of my lilacs to bloom.

 

I have noticed the redbuds especially this year because the fickle Kansas weather preempted and eliminated last year's bloom with a miserably-timed freeze, a not-so-uncommon occurrence that happens here, according to my notes, about one year in five.   A redbud-less Spring is, I can confirm, intensely discouraging, and similarly disheartening in spirit as other dysfunctions of daily life.  Such a depressing interruption of our annual cycle drowns our spirits in disappointment (some choose drowning their disappointment in spirits) while we attempt to sustain some minor hope for the best for next year.  Sine qua non, while the late night television lineup seems packed with commercials of remedies for erectile dysfunction (which it demurely refers to as "ED"), there is no known cure for gardeners who suffer from RD (redbud dysfunction). 

My notes also tell me that the redbuds are blooming early this year, a full 10 days ahead of their average peak.  I originally thought it was a late Spring, but while some species are blooming later than normal (Scilla, daffodils), others seem to be early.  Perhaps the long cold Winter and sudden, extended, warm period in mid-March has compressed the season. Some species and accurate dates, sadly, are often respectively missing or suspect as I am prone to only note early blooming species and choose those notations by whim. And consistently, by late April I fade away and stop recording.  So some years I mention the first blooms of some species and other years I don't record them but have notes of other flowers.   A better system might be to take notes of blooming plants on specific days; the 1st, 5th, 10th, etc. of each month, for example, which might improve accuracy and consistency.

The last two photos here reflect the remaining redbuds in my garden.   On the annual Manhattan Area Garden Tour a decade back, I noted that one homeowner had created a "grove" of redbuds.   Intrigued by the idea, I have collected, over several years, a half-dozen of volunteer redbud seedlings from their birth sites and replanted them beneath a Cottonwood tree at the back of the yard.   Here around the solid garden bench and protected by the Cottonwood, some have grown enough to be noticeable at bloom, and in 5-10 years, I expect this to be a wondrous focal point, full of mystery and life and Spring fairies each year.

Magnificent Magnolification

'Ann' Magnolia

 As nice as it is when my Magnolia stellata recovers from disaster, it's nicer still when my other magnolias burst into bloom with a bountiful floriferous display.   Oh, I know you southern gardeners are quietly laughing behind your masks, sitting there with your Sweet Bay Magnolias and Live Oaks in full display now out your windows, the former casually doling out dinner-plate sized blossoms and filling the air with fragrance, but one takes what one can get.  Particularly, we poor middle Plains dwellers are happy at any "magnolification" of our lives. 

'Ann' Magnolia

My life, or at least my garden, is measurably richer since I discovered the "Little Girl" series of magnolias, eight Zone-4-hardy cultivars released in 1968 by the National Arboretum. Crosses of one of two Magnolia liliiflora cultivars (‘Nigra’ and ‘Reflorescens’) and one of two Magnolia stellata cultivars (‘Rosea’ and ‘Waterlily’), these bloom "approximately two weeks later" than Magnolia stellata.  I, and I presume other Zone 5-6 gardeners, are forever grateful to William F. Kosar and Dr. Francis de Vos, who made these sterile F1 hybrids at the U.S. National Arboretum in 1955 and 1956. 

'Jane' Magnolia

I have only light pink 'Jane' and more deeply red-wine-colored 'Ann' of the series, although I briefly grew 'Susan'  in 2007 and never got her established.  My 'Jane' is a 2008 planting for me, and she grows taller than 'Ann', forming a 10 foot tall by 8 foot wide specimen at maturity.   I planted 'Ann' in 2013 and she's grown into a striking lass of 7 foot tall and 5 feet wide now.  'Ann' is Mrs. ProfessorRoush's favorite among my magnolias, doubtless for the richer color, and she's a little ahead of the forsythia beside her this year.  I have not made a concerted effort to search out the other National Arboretum releases, buying what I find locally when I come across it.

'Jane' Magnolia

All of these 'Little Girl' cultivars grow as clumps rather than trees, although for me, that just means more flowers whenever these escape late freezes.   I'm sure a few mad gardeners out there are trying to train one of them into unnatural single-stemmed forms, but there are twisted gardeners out there among all the other twisted human beings.   My maternal grandmother used to wisely proclaim "there's a fool for every fool," referring usually to couples, but I'd stretch that sentiment to "there's a warped gardener for every unnatural plant."

'Ann' Magnolia

I'm thrilled these two little beauties show only the faintest damage from our cold spell last week, and the near future forecasts show, for once, that they're likely to give me a full season before they fade back into the greenery with all the other foliage.  Both, so far, are hardy and completely trouble-free for me requiring only a bit of trimming of low buds or fencing to keep the deer from nibbling all the tender buds before they open.

Meanwhile, somewhere out there, my 'Yellow Bird' Magnolia is budding up, preparing to take the baton from my "Little Girls" in the massive relay race of deciduous life.  I'm sure another annual 'Yellow Bird' admiration post is just around the bend!

Resilent and Resolute

03/18/2025

As a not-so-fortunate example of the highs and lows of gardening in Kansas, ProfessorRoush will live up to his blogging pseudonym and use the visual effects of this week's weather weirdness on his mature and long-suffering Magnolia stellata as an apt illustration for the enlightment of others.  The reader, likely safely within their own cocoon of warmth and shelter, can receive this blog entry as a message of hope, a cry for help, a non-silent protest of suffering, or as a combination of all three. 

Let's recap, shall we?   The photo above, taken on the evening of 3/18/2025, showed my beautiful Star Magnolia on its first day of full display in 2025, resplendent after a 76ºF day and several previous warm days.  The temperature that evening began to drop around 5 p.m., was still 68º at 10 p.m., and the drop continued overnight and through the next day, supplemented by a cold wind and snow flurries.   By 5:30 p.m. on 3/19/2025, it was 36ºF and my back yard looked like this (the Magnolia is behind the prominent tree on the left):

03/20/2025

By the evening of 3/20/2025, my lovely M. stellata had, indeed and as predicted, turned to brown mush, a muted tableau in the grand view, and a disastrous display of ruined blossoms in the closer view.  Oh, the despair!  Oh, the horror!

Stunning, isn't it, how quickly the fickle fingers of weather can crush the vision and hopes of a gardener, literally freezing out any designs and dreams of a glorious future?  One, indeed, could not blame a gardener who, after such a disappointment, hangs down their head and hangs up their shears.  Nor condemn one who chooses the extreme alternative of a graveled lawn and plastic plants for its low maintenance and absence of heartache.   It would be so easy to withdraw indoors away from such devastation and choose to gluttonously eat an entire chocolate cake or to drink oneself into an uncaring stupor in the aftermath.

The experienced Kansas gardener, and, lo, nearly all Midwestern gardeners, however, are made of sterner stuff, battle-worn and weary, tested but yet undefeated.  Even among the browned petals of lost flowers, one can find hope in the still-closed buds and demure cream-pink hints of beauty-to-come.

03/22/2025

And here it is, two days later, after a sunny day of a 62ºF high and in the midst of a 2nd sunny day at 66ºF, back to blooming like there was no yesterday and because it knows there may be, in fact, no tomorrow.  But there is, at the end of even the worst day, always hope that if a tomorrow comes, it will be filled with warmth and sunshine and calm, heaven descended to ground and peace on Earth for all creatures verdant or vital.

Brown Mush Incoming

 Our recent week-long warm spell of 60F-75F converted what I anticipated as a delayed Spring and a to-be-continued uniformly bland landscape into a bland landscape punctuated with exciting bits of color.  Pray ye heed, I plead, not to notice the Henbit at the base of the sunny daffodil and crocus here.  Although I've mowed off some ornamental grasses and peonies and irises, I'm far behind on my chores.

I saw, to my surprise, my first daffodil open on March 16th, in the back landscaping as glimpsed from my windows, and yet even several more on March 18th, the day I took all of the pictures here.   The last time I looked closely, just before our trip to Southern California, they had barely still broken ground and no flower buds were visible.  And after the sub-zero nights of mid-February, I didn't expect them yet.

I had an inkling, however, that my garden was beginning to stir from winter slumber on March 15th, Sunday, as I discovered and swooned over the first open bloom of my Star Magnolia, experiencing an unexpected moment of joy and nearly overdosing on its musky, heady scent.  I was entirely unprepared however to find that only 3 days later the shrub had exploded with a massive display of the purest white, matched with an intoxicating fragrant region anywhere downwind.  I took these last night, enticed to venture down to the garden by this surprising cloud of creamy goodness.

I wait, annually, for the Star Magnolia (Magnolia stellata) to announce the onset of Spring, dependent on it as my herald of the season, and this year it surely did not disappoint me, loudly proclaiming the new Spring to the Kansas heavens.   Unmatched in virginal purity, these blossoms live "rent-free" in my dreams, the very essence of garden beauty and the promise of another year.   I wrote previously about the grace of a fellow gardener suffering from terminal cancer, wishing only to live to plant in another Spring.  My recurring winter wish is similarly specific, to see again each year the daffodils and smell the Star Magnolia.

This year, the Star Magnolia iss accentuated by the nearby bushes of 'Meadowlark' Forsythia, blooming as never before.   You can see them as a backdrop to the magnolia on the photo at right, or alone, below, in all their golden glory.   My other forsythia are more shy at present, not willing to risk the fickle whims of Spring, but 'Meadowlark' has bravely chosen this moment to shine.

Of course, the minor bulbs are popping up everywhere, my beloved Scilla spreading naturally over broader areas of several beds.   Large Dutch crocus are dwindling survivors for me, and daffodils persist as clumps, multiplying and needing division, but Scilla have naturalized in my garden, spreading everywhere that offers any protection from the harsh Kansas sun, at the feet of peonies and daylilies and roses, or merely in the more welcoming eastern- and northern-exposed beds.

Alas, I write in the sure knowledge that all this beauty and bright color is but a transitory mirage, a shifting and soon-to-disappear vision that will recede under the onslaught of the Arctic wind outside my window at this moment.   Yesterday's high temperature was 79F and it was still 68F at midnight last night.  Temperatures fell steadily through the night however, and I woke to 36F at 6 a.m. and the gales of a blizzard bearing down on our area and promising snow today, a low of 29F tonight and a certain death to the fragile Star Magnolia blossoms. By tomorrow, each creamy petal will begin to brown and droop, just brown mush and death, lost opportunities for early bees and whining gardeners.   

My 'Ann' Magnolia, wiser and less daring than M. stellata, has opened but a single flower at present, and I can only hope she continues to delay her debut at the annual Spring Ball.  Patience, in Spring as much or even more than other seasons, is a virtue for both the garden and the gardener. 

San Diego Zoo Safari Park Bonsai Pavilion

Today, ProfessorRoush would like to apologize in advance for leading his captured audience on yet another set of vacation photos, but in the place of more brown Kansas landscapes, I wanted to share my recent admiration of a semi-ancient garden art form; Bonsai!

On my grandson's birthday last week, Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I found ourselves in sunny Southern California, trying to keep up as the family walked through the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.  At the limits of grandparent endurance, far from the park entrance and in the back reaches of the "Outback", I was delighted to come across the Bonsai Pavilion created and maintained by the San Diego Bonsai Club.  The Pavilion opened in 1987 and is touted as the first and largest Bonsai display in the Western United States.

The Bonsai Pavilion consists of a long gallery of individual Bonsai pieces, each labeled by the tree species and with the creator's name.  I didn't count them, but there were at least 50 and perhaps up to 100 individual specimens, each displayed at eye level on an individual stone table and contained in a solemn and quiet "room" with the occasional cough of a distant tiger to break up the sense of peace. 

I'm always astonished at the beauty of Bonsai, and always tempted to take up the art form, but as the basic requirements are some moderate degree of artistic sense and a PhD in patience, I'm simply destined to fail.  Still, appreciation and admiration for the messages in each piece could have kept me rooted at the site for hours.

I've added two "vistas" of the overall Bonsai display garden as the first two photos above, and followed it by photos here of several impressive specimens with different forms and techniques illustrated.

There was an equally impressive variety of species represented in the garden, with multiple representatives of both evergreen and deciduous forms, and each specimen making maximum use of the individual bark and leaf characteristics of the individual tree.

Here at left was one of my favorites of the day, this "grove" of trees mimicking and illustrating an entire forest in a small area.   

And, at right, I wanted to convey a small illustration of the technique of Bonsai, in this case the rock suspended on the tree, weighting down and slowly bending a branch into the artist's chosen position.

All in all, whenever you chance to visit the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and you find yourself staring at the park map, wondering if the distance and climb to the botanical displays are worth it, my advice is to reach deep down inside to gather your energy and strength and to stumble, limp, or simply crawl, if you must, to reach it but I promise the reward is worth the pain!   My compliments to the San Diego Bonsai Club!

Hello March!

My, my.  Already beginning the third month of the year and ProfessorRoush has not, until today, touched a single finger to keyboard on behalf of this blog.  I've not been so absent from these pages since, well since before I began to blog, 14 years past, and yet, I feel only a minuscule degree of remorse or indolence.

It was a brutal winter here in Kansas, my friends; a monstrous, cruel, merciless season ruled by snow and ice and wind that drove, until this week, all thoughts of my garden and any plans for spring from my mind.  Central Kansas received several one-in-a-decade snows, with one early January beast dropping 15 inches here, the 4th deepest snowfall on record, shutting down transportation for days and burying the garden in drifts that took nearly a month to completely disappear.  Add on a week of continual below-zero Fahrenheit temperatures in mid-February and an absolute low of -15ºF one night, and I wonder if there will even be a garden this year.  

My garden today is nearly lifeless, and its focal points are now garden ornaments laid flat by blizzards (at top), still-red canes of roses that show no signs yet of revival (above), and the tight buds of dormant lilacs, however promising the latter may be (at right). I haven't begun my traditional garden-bed-clearing, at least two weeks later now than normal, but then, the garden itself is at least 3 weeks behind its normal patterns.  

Winter Jasmine

There are a couple bits of evident life out there, however.   I found a lonely, yet bright, spot of singular sunshine with two adjacent unabashedly bright yellow blooms at the base of a south-exposure-oriented clump of Winter Jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum), as pictured at left.  Also, several daffodil clumps can be found timidly poking out of the still-frozen ground, brave, yet foolhardy, pioneers into the 2025 growing season (below).   That's it at present.  No Puschkinia, no White Forsythia, not even a single hint of Scilla (which bloomed last year, according to my notes, on February 24th!).

Daffodils!

weeds! (aarrggg!)

I'm currently choosing to overlook the weeds, as they do as weeds do, madly bursting forth everywhere in a fervid attempt to cover any bare ground and reproduce.  There is never rest for a gardener, and the endless wars of order versus chaos continue with renewed vigor each spring. 

As I wrote these few paragraphs, taking longer-than-normal because evidently I'm out-of-practice (and apparently subconsciously going for a hyphenation record here today), I can testify that, glancing to my left out the window, I was thrilled to see a bright blue male bluebird flitting about the front garden, likely fresh from his migration flight and ready to choose a nest and mate. 

Blest be ye, Bluebird, and blest be thy brood as the days begin to warm.