I Was In The Wrong Place

I suddenly realized yesterday that I'd been looking for Monarch butterflies to show up for years in the wrong place. And it has unfortunately started an "earworm".   

♫ I been in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time. 

I'd have said the right thing, but I must have used the wrong line. ♫

Thank you, Dr. John (Malcolm John Rebennack, 1940-2019)!   

Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) 

You see, friends, Manhattan Kansas is near one of the major migration routes for Monarch butterflies, and I know that, but I could never figure out why I didn't come across more than an occasional one.  Every year, when I bushhog the pasture in late June, I take special care to go around and preserve a large area of native milkweed that first cropped up on disturbed prairie soil from when we built the "barn".  I always hoped that it would draw the monarchs down from the heavens during their Southern migration period, but, watching for them, I seldom saw any.

Western Ironweed (Vernonia baldwinii)

I was out again yesterday on the bushhog, cutting down some summer forb overgrowth, particularly a few patches of Western Ironweed (Vernonia baldwinii), and stopped immediately when I saw the cloud of butterflies feasting on the delicate purple blooms.  Whites, Sulphurs, Skippers, Fritillaries, Monarchs, Swallowtails; they were all out feeding in the early hot afternoon. 

Western Ironweed closeup 

Of course, being butterflies, they wouldn't sit still or let me near them, so I captured these images on 5X from a distance.  I was especially proud to catch the Monarch and Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) captured on the same plant (top right), and both nearly in focus!

Jim Mason's Pocket Guide to Common Kansas Butterflies is a great online resource for butterfly identification, and shows valuable "folded" wing pictures of most entries, but it couldn't help me with this one! 

I've never read that Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) feed on Western Ironweed before. Veronia sp. are included in a rather long list of  "adult food sources" on the Monarch butterfly Wikipedia page, but so are half the other plants in my area.   Otherwise known as Baldwin's Ironweed, it is a common invasive weed on the prairie, and cattle won't eat it (which means deer won't eat it either!).  Now that I know it is an important nectar plant, I'll have to let clumps grow in my landscape in the future.  

Gratefully, Fall

After a hard summer of rampant garden growth (accompanied by rampant weed growth), and all the incumbent lawn-mowing that accompanies abundant rain, ProfessorRoush is more than ready for Fall and the garden is finally signaling that it agrees with me!    

In late August, we finally got the heat spell we normally get in July and the rain spigot shut down and the daytime temperatures reached >100ºF for a solid week and more.  The garden and lawn responded by ceasing growth, and the gardener of my garden (i.e. ProfessorRoush) breathed easier and skipped a couple of mowings.  In the style of the Old Testament or a Cecil de Mill's epic, one could say "A sigh of relief went up throughout the land."   That was the overwhelming feeling that I had, despite the heat wave and mini-drought, and I felt that the prairie was nodding alongside me.

Two weeks later, and the garden has changed.  The green hues are mixing with ochre and umber, and the prairie bluestem grass is beginning to withdraw nutrients from leaves.  It is cooler again now, the nights appreciably so, and we are likely weeks from the first frost, but you can feel the change in the air and see it in the plants.  Rain returned with the cold front, and I'll soon have to mow again, but I'm now sure that soon the first frost and cold nights that follow will rescue me.

The Sedum telephinum pictured on this blog entry is blooming merrily pink now, another sure sign of Fall's impending onset.  As you can see, it is attracting and nourishing these bumblebees, a final gift from the garden flora to its fauna.  This variety is either 'Black Jack' or 'Purple Emperor', which were planted near each other on my garden map.  I'm inclined to think it is the latter due to its height ('Black Jack" reaches 18-24", while 'Purple Emperor' only reaches 12 inches tall) despite the fact that this plant has not yet turned as dark maroon as either should eventually get.   Further evidence is that there is a nearby, shorter dark sedum and if that one is 'Purple Emperor', then they are planted in the same sequence as my map.  We'll call it 'Black Jack' anyway.

I've just had my first Sunday afternoon nap in weeks, another gift from the garden, and yet another sign that Fall, and inevitably Winter, are just around the corner.  The prairie winters are rough, but they are a needed respite from the frantic days of summer, and I'm grateful for now as the seasons progress.  And yet still sure that in a mere few months, I'll be reborn alongside the garden, and just as surely ready to embrace Spring.  I don't know where the bumblebees go in Winter, but I bet they will be eager for Spring too, stoked on Fall's larder after a long Winter's nap. 

Loss & Acceptance

What is that time-honored saying again?  "If you can't beat them, join them?"  Okay, Lord, I'm beaten down to my marrow and I want to move past it. I'm ready to join up, to "go with the flow," to swim alongside rather than against the current.

If you were wondering what happened to ProfessorRoush and this blog over the past 6 weeks, there is a simple answer.  Mother Nature won.

She beat me.  The abundant, incessant rains that Kansas usually doesn't receive in July and August came despite all expectations, and the prairie grass remains green and rapidly growing, verdant and lush, vibrant even as the end of August nears.  During 27 years living here, on this plot of prairie, I've never before seen the Big Bluestem this tall, the "turkey feet" seedheads reaching above my head in places (photo left). Simply staying ahead of the lawn and keeping the yard mowed has consumed all my free time, and the garden and this blog (and ProfessorRoush) have suffered accordingly.  In a normal Kansas summer, in late July and August, the faucet closes and the flora slows down its growth and browns, reducing mowing chores to an every-other-week (or sometimes even longer) cycle.  At times, even at every-other-week frequency, I normally can barely see the difference between mowed and unmowed areas.

Not this summer.   This summer mowing the lawn was a weekly occurrence and continues to be, the grass so high each week that I am timing mowings between rains merely to be able to keep the house visible.  Okay, that's a little literary sprinkling of hyperbole, but I'm nearing my limits on seeing the bright side of the rains.  In fact, I have been tempted to start mowing twice each week, but I was unable to work in any extra mowing when the grass was almost continuously wet with rain or heavy morning dew.  I certainly have no trouble seeing the mowing lane edges this year and I should be bagging the cuttings lest they smother the lawn. And the mushrooms!  So many huge mushrooms sprouting from the rich prairie soil!

Consequently, my occasionally orderly landscape is a complete shambles, taken over by Morning Glory and Common Dayflowers, the former climbing up everything including the spent yucca seedheads (above right) and the latter (left) covering and smothering any small plants.  I've crawled over my beds twice this summer already, literally on my hands and knees, at eye level with the invaders, literally engaged in hand-to-weed conflict and they've simply outgrown me, outlasted me.  Now, in late August, I simply have surrendered the garden to the heat and my despair.

My grief over the condition of my garden, however, is nearing its end, denial long past, anger spent, bartering for more garden time ended, depression easing as the forecast clears.  I find myself, at last, ready to embrace and accept the chaos of my climate circumstances.  The soft blue Morning Glories have won me over, reflecting the Kansas sky back from the earth.  I am patient now, content to await the return of fall, hoping for better-than-usual red hues in that Big Bluestem. There is ultimately a quiet wisdom in acceptance, a simplicity that allows more sleep, a freedom from outer world concerns.  My new motto; "If you can't beat them, then accept them for all their beauty."   
 

Ralph's Striped Rugosa

Third time is, indeed, a charm!  Or the fourth, or the fifth attempt, perhaps, I've lost track.  I've tried and tried to establish a 'Moore's Striped Rugosa' in my garden, but I failed a couple of times to even get it to the end of summer and only once was able to overwinter it.  Until now.

I have coveted this rose for more than a decade, and ordered it a number of times, planting it out at various sites in my garden and hoping to see it bloom.  I would like to blame all my failures on the seemingly-weak constitution of this rose, but truthfully, it is not likely to be the fault of  the rose, but that of its gardener. At least once, I recall that a rodent pruned the rooted band to a leafless twig before I could even plant it and another time deer consumed it down to ground level.  And more than once, I recognize that I should have watered it more during the hot Kansas summer, which is my failure, not the rose.  As I stated, I lost one specimen that made it through a Kansas winter, only to die in its second winter.

But, last year I ordered it again (from Rogue Valley Roses, I believe) and planted it close to the house where I could watch it, and in a spot of full sunshine with a little evening shade, and I surrounded it with a sturdy chicken-wire cage to provide some deer protection, and I gave it plenty of extra water.  It gave me a few stingy blooms and it sulked, but it stayed alive into fall.  And then I waited anxiously through the first winter.

Now it is blooming for the 2nd time this year, and it looks healthy, so I'll tell you about it.  'Moore's Striped Rugosa' was a 1987 breeding by the esteemed rosarian Ralph Moore, known to many as the "Father of Miniature Roses" because of his many miniature rose introductions and his Sequoia Nursery breeding program.  It wasn't introduced to commerce until 2005 as 'MORbeauty' and it is too new to be mentioned in Suzy Verrier's Rosa Rugosa or other rose anthologies.  Once I learned of it though, I had to try it.  You know my love of striped roses!

The fully double, 25-35 petal blooms are striped magenta and cream, with a magenta-red reverse side to the petals, and, according to helpmefind/rose, it is hardy to Zone 5B, so it could be, and likely is, of marginal survivability in my garden in a bad winter.  Blooms come in clusters, and, at least for my young bush, repeat blooms are slow to develop.  The bush grows to 4 feet wide and tall, but mine is only at 1.5 feet midway into its second season.  In its favor, the mildly rugose foliage of 'MORbeauty' is blackspot free, dark green, and healthy.  The only downside I can see to its Hybrid Rugosa heritage is that it inherited the delicate, crepe-y texture of a Rugosa's petals, making them easily susceptible to sun and rain damage.  You can see the slight damage I'm talking about on the photos displayed here if you look closely.

As the very first striped Hybrid Rugosa, 'Moore's Striped Rugosa' certainly is a novelty, but I sincerely hope it grows better and blooms more floriferously for you than it has for me.  As for me, I will just wait again, anxious through a 2nd winter, and then the next, and the next, and so on.

Lily Extravanganza 2

Orienpet 'Anasthasia'

Wherein, we continue last week's display of various Oriental & Orienpet lilies and some new (to me) daylilies.  Again, I'll let the photos mostly speak for themselves.  We begin with gigantic Orienpet 'Anasthasia' at right.  So fragrant! Wowsa!

'Baferari'

Baferari  is a white/yellow Oriental blooming for me for the first time.  A website describes it thusly: "Highly fragrant Oriental lily known for its large, 8-inch, star-shaped blossoms. It features pristine white petals accented by a striking pale lemon-yellow starburst, chartreuse veins, and cinnamon-colored anthers."

'Trahlyta'

I'm personally rather partial to the lavender tones of 'Trahlyta'.

'Indian Giver'

Both the name and the white-rimmed appearance of 'Indian Giver' tickle my fancy. 

'Double Pardon Me'

Pardon me, if I superficially introduce you to daylily 'Double Pardon Me'.  The red glows more when the ambient temperature isn't quite as hot.

'Rising Moon'

'Rising Moon' is an apricot and profusely-blooming Orienpet lily in my front beds that I added last Fall.

'Wisteria'

Going to finish with a trio of delicately-colored daylilies:  'Wisteria' (recurved and sometimes-lavender), 'Julianna Lynn' (the most delicate and pale pink blush possible), and 'White Formal' (not-so-white), all from my front bed.  Enjoy!

'White Formal'

'Julianna Lynn'

 


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Beetle Update

Some of you may be wondering if you have missed my annual tirade against Japanese Beetles, but never fear, they have arrived.  I saw my first beetle of the year at the KSU garden during the Garden Tour on 6/20/2026, and my first beetle in my own garden, on 'Blanc Double De Coubert', on 6/25/2026. 

I was able to spray Sevin® on all the roses on 6/28/2026, and the picture above are a few already-pesticide-anointed beetles who were happily munching on a former bloom of 'Therese Bugnet'.  I am risking my good Karma saying this, but I hope they all die writhing in agony and are transported immediately to the gates of Hell, where they belong.

Lily Extravaganza 1

'Casablanca', 'Yellow Dream', &Orienpet 'Purple Prince'

 ProfessorRoush wanted to title this "Lily Porn 1", but the term "porn" is so over-used these days as a description for any collection of photographs that one can gaze at until they lose their soul. "Extravaganza", meaning a "lavish or spectacular show or event" is so more apropos, don't you agree?

The "event" here is that my mixed daylily and Orienpet lily border is blooming "spectacularly", beyond my wildest dreams, and I just have to show you!  So the next two blog entries, will be primarily visual and drool-worthy, at least if you can overlook the volunteer weeds and morning glory about to choke everything out.  I need to blog less and weed more!

These are all in what I term my "front left" bed, a cover for the brick wall of the side-facing garage.  There is no carefully-thought-out plan here, I simply keep planting lily bulbs here, for summer fragrance and color.  And, woo boy, did they deliver!

Some of my favorite daylilies are here; 'Beautiful Edgings' (above), which I believe is the most beautiful daylily of all, appearing to be surface-dusted with diamonds at times, and bright orange 'Alabama Jubilee' (left) to pop out from the crowd, and delicate 'Julianna Lynn' (next week!). 

Orienpet 'Robina'

The daylilies alternate and contrast with some of the most beautiful, statuesque lilies imaginable.  Oriental lily 'Yellow Dream' is one of my favorites and dependably returns and proliferates every year. I've added the white Oriental 'Casablanca' (last photo below) to this area, and a number of Orienpet lilies to this area, with the vivid pink 'Robina'  my new favorite.  

Here is 'Robina' centered in blooms of  'Alabama Jubilee'.  Are these colors clashing?  Inquiring minds want to know. I think they invigorate each other! 

Oriental Lily 'Casablanca'

I'll show you more of the individual plants and the overall in "Lily Extravaganza 2" coming next week!  In the meantime, take another look here at these photos and click on them to see the full photos; drooling is permitted. 

The Actual 2026 Garden Tour

 I'll continue with pictures from the actual 2026 Garden Tour, which was yesterday.  The forecast rain held off, the sun came out, and the temperatures were in the mid-70's, making it the best weather for the tour in my 19 years of witness.  And them last night the sky opened up and 3 inches of rain fell!  Again, I will let these pictures (all unedited, save one) speak (mostly) for themselves:  

If you're going to grow scarlet Bee Balm, there is much to be said for a mass planting!  Go big or go home!

This house had a nice porch wrapping around 3 sides of it; I'll show you one side, for envy's sake.  Want!

Sometimes it's just about the flowers.

This birdhouse is at the home of a native Austrian and models, in miniature, the mountain homes of that area.

 

In this shade garden, with the white Loosestrife backdrop, this bench is calling.

And to finish, this piece taught me that I need to use more reds and scarlets in my own garden;  see it pop!

Garden Envy activated: I wish these were all part of my garden!

37th Annual Manhattan Area Garden PreTour

 The 2026 Extension Master Gardener's Manhattan Area Garden Tour is tomorrow, June 20, from 8:30 a.m. through 1:00 p.m.  I am not going to bore you with a bunch of text here, but will let the pictures speak for themselves.  I am not even going to tell you which gardens these are from as I prefer that you attend the show and find them for yourselves!  As the unofficial photographer, I took these photos (selected from a total of 456 photos) Thursday evening at the Pre-Tour when EMG's get to see the 5 featured private gardens (The K-State Gardens make a sixth site annually).  Of the 456 photos taken last night, 388 made my cut or were worth saving and I think these nine shown below are the best, for both garden interests and art.  

(Okay, I will disclose that the last three photos are at the K-State Gardens, and represent a fabulous variegated Hibiscus, a new statue I hadn't previously seen, and the Garden's latest major project, the newly completed reflecting pool.)