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.)

Helpful Anonymouses

Aesculus x carnea 'Fort McNair'

ProfessorRoush began this entry desiring merely to thank an anonymous reader, or readers, for their comments to help me identify my mislabeled "Ain't Red Horsechestnut", which I purchased as the cultivar 'Briotti', but which is obviously not deep-red-toned enough to be that variety.  A helpful reader (or readers) has suggested its identity to be the more common and more pale 'Fort McNair' cultivar, (Aesculus x carnea 'Fort McNair') and, looking at pictures everywhere, I agree with, and greatly appreciate, that input.

Along the writing path, however, I deviated a number of times, diving into bottomless canyons and meandering off onto fruitless detours.  Most pertinently, I wondered whether to refer to my anonymous benefactor(s) as a singular entity or plural, so I tried to determine the correct verbiage for multiple anonymous individuals through an internet search.  Take my advice, my Gardening Friends, and never, ever, choose to walk down that wayward path.  

Aesculus x carnea 'Fort McNair'

As gardeners, we may disagree over the correct pronunciation of Kniphofia (is it nip-HOE-fee-uh or ny-FOE-fee-ah?), and I myself cannot switch the internal voice in my head from "Herb" to "erb", but we are nowhere near the incompatibility of the run-of-the-mill at-large grammar nazis.  A regrettable Internet excursion took me onto the website of Pain in the English, where I learned that most commenters agree "anonymous" is an adjective and has therefore no plural form, but some speak of it having a possible use as a noun and then the consensus is that the plural would be "anonymouses".   There were, however, multiple advocates arguing for "anonymi", "anonymities" and "anonymice" (the latter, I believe, tongue-in-cheek).  It is no wonder that the world can't agree on important issues like "world peace" (an oblique reference to and plug for the Sandra Bullock film "Miss Congeniality", for those that missed it).

Aesculus x carnea 'Fort McNair'

Regardless of whether I should thank the anonymous, anonymouses, or anonyminati (think Illuminati), I appreciate the correct identification of my Horse Chestnut and I will learn to appreciate my 'Fort McNair' more for its dependable and brief-lived flowers and its resistance to leaf blight, and I will bury my disappointment that I was duped into buying a "not Briotti".

Regarding the other question, I, myself, would advocate for "anonymi".  Anyone else care or dare to weigh in?

Miscellanies

 In his latest attack...er...foray into his second favorite world, the literary dimension of Half-Price Books,  ProfessorRoush came away with an embarrassing number of additions to his "collections."   Of the coveted group, however, I've been most pleased, surprised in fact, by the easy readability of a 2003 text, The Secrets of Wildflowers, by Jack Sanders.  Addressing approximately 74 different wildflowers, one might think initially that this would be a dry field guide, but it instead is composed of 2-3 pages about each species, all common to North America but not necessarily native here, written in what turns out to be entirely conversational style.  It is as if Mr. Sanders was sitting here in the room with me, telling me the most interesting facts about each.

I give you, for example, the first page of the entry about Rudbeckia hirta, the Black-Eyed Susan, as an example.  A little history, a little botany, a little information regarding propagation, and several pages later, one looks up and then is drawn to the next wildflower, Bindweed in this case, in sequence.  I was enticed to purchase the bargain hardback, by the way, by its description of Goatsbeard, page 113, noted for "two kinds of clocks."

Otherwise, it is just a typical lazy Sunday in Kansas.   We had an 80% chance of rain today and didn't get any (thankfully, for once, we don't need any), but I did venture out to snap this picture, taken from my front steps looking northwest, which perfectly illustrates the capricious nature of rain in the Flint Hills.  Somebody on my horizon WAS getting rain, although likely it was only a single property, or group of solo properties in a Northwest to Southeast line.   The small downpour illustrated here missed us, anyway.  Click on the picture to see and magnify the area of rain in the center.

We've had enough recent rain that my yard is sprouting these mushroom caps everywhere.  I'm inclined to leave this group alone, hoping that it is the beginning of a new "fairy ring" that will spread in this lawn long after I'm gone.  Of course, I'd like to know the proper scientific name of this fungus, but I'm afraid that my identification of the above-ground appearances of mycelial colonies is inadequate for the dozens or hundreds of possible fungi that manifest in lawns as "fairy rings."  I'm content to observe it, leave it alone, and certainly promise to not consume any of it.  Additionally, I was horrified enough by finding this pamphlet listing fungicides approved for fairy ring elimination from lawns, that I'm considering starting a National "Save the Fairy Ring" Foundation.  What nature-hating, environmentally-unconscious kinds of people write these things?  Fungi are people too.

Prairie Dawn

'Prairie Dawn'

ProfessorRoush has briefly mentioned this rose before, and regular readers are surely aware of my strong preference for AgCanada roses, but somehow I've never featured this Canadian-before-there-was-a-Canadian-program rose registered as 'Prairie Dawn' (alias RSM R5685).  We are going to rectify my lack of attention to her today!

'Prairie Dawn' has been part of my garden in the Flint Hills prairie since 2000, an early planting shortly after we built the house and moved in, and it is weird (and yet understandable) that she has escaped a "spotlight" on this blog in all that time.   However, as they say, "squeaky wheels get the grease", and this dependable shrub rose definitely flies under my radar most of the time and requires no extra care or attention.  A 1956 introduction by H. F. Harp, this bright pink, semi-double rose is generally healthy and carefree, noticeable when in bloom, but not fragrant or prolific enough to stand out as a garden feature. 

So please excuse my neglect of 'Prairie Dawn'.  After all these years, she stands about 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide in my garden, upright and vase-shaped, and is not prone to suckering or rampant growth.  Her first bloom period is the best of the year, followed by sparse and sporadic repeats of the small (2.5 inch diameter) blooms.  The blooms have only slight fragrance, at least to me, and they open quickly to show the bountiful yellow stamens.  This is not a rose that draws me in by scent unless I stick my nose in the bloom and the short-stemmed flowers are not really amenable for inclusion into cutting bouquets, so it doesn't come indoors.

After that apathetic description, you might wonder why anyone would grow 'Prairie Dawn', but the truth is that she is very, very winter-hardy, cane-hardy with no dieback in my Zone 5 garden, and her medium-green, mildly glossy foliage gets a little blackspot occasionally but requires no treatment.  So, this truly carefree rose has earned a spot in my garden, even if it is in the back of more "showy" or shorter roses.  This year I noticed, as evidenced in the photo above, that she has been invaded by some clumps of warm-season prairie grasses, so I'm applying a little grass-specific herbicide to help her avoid the competition, but that will be the extend of my notice until she returns, bright pink and bountiful, next year.

The Future's so Bright, I Gotta Wear Stripes

'Variegata di Bologna'

Well, things are looking up as far as gardening in Kansas goes, and ProfessorRoush is breathing a little easier.  I was mowing today and I could barely keep mowing, tempted to stop every few feet and take photos.  A number of roses are blooming profusely, and I really wasn't sure what to show you first. I am storing up photos and stories for later blog entries, but I'm so proud of my striped roses, particularly a couple of relative new ones, that I simply must do that group first.

'Centifolia variegata'

Of course, the fragrant  Bourbon 'Variegata di Bologna' featured in the top photo here, is a personal favorite and blooming right now, but I really want to focus on two newer (to me) rose varieties.  Rosa ‘Centifolia variegata' or ‘Village Maid’, pictured at left, is a Centifolia rose (obviously, from the name) that is reliably cane hardy for me.  She is three years old in my garden and blooming profusely this year at the end of arching 5 foot canes that tend to sprawl everywhere, resembling an adolescent teenager in my garden.

'Centifolia variegata'

Like many Old Garden Roses whose provenance has been lost to history (she was known in France before 1817), she has many aliases, but 'Village Maid' seems to me to best fit her nature and beauty (her registered name is the uninspiring  'Centifolia variegata').  All those aliases refer to these fully double, extremely fragrant mottled blooms of very light pink and white that look fragile but are standing up well in the recent heat wave.  I will trim her hard this year after she blooms in an attempt to make her more compact and mature, but I hope she feels welcome and is here to stay in my garden.

'Georges Vibert'

My second "new" bi-colored rose is the more upright and stately ‘Georges Vibert'.  Georges, as we'll refer to him here, is a Gallica who stands about 3 feet tall and is vase-shaped, stiff and sturdy in appearance.   I labeled Georges as "new", but I was surprised, looking him up, that I planted him in 2017, nearly a decade back.  He is not a very vigorous rose in my garden, and he was always on the brink of death in his early years, but he is finally blooming well and looking more healthy for me this year.  

'Georges Vibert'

'Georges Vibert' was bred by Robert, Français-André in France and introduced 1853.  Another once-blooming rose, he has vivid violet-red streaking in the blossoms against a very light pink background.  The full blooms are only lightly-scented, and they open flat at maturity to a somewhat disorganized but still beautiful blossom.   He is cane-hardy and blackspot free in my Zone 5 garden. 

'Spanish Rhapsody'

I could keep going on more striped roses, such as the gorgeous Griffith Buck-bred 'Spanish Rhapsody', blooming now and pictured at left, but we'll move on to other roses in the next post.  Just know, all you readers, that I still treasure all my striped or mottled roses, and many still persist, unafflicted by rose rosette disease and the many other pests and tribulations, in my garden.

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.