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.

Dabs and Dribbles

'Cole's Red' Quince

Spring, this year, is a fight within our witness, a struggle by life to leave behind the cold winds of February and March and move to sunlight.   There has been no knockout blow, no sudden blitzkrieg of either heat or snow to change the fortunes of garden and man, but the to and fro, the feint and parry, of the seasons continues with no easy end in sight.   We will not see spring, I fear this year, in broad strokes of pastel color, but in dabs and dribbles, slowly meting out its glory in smaller packets of pleasure.

'Betsy Ross'

It is both dry and cool now, continuing the pattern of past weeks and it seems, promising the weather for weeks to come.   The sky has not provided enough moisture to yet ignite the irrepressible forces of life, nor has the sunshine been overly generous with its sustaining energy.   It benefits me little to blame the cheerful weatherpersons for the slow strides towards summer, nor do I deign to fret over the millions proclaimed to be in severe weather danger each day, not while I'd happily risk bad storms to quench the thirst of the ground.  I wait instead, patiently, for these pictured buds to open and clothe the garden and world with beauty.

'Annabelle'

The quince alone is fully open and meeting my lust for rusts and reds, Chaenomeles japonica ‘Coles Red’ in this instance, pictured at the top.   I appreciate quince but it struggles here, the prairie a smidge drier than it likes, the winters and deer a little harsh for its full comfort.  Stronger for us are the lilacs, but they are still biding time this year, afraid perhaps to fully commit lest a late snow or freeze catches them in full exposed blossom.  It would not, of course, be the first time I've seen snow on lilac panicles.  Naked and afraid, 'Betsy Ross', above, and 'Annabelle', here, are providing only a glimpse still of the promising maidens they could become.  One night in the next 10 is presently predicted to be below freezing, so I am content in this instance to indulge their teasing and patiently await their full exhibition.

In similar fashion, the red horsechestnut leaves remain tightly furled, the rough, prehistoric texture safe from frost and marauding deer, and my beloved red peach is mightily trying, but failing, to become a beacon of spring for the neighbors.   It is covered, as you see below, in buds, but yet to glow, the cloudy skies and brisk winds battling against its nature, its reason for survival, those buds to become seeds, those seeds to be trees.

Red Peach

And so, I wait here, still wait this Easter, for the annual rebirth, the rebound of the world.  With Easter comes promise, a guarantee of life's return, a revival, not promised this year perhaps in trumpeted herald, but softly spoken in dabs and dribbles.  Regardless, I close singing in full voice along with Sara Evans, her lyrics:  "Hallelujah, a little revival....amen to love."

Burned the Cold Away

Sunday morning, bright, sunny, and my Iris tectorum variegata is a standout in the garden.  I just love the way these green and yellow leaves catch and amplify the sunlight in the early spring.  Every year, I divide and spread this iris across my garden, now 10 clumps from the original one.  It's one of the few plants that I grow specifically for the joy of the foliage rather than the flowers.  Although the flowers of I. tectorum are nothing to sneeze at since they are plenty fragrant as well!



My neighbors and I burned our little spot of prairie yesterday.  The burn went well, a decent wind for headfires but under control when we were careful, and there were no mishaps like last year when my neighbor burned out one of my small apple trees.   It was the second really cold morning (approximately 32ºF) of the week and as there are no other mornings in the immediate forecast that cold, I think we can truthfully say we burned away the last of winter, in many, many ways.   The ground, now black and foreboding, will quickly warm and in two weeks it will be a carpeted vision of Eden. Thankfully, no more frost is in the immediate forecast because I had three gallon-size roses come in last week for planting and I've got several more coming this week.  Yesterday, I planted "La Ville de Bruxelles', 'Park Wilhelmshone', and 'Rosalina', a damask, modern gallica, and Hybrid Rugosa respectively, and then covered all three plants with glass cloches which I will remove in the mornings of next week when we have 80º highs predicted.

At last, Mrs. ProfessorRoush's favorite tree is blooming, the redbud outside the kitchen and laundry room.  I always think of redbuds as the real start of the garden year, this major landscape tree associated in my mind with so many other garden chores (the start of asparagus, the timing of crabgrass preventer, etc).  Pictured here with 'Annabelle' lilac, also just beginning to bloom, the redbud is as late as I've noted before, on a par with 2005 and 2006 for bloom time.  Our late spring continues on the Kansas prairie. 

Spring Returns

Remember this photo of my 'Annabelle' lilac, covered in snow a scant twelve days ago?  Remember my whining about how spring was canceled this year?  Remember my ridiculous suggestion to give up all gardening hope?  Well, please excuse my pouting and pessimism.  Kindly overlook my oblivious and obnoxious crying over spilled milk.  Try your very best to forget my fitful fantasies of failure.  Spring was not vanquished, but briefly delayed.  Winter was not victor, but fleeing bully.  The resilience of time and life has yet taken the field and won the day, fray behind and glory restored.

'Annabelle' went on through snow to beauty, blooms galore, battle-tested.  That's her, at upper right and left, proudly adorned in flowerly spendor.   She shines right now, a fragrant beacon in my landscape, the belle of the ball.  Not a single blossom shows damage, not a single stem was broken.  Nothing but shy pink and delicate lilac shows in each perfect petal.  A soft orb of scent, she dominates in every direction, albeit farther downwind than upwind.  She seized her moment of spring glory, determined not to surrender this year to mediocrity.  I applaud and appreciate her tenacity, the hidden strength among her branching limbs, the subtle brawn of her delicate blossoms.




Others too have fought their way back.  A brief glance at my side patio and the scene becomes a spring party.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush's favorite tree, a redbud, dominates the scene, a manly pink physique lording over its lesser neighbors.  'Annabelle' hides behind his trunk in this photo, pink bubbles peaking out on either side.  Behind and left a cherry tree, 'Northwind' is clothed in the promise of fruit.  Bees prefer the cherry to 'Annabelle', a poor choice in the gardeners eye, but the latter judges with binocular rather than compound vision and with vulgar appreciation for fragrance rather than subtle judgment of sugary goodness. The bee knows best its business and I know nothing of hunger for cherry nectar.

Spring, it seems, was not lost, but was merely misplaced, astray from the straight path forward.  It returns now, two steps forward, one back, the patience of the gardener teased with the promise of sunshine.

Gifts of Spring

Spring has arrived, according to both the calendar and the plants here at GardenMusingsLand, but the gardener is only reluctantly going along with the flow.  I just can't seem to get into the season while the absence of rain keeps the green world subdued and the dust rises every place I touch the earth.  On a positive note, I'm about 75% through all my Spring chores, including trimming back most of the roses.  The roses were hit hard this year between the continuing drought and the early cold November and the Rose Rosette casualties.  I'll post more detail on the latter subject at a later date.

You can see, however, from the picture above, taken yesterday, that my garden has decided to move on without me.   While the winter was tough on the roses, the lilacs seem to be having a glorious year.  'Annabelle', at the lower left of this photo, is spectacular in bloom next to the beloved redbud of Mrs. ProfessorRoush and the full-bloom of the 'North Star' cherry tree in the right foreground.  If you stand in front of my garage doors right now, the fragrance from the 7 lilacs behind 'Annabelle' is almost overwhelming.  I don't even mind the stupid compost tumbler photobombing the picture.

Spring, and the kindness of strangers, has provided other gifts to my garden.  The bulbs at the right are 'Kaveri', a new OA (Oriental Asiatic' lilium hybrid  from breeder Ko Klaver and Longfield Gardens.  They were provided to me just yesterday for evaluation from the Garden Media Group and I planted them shortly after arrival.   OA hybrids are supposed to combine the high bud count and early bloom time of the Asiatics with the fragrance and size of an Oriental.  I'll let you know how they grew here in the summer once they have bloomed.

Similarly, now that the ground has thawed and I am planting again, I finally had the chance to try out these "Honey Badger" gloves sent to me last Fall.   They're a clever idea, but in full disclosure they need much finer and softer soil than I can find in this area.  I found them much less useful than a stout trowel in my hard clay soil, particularly where the flint chips are mixed in.  Kids, however, would absolutely love them for digging, so if you've got grandchildren or neighbor children "helping out" in your garden, they are great for a memory.  The clacking sound you can make with the claws is a bit entertaining as well, but old gardeners need no help to futher their eccentric persona.

Good Lilac Intentions

What was the old aphorism about the "road to hell being paved with good intentions"?  Or maybe, "no good deed goes unpunished?"

Each year, as the lilacs and peonies bloom, ProfessorRoush tries to brighten up the desk staff and waiting room by occasionally bringing in fragrant flowers (of appropriate purple, cream, or lilac colorings since those are the school colors).  This morning, I gathered a bouquet of lilacs, light 'Annabelle', and darker 'Patriot' and 'Sensation', unceremoniously stuck them in a Mason jar, and drove them into school to place them in the waiting room.

I often wonder if the practice will have to end when a client will finally complains about the strong fragrance offending them or setting off their allergies (what a world we live in now!), but if that occasion ever occurs, the flowers can be easily moved.  What I never dreamed of is finding, as I did several hours later, that they would attract bumblebees into the building.  I suppose it is possible that this little guy could have been hidden within a blossom as I collected them, torpid from the cold night air.  Surely, however, the warmer air of the Jeep would have awoken him as we drove.  An alternative, but hardly more likely hypothesis is that somehow this bumblebee followed the fragrance and found these flowers through double doors about 30 feet away from the outside.

If his presence had been widely noted, I'm sure it would have called for much clamor and strife, but luckily he seemed satisfied to perch on the same spot for awhile and then disappeared about ten minutes later, never to be seen again.   I do hope he found his way back out through the double doors and stocked his larder up from the trip so he doesn't return later.