1004 Mortal Moments

'Cosmic Struggle' early morning

ProfessorRoush had grandiose plans, a year back, to celebrate the 1000th published entry of this blog as he recognized the landmark nearing.  I had such hopes of a deep, thought-provoking masterpiece, complete with photographs of unblemished and vividly-colored blooms and prose fit to stir awe and envy in all its readers.  I resolved carefully to watch, to remain vigilant as the day approached, to portend and celebrate its long-awaited moment.

'Space Coast Color Scheme'

This week, I realized that I had missed it, that 1000th entry, which actually occurred on May 22nd last, the milestone sneaking past in yet another banal description of yet another badly-needed rain brought by yet another terrifying summer storm front.  I not only overlooked the occasion once, nor twice, but 3 times, like Peter denying acquaintance of the Savior, the post today sneaking in as my 1004th, according to Blogger's count.  Caught up in life, caught up in the garden, I lost sight of the broader vision, missed the passage of time and the momentary significance of yet another blog entry.

'Marie Bugnet'

How do I now make up for it, that lost opportunity, the special occasion gone uncelebrated?   I thought long and hard on it since I realized the oversight.  Do I photograph the perfect rose for you, perhaps the virginally-perfect 'Marie Bugnet' to the right of these words?   She is, after all, one of my all-time favorites, the first to greet my hungry eyes most springs, tirelessly blooming the rest of the summer over perfect foliage.  

'Amethyst Art'

Should it instead be a new daylily addition to my garden, heavily-anticipated and fulfilling it's promise, such as the thick-petaled 'Cosmic Struggle' at the top of this entry, or the striking 'Space Coast Color Scheme' to the left of the second paragraph here?   Or the older, yet still splendid, 'Amethyst Art' shown to the right, chosen out of its many, many cousins for its timeless beauty and productivity?   'Cosmic Struggle' is newer to the world and simply striking, as shown above at the morning's call, but these same blooms at the end of the day lack the grandeur of the morning (below).  'Space Coast Color Scheme' has been tremendously prolific this year, a sight to behold, but no matter how bonny the mass, her individual blooms are orange and yellow, the most common of daylily colors.  

'Cardinal de Richelieu'

Should I overwhelm  your senses with the sumptuous purple tones of 'Cardinal de Richelieu', blooming at the time of the 1000th blog? Or should I instead tempt you with a rose new to my garden, yet undescribed here in these pages but healthy in my garden?  Decisions, decisions, so difficult to make and so impactful once made.

Bull Thistle

Wait, would another blog about a native prairie plant interest you?   I've been lately concerned with the Bull Thistles in my pasture, the aptly latin-named Cirsium vulgare.   Another member of the Sunflower Family, it's a noxious weed on the prairie, not, unfortunately a forb to celebrate but one to ruthlessly cut down and eliminate.  It is so hated that folklore has it that merely chopping it down at this stage is not enough as it will still develop viable seed in the pods.  I'm skeptical of that story after looking at the dry remains of mine after 3 days in the prairie heat.  My maternal grandfather always said to chop it down on June 23rd and over time it will disappear from the pasture.  I'll stand by that, having witnessed the effect of the procedure on an entire pasture full of Bull Thistles in my Indiana youth. 

Perhaps, as a 1000th entry should be, I should present here a grand summation of the garden, a broader picture of life here on the Kansas Flint Hills?   My current view from my bedroom window, greeting me cheerfully and colorfully each and every morning when I assess the weather (left)?   Or a vista of the rear garden, daylilies in the back patio bed in the fore, the blue mists of Russian Sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Filigran’) and white of Hydrangea paniculata ‘QuickFire’ in the midphoto, and the color of daylilies in the rear (below)?  Things bloom in the garden, and my attention follows the blooms as randomly as I weed or keep track of the number of blog posts.   But these photographs were taken as I began this blog, another captured moment in time.

'Cosmic Struggle' late-day

In reaching this paragraph, I have by now realized, of course, that the occasion is past, lost to time and inattention, never to be relived or revered.   The next milestones, at 5000 or 10000 entries, are so far into the future that I can only faintly hope to still be able to write and garden and reach them, the first 1000 taking nearly 12 years to form.  Even 5000 new thoughts are difficult to conceive of, and who would still be reading them if they weren't each new and interesting?  Perhaps I should think in terms of years, blog birthdays, and celebrate instead 15 years or 20 years or 25 years of thoughts and blogs.  July 28th, 2022 for instance, will mark 12 years of blogging.  And yet it seems such an evasion, an excuse, a compromise of virtue to accept  such an altered goalpost as won.  Like 'Cosmic Struggle' (right) losing its cosmic struggle at the day's end, I  give you here a mere shadow of what could have been.   We will all just have to be content with celebrating this, my 1004th blog entry, and each to follow. 

Cardinal de Spread-Alot

It has surely been awhile since I featured a rose on my blog.  After I fled my garden in the heat of summer, the roses and I parted company for the year, except for a brief reunion in late September when enough rain came to stimulate a little late blooming.  My collection of pictures, however, has not been nearly exhausted and I'm going to use them to help us scrape through another dull winter in the Flint Hills.

One rose that I've never blogged about is my (surmised) 'Cardinal de Richelieu'.  CDR is a Gallica attributed to Laffay and dating from 1840, but at least one source has it being bred by Parmentier near that time.  Regardless, he is a low-growing (about 2-3 feet tall) but hardy creature, the worst of the Gallica spreaders in my garden, dancing all over the bed I've placed him into.  I tolerate those bad manners simply because of the prolific, very double, fat blooms and their deep, dark purple color, the darkest of the Gallica roses.  A once-bloomer, over a long period in late May here, I've also found that the flowers stand up to the summer sun and humidity of the Flint Hills pretty well, gaining a little powdery mildew on the leaves occasionally, but never fading too quickly in the sun nor balling up in the worst of wet Springs.  CDR has a strong fragrance, increasing as the petals dry, and very few thorns, so even though it tends to become a thicket, it remains an inviting one.  When it does get a little too aggressive, every two or three years, I appreciate the fact that the lack of thorns doesn't leave me reaching for a shovel to spade-prune it.

I call this my "surmised" 'Cardinal de Richelieu' because my rose is one of my cemetery cuttings, from a local grave whose headstone places the family in the late 1800's.  I could be wrong about its name and provenance, but I don't think so.  It fits the pictures, habit, and growth of that rose to perfection.  If not, then it's another lost Gallica, and a deep purple one at that.

The real Cardinal de Richelieu was Armand Jean du Plessis, a clergyman and French nobleman of the early 1600's, Described as the first "Prime Minister", he was the minister to Louis XIII from 1624 through 1642.  He was also known as the "Red Eminence" and quickly rose to power in the French court.  Richelieu was a dichotomy as a leader, ruthless against the peasants who revolted against taxes levied to pay for the Thirty Year's war, but at the same time, a renowned patron of the  theater and literary wings of the art world in France. I'm not sure how this particular rose came to bear his name, but Cardinal de Richelieu is still an honored patriot of France and the rose 'Cardinal de Richelieu will always have a place in my garden. 

Unless he loses his manners completely.

Cemetery Roses

The education of an Old Garden Rose fanatic is not complete until they've initiated or participated in a rose rustling event.  To my knowledge, rose rustling was initiated by the Texas Rose Rustlers group (http://www.texasroserustlers.com/), an honest-to-god group of people who are dedicated to preserving and propagating roses that have survived decades without help on old homesteads or in older cemeteries.  Think of rustling as allowing Mother Nature to select which roses we're going to grow and distribute through a brutal 100 year Darwinian exposure to a specific area climate.  Talk about your minimal care roses! 

I became aware of the Rose Rustlers through Thomas Christopher's excellent book, In Search of Lost Roses (yes, we used to actually learn things from hours of reading printed material instead of searching the Internet).  I'm convinced that all it takes to hook someone on OGR's is to provide them a copy and give them a few uninterrupted hours of reading time.  Soon, they'll be grabbing a pair of pruners and looking for the car keys to start their own rustle.  For new rustlers, the rules of etiquette are pretty firmly established;  1) don't do anything that risks damage to the original bush, 2) ask permission before you rustle someone else's rose. Those two simple rules are sufficient to preserve the bush for others to admire and to keep you from getting arrested for trespassing, or worse, shot.  Additionally, I always view it as good karma to give the original bush a little organic fertilizer or a deep watering after I've taken a cutting or two.

I have rustled a few roses myself over time. Old, unkempt local cemeteries always make a good source for possible roses and my 'Cardinal de Richelieu' is actually a cemetery cutting that I'm absolutely sure is correctly identified.  I also have two other roses from local cemeteries, one a perfect white non-remonant rose with light green foliage that I've been unable to identify, but which is heavenly-scented.  The other, found on an 1850's grave in the cemetery of the Beecher Bible and Rifle Church (google Henry Ward Beecher for the history) is a very double pink Alba that was being smothered in shade and that I'm pretty sure is 'Konigin von Danemark'.  The original rose has since succumbed to the shade, but it lives on in my garden.  What the 1826 German-bred Konigin was doing in Kansas by the 1850's, I'll never know, but I bet the rose could tell a great story of its travels.

For those attracted to both beauty and history, try a little rose rustling.  Or read Christopher's book.  I promise either one will give you an afternoon to remember.

Statueholics Anonymous

I have a problem. I am a Garden Statueholic. I sometimes go to plant nurseries for the sole purpose of surveying their statues and at such times I never set foot in the plant sections. I covet large garden statues. I crave small garden animals. I lust after cement babes. I often ponder the proper garden placement for a large gargoyle. I aspire to find the perfect garden gnome.

Am I adding garden figures as accents for my plants or do the plants serve only as backdrops to the statues?  I worry that I'm overdoing my collection of small cement rabbit statues, but I will readily admit that the few times I've broken down and bought a really nice, expensive statue, I've never regretted the addition to my garden. Take the five foot tall Aga Marsala statue that sits in my rose garden. She's surrounded by white 'Madame Hardy', purple 'Cardinal de Richelieu', and is backed up by the tall pink Canadian roses 'William Baffin' and 'Prairie Dawn'.  Neither the roses nor Aga would look as good alone.  And Mrs. ProfessorRoush once made fun of my purchase of the Kon-Tiki head below, but facing east and surrounded by the yellow Kordes rose 'Rugelda', it just seems to be biding its time in luxury, patiently waiting for the 2012 apocalypse, doesn't it? 

I'm forming the GSA (Garden Statueholics Anonymous) and any afflicted gardener is welcome to join simply by adding a comment to this blog.  We're going to have to modify the traditional twelve-step program a bit, though. For one thing, no one has ever been successfully treated so finding sponsors will be difficult.  For another, none of the members will want to make amends.  Maybe we'll just make it a one-step program and we'll all just admit we can't control our addictions to stone or brass garden art and then we'll start a statue bazaar in a large Midwestern city.  We need to do something, though, for those poor gardeners who believe pink flamingos and painted plastic gnomes are the height of fashion.