Mistgloved Christmas

The garden greets me from a shroud of mist on this quiet Christmas morning and I couldn't ask for more from the world.  Delicately diffused light covers the garden in a blanket of down, softening the harsh lines of winter, cloaking the blemishes of age.  There is stillness in the garden, mist muting the sounds of highway and neighbors, an oasis of rest and silence.  This blessed morn has given me a gift; a gift of oneness and peace with my garden and the world.

Outside, the cold ground meets the mist and coats the earth and plants with frost.  Grass flowers present as delicate sculptures and sparkle with mirth, turning slowly to and fro in the scant wind.  A frozen lilac hides its promise from the wiles of winter, protected within a damp icy blanket and staid among its fellows.

Today's gift of Christmas is the very definition of "hoarfrost," a maladroit moniker for the beauty it reveals.  Hoarfrost has its origins in Middle English and Old Norse from "hoary," something gray or white with age.  Uttering the name, one hears the low ancient mutters behind the name; old, decrepit, tatty, cold.  The synonym "rime" is no improvement, too near its rhymes of grime and crime to suggest any positive enhancement of the dreary winter world.

For future use, I'm going to suggest the word "mistglove" as an improved name for this natural phenomenon.  As I carry no ancient memories of predatory cave bears or saber-toothed tigers, the term "mist" holds only peaceful and comforting connotations, and "glove" amplifies that warm and protective image, making me just a calm and comforted ProfessorRoush on this Christmas morning.  Yes, "mistglove" it shall be.

And a very Merry Christmas to all, mistgloved or not wherever you may be!

I'm Dreaming....

...that Christmas was white this morning instead of the golden but ubiquitous brown of the
Kansas prairie in winter.  Our White Christmas came a week ago in the form of 5 inches of heavy wet snow that melted within a day of it's arrival.  However fleeting, it made for a glorious morning while it was present.  How I getting out onto the pristine earth after a snowfall; the feeling of solitude and rebirth in a hushed landscape.

The local winter drabness is mitigated when the dried remnants of Fall are reduced to abstract ornaments on a white canvas.  My front landscaping bed might abound with color and texture in early summer, but I would argue that there is no more visual interest at that time than seen in this photo from last week. Remnants of phlox and yellow twigs of euonymous and a golden vase of dried grass contrast exquisitely with the frozen green pot and dark green hollies.   The mad sniffing dog, Bella, can be seen at mid-right, one long soft ear flipped over her head while she tracks some small, helpless, and probably long-gone creature around the hollies and burning bushes.

Bella and I were happy about the snowfall, but, thank you Winter, that's enough.  Leave us now and bring Spring in your wake.  It's hard for a proud dog to track when most of the interesting scents are buried beneath new snow, and it is hard for the gardener to siphon energy from a frozen landscape.  Today, Christmas 2014, is bright and sunny here in Kansas, but not a creature or green leaf yet stirs from winter slumber.  And I in my jammies, and Mrs. ProfessorRoush cooking madly over the stove, will just have to wait, yet, through a long winter's nap.

Spring at Christmas

"Oh, the weather outside is frightful....Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow."

Merry Christmas, everyone.  The temperature here in Manhattan Kansas is a balmy 18°F and the wind is blowing at 12 mph straight from the north (and gusting to 21 mph), feeding the rain and snow storms down in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.  We've got a few snow splotches left on the ground from the storm last Thursday, but I could stand a little more if the 35% chance for flurries actually arrives.  Say what you will about the cliche, there's always something special about a White Christmas.

Inside, ProfessorRoush is all warm and toasty from my morning walk and Mrs. ProfessorRoush, her diminutive clone, and the HellDog are all snug in their beds.  I'm fully in Christmas cheer here because, before my walk, I checked on several rose cuttings that I started inside about 10 days ago and low and behold, they are starting to leaf out, all secure in their winter greenhouses in a sunny window.  The picture you see is of 'Charlotte Brownell', secure in her infant crib, one of four roses that I started using the method recommended by Connie of Hartwood Roses in a post on her blog.  I tried it once last summer and it worked great.  It looks like it will be four for four this time, in the middle of winter, spring come early to this barren Kansas prairie.  Follow me, have yourself a merry little Christmas and let your heart be Light.

I chose to propagate both 'Griff's Red' and 'Wild Ginger' because my plants of those varieties aren't very robust, placed with their southern backs against a row of viburnums who are overshadowing and just plain outcompeting them.  I thought I should give them a trial out in the sun, where they can find more water and light to grow.  I also started 'Freckles' again simply because I love her and I'd like to make some gifts of her to the KSU rose garden and among other friends (with a second goal of spreading her around to protect her survival from the coming Japanese Beetle horde).

And 'Charlotte Brownell'?  I chose her simply because she is so beautiful.  My sole plant is a $3.00 bagged rose, grafted to an unknown rootstock and full of mosaic virus, but she still finds the strength to put out blossom after blossom.  Virus or no virus, I'm wanting to see how tough this old girl is on her own feet.  I'm taking a dangerous chance, though.  If those creamy blossoms get any larger, I might faint dead away and Charlotte will be fighting off suitors and in danger of being carried off in the night by gardening thieves.  And then 'David Thompson', 'William Baffin', and 'Cardinal de Richelieu' will want to rescue her and that will might set off a war that could annihilate my garden.  Oh, the chances one takes for love.

Ornamentation

A mere mention of the word "ornament" to a gardener usually brings forth a variety of mental images of garden gnomes, gargoyles, naked statues, cement rabbits, or abstract art laying around the garden.  I confess that it is no different for ProfessorRoush, who has detrimentally overpopulated his garden with beloved cement statues that range from the thoughtful to the absurd. 

But, it occurred to me this week, during the Christmas season I practice a different form of garden ornamentation, although to no less excess.  You can essentially forget about "stewardship of the planet" during Christmas at my house.  

  

The other members of my household, Mrs. ProfessorRoush, the absent son, and my diminutive clone of my mother, all are in agreement that the annual Christmas tree in our house must be "live," or rather, one of those cut-off but once-living classic Christmas trees. In fact, it must be a Frazier fir, preferred by all for the stiffness of the branches and the longevity of the needles.   I've personally been tempted to obtain the orderliness and ease of an artificial tree, but I've been overruled for a number of years now. And, due to my confusion caused by the various advocates for potted living trees or for the plight of poor Christmas Tree farmers and the distractive screaming of the WEE (Wild-Eyed Environmentalists) who bemoan the fossil fuel consumption represented by an artificial tree, I'm not sure what is the ecologically correct solution anyway.  So every year, I'm hauling in another dying tree to hope that it doesn't become a fire hazard before I can dump it into a pond (for fish shelter) after New Year's Day. 

  

  

 Regarding ornamentation, however, that poor dying tree is gaudied up to the nines every year.  And the ProfessorRoush household isn't into the scene of a purchased set of matching Christmas ornaments or a store-bought, designer approved, ornamentation schema.  No, our tree gets decorated with a hodgepodge of ornaments, all individual and all weighty with family meaning.  

They start at my favorite, the Kansas Wheat Ornament pictured at the very top right of this blog, handmade by my daughter in nursery school.  This one, so special to me, represents Kansas and my former toddling daughter all at one time. There are a number of other homemade ornaments as well like the one pictured to the right, this particular one made by ProfessorRoush himself in a ceramics store to which he was dragged against his better judgement at the time.

There are ornaments to commemorate vacation visits, from the White House and other areas.  And friendships, like the one given to my wife by her best friend and carrying each of their names. There are a whole bunch of soft cloth ornaments like the one at the left that were handmade by my mother one year early in our marriage, most of which still make the tree.

 A very special group of ornaments that decorate our tree represent a tradition started by my father, to give an ornament as a gift most every year to the children, so there are various anonymous ornaments representing a child's age (as for my son's 3rd Christmas at the right) or some that are more professionally done that are personalized to each child, like the one pictured below.  The latter group, of course, will follow the children someday to their homes and I'll be left missing the ornaments at Christmas, probably almost as much as the children.

Alas, it may be a dying tree that provides holiday cheer in the ProfessorRoush home, but it is given the best prettying up we can give it, with each bauble and bangle cherished all.  Merry Christmas to all!