Excuse My Untidyness

Finally, finally, finally, a small start to spring.   I found this first Magnolia stellata bloom on April 1st, and today on April 10th the bush is starting to look at least midway to peak bloom.   Late, but luscious, I inhaled all the musky scent this flower could give me as I dreamed of more to come.

You'll have to excuse me for the straggly appearance of this brazen forsythia, in full flower finally today on April 10th.  I have at 5 different cultivars of Forsythia out in the garden ('Spring Glory', 'Meadowlark', 'Show Off', an unknown gift shrub, and several 'Golden Tines') and this single 'Golden Tines' is the only one to bloom with any show this year.  Why this one?   The others are straggly at best, almost barren at worst, so thank God for this front and center golden jewel.    Yes, I didn't trim it last fall, didn't remove the long shoots of late summer, for I planned to bring those inside and force bloom this spring.   Obviously, the cold and winter doldrums kept me from following through on that well-intentioned plan.   And I'm ashamed of the unclean bed around the forsythia;  I just haven't gotten even the front landscape bed ready yet for spring.

While I do hope for a bold yellow forsythia bloom each spring, I'm never surprised when the "pink forsythia", Abeliophyllum  distichum ‘Roseum’ blooms only sparsely and briefly,  This year it lived down to my expectations, barely attempting any blooms and showing none of its usual pink blush, white fragility in the flesh.  I've had this shrub for 13 years, so it is hardy here, but certainly not vigorous and it hardly provides any show, early bloomer that it is.   It was already at peak bloom here, on April 1st this year, and already nearly barren as it yields to the rest of the garden.  Sweetly scented if you get close, Abeliophyllum is a distraction for me, the earliest shrub to flower and the only one until the M. stellata gets going.  I keep it for that reason, something for my soul to grasp onto as I desperately wait spring.

Despite my earlier whining, my Puschkinia finally did bloom, shown here in a front bed near the edge where it begs you to bend over and look closer.  Alongside the Scilla, it raises my spirts for a few weeks as I drive home for work each day, right by the garage pad where it can catch my glimpse and welcome me home.

Closeup 'Abeliophyllum distichum'

Outside today, it's warm at least, climbing about 70ºF, but yet I'm not outside clearing beds or doing useful work.   The wind, a southern wind, is moving along at a brisk 20mph pace and I just don't feel like fighting it with every step I take.   No, I'll stay mostly inside today, waiting fitfully for the lilacs and redbuds to begin the real spring season.   My redbuds are slowly showing some color in their buds, but they are reluctant to join in yet to the seasonal celebration.  For reference, in my seasonal notes going back to 2004, the daffodils and Puschkinia were behind this year, while the redbuds are even with some years, behind others, but only in the very cold spring of 2008 did they definitely bloom later than this year.   So, I'd say that we are late, but catching up.   Too slowly, however, for my taste.  My father always says it won't be spring until Easter and with the late Easter this year, once again, he's right on target.

Apricots and Pack Rats

One might think that apricots have little to do with packrats, however both are currently pressing subjects on the mind of ProfessorRoush.

This is the shining annual moment for my apricot tree, a 'Sunglow' variety.  Always the first tree to bloom, it often beats the redbuds by a full week or two.  I enjoy it most in the evenings, when it is back-lit by the Western sun as viewed from the driveway, although mornings when the sun lights up the front of the tree are also satisfying.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush thought so as she messaged me at work early one morning this week with a picture of the tree, asking if it was an apple.  No, apricot, honey, APRICOT.  I can't say, however, that I ever get much fruit from it.  Fruits are small at best, though colorful, and the yield is devastated most years by late frosts.  It is a nice ornamental, however, adding some soul-needed color above the still-dry prairie grass, while admittedly not very life-sustaining as a nutrient source.

On the other hand, as evidence of the trials and tribulations of gardening on the Kansas prairie, I give you these two pictures taken of our small corner deck with its two-seater glider and gas grill, along with this newly formed pile of greenery.  The pile of semi-green sticks and leaves are the recent activity of a pack rat, endeavoring mightily to make a home right beside the back door.  I suppose it is a nice spot for a damp cool spring, roof above, sheltered from the north and east winds, the brick behind it warmed by the sun in the afternoons. 






Astonishingly, however, if you look closely at the greenery, you'll see that it is mostly holly, Japanese evergreen holly to be exact.   I do have holly in the landscape, but the nearest bushes are all on the exact opposite corner of the house from here, around two walls and on the north-east corner.  One by one, this industrious little rats (or family of rats) has trimmed these off and pulled them completely around the house, exposed to attack either during a long trek of 30+feet across the cement garage pad or an even longer trek across the back stamped-cement patio, up a few stairs, and into the corner.  To get here, the rat has also trekked numerous times by at least three poisonous bait traps, but I guess when you don't have a home, gathering food may be low on the priority list.


However long the construction work took, I demolished this semi-erected rodent domicile in the blink of an eye, letting a brisk wind last Sunday carry the debris to the four corners of the world.  As an added measure, I also purchased a large spray bottle of rodent repellent and used it.  I've never thought the pungent pepperminty spray was worth using, but I do believe in hedging my bets against my de-hedged neighboring rodents. 

My forsythia is finally blooming forth today, bright, yellow, and only a few days later than average.  The specimen pictured is 'Fiesta', one of the better varieties in my garden.

A Good Day

Yesterday, ProfessorRoush had a bit of work to do, but that first good working day of spring was finally upon me, April 6, 2019.  It was initially forecast to rain in the late afternoon, so I reversed my usual spring starting point, the beds in front of the house, and instead I went for everything else. 

By the end of the day, I had cleaned out all the far beds in the back√, cut down all the ornamental grasses√, transplanted a bunch of rugosa rose suckers to fill in dead spots√,moved some daylilies being shaded by growing trees√. cut off the massive suckers from a purple smoke tree√, put up some of the peony hoops√, planted a purchased yellow twig dogwood√, sprayed the weeds in the buffalograss surrounding the house√, put down crabgrass preventer on the buffalograss areas√, planted some Oriental poppy seed√, fertilized and borer-proofed the lilacs√, put a new washer in a "Y" hose connector√, put up and filled bird feeders√ and visited the store for white paint (to put on the front gate to the pasture√.  I've probably forgotten some minor things.  All in all, one could say I had a pretty good day.

And then, it rained at 8:00 p.m.  Only about 3/4ths of an inch, but what perfect timing for the crabgrass preventer/lawn fertilizer!  I've never, ever, timed it better.

This year seems to be the perfect forsythia year.  I've never seen them look better here in Kansas, likely because it stayed cold until it was warm, and as their buds unfurled we had no rain, frosts, or, heaven forbid, snow to dampen their lively brightness.  They're also really late.  In the records I've kept for 15 years now, the latest timing of full forsythia bloom was March 28th (well, except for 2018, when we had no forsythia bloom here at all).  So we are at least a week later than my latest recorded full forsythia.   The closeup above is Forsythia 'Spring Glory', my brightest blooming forsythia.  The photo at the left is an unknown-named pair of forsythia planted three years ago.  If only the purple 'Ann' magnolia in the foreground would stop being shy and bloom with the forsythia!

At last, daffodils!

I say, "at last," like they were incredibly, irresponsibly late, drowsy, dilatory delinquents holding up progress, because I've been waiting and waiting, wondering if they were ever going to bloom.  I think I'm getting impatient in my old age.

After checking my notes, this spring IS a week or so behind the spring of 2012, and perhaps 2 weeks behind the springs of 2016 and 2017, BUT it's on a par with the opening dates of daffodils in 2006, 2008, 2014, and 2015.  So, my mid-winter melancholy is mildly misplaced, since the "climate" here seems to be within normal fluctuation.  Perhaps the two most recent springs have thrown my inner clock off, winding me up to be disappointed by frost and arctic blasts.  Or perhaps I'm getting impatient in my old age.

My Abeliophyllum distichum ‘Roseum’, my pink forsythia, is blooming well now, but it is a full two weeks behind the March 5th day of 2016 that I noted as a "peak" day for it that spring.  No yellow forsythias are blooming here yet, also seemingly late, although some buds are showing a little color on those plants.  I suppose I should be merely hoping for any bloom at all, since I noted in 2017 that no forsythia bloomed last spring, due likely to either a very cold spell in the winter or a really hard freeze at opening.  Where forsythia is concerned, perhaps I should just be thankful to see any yellow cheerfulness before June's daylilites and I should not be so impatient in my old age.

DeForsythiaized Depression

Okay, now it's obvious, Someone is just playing a particularly cruel joke on me.  I think it was just last year, or perhaps the year before when I said out loud that I should plant more forsythia, doubtless in a weak moment brightened as always by their cheery little blooms in the early spring.  Someone, Some Evil One, overheard me.  There must have been hidden microphones about, hard-wired back to the depths of Hell.  Or maybe I was inadvertently included on a wiretap directed at the Trump campaign.

You see, over 6 weeks ago, I cut some forsythia stems to force indoors, an early gift of spring to Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  They leafed out, but never bloomed, a disappointment I chalked up to my poor technique.  Then a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the forsythia were blooming all over town.  Since it's not uncommon for my windswept hillside to be slightly behind the concrete-warmed microenvironment of Manhattan, Kansas, I was not alarmed, just titillated as I awaited the many forsythia of my own garden.

This week, however, it became evident that I have waited in vain.  There will be no forsythia blooms here on the prairie this year, only a very few isolated bits of yellow that are invisible unless you are searching.  Not on 'Spring Glory'.  Not on 'Golden Times'.  Not on my new superbloomer 'Minder', also marketed as "Showoff".   Not even on 'Meadowlark', my favorite, said to be the most cold hardy of all the forsythia.   They are all leafing out, bloom-less and boring.

 Internet sources state that forsythia might not bloom for a number of reasons, including improper pruning, hard winter, or late spring frost. lack of sun, too much nitrogen, or just too darned old.  In medicine, I've come to learn that when there are a number of explanations, it usually means that no one really knows a cause.  In my case, I can eliminate improper pruning (fall instead of spring) because I don't prune my forsythia as a general rule.  They aren't too old because some of these plants were planted last year or the year before and are no where near maturity.  I can eliminate lack of sun because, well, because it's Kansas and they're all planted in full sun.  And we just had the mildest winter overall that I can remember.  I do have a general tendency to fertilize things too much, but a few of my forsythia never get fertilizer, so that is unlikely as well.  I'm attributing this one to the late freeze that I noted in this blog just 17 days ago.

I'm despondent, discouraged, and dejected over my deforsythiaization.  I'm not sure spring even counts without forsythia.  I'll try to console myself with the bright new foliage of 'Golden Times', pictured above, but it is not enough yellow to start to cheer me up.  And "next year" is just too far away.  Curses.

Early Visitation Rights

As foretold by Br. Placidus of Atchison Kansas, commenting on my last post, my garden has paid little heed to my keenings against its early appearance, and the sequential progression of spring blooms has begun against my sage advise and consent.  Thankfully, it has not yet stormed enough to damage the blooms of Magnolia stellata, which reigns beautiful and fragrant in my garden only four days after I saw the first bud break.  Therefore, despite the insubordination of my garden, I have to admit that I am nonetheless pleased that it has forced me to abandon my seclusion within the house and drawn me outside into activity, fresh air, and ultraviolet radiation.


I hope to see further exuberance from this mature Star Magnolia before the rain predicted for Saturday stains its petals with brown rot and moots the warm scent.  Right now I'm thankful that, as the good Brother suggested, I've already enjoyed more uninterrupted days of M. stellata than I can expect in a typical Kansas spring.  This shrub/tree never seems to get to full display before another cold spell or snow or freezing rain front strikes here.  This year, however, spring is early but shows no sign of backsliding in any long range forecast.  I'll be content as long as the hard freezes stay away.

The reign of the Star Magnolia, however, is quickly being overrun by the peasants of my spring garden.  You can see, below, the backdrop to the magnolia of three forsythia in full bloom, in this case Forsythia hybrid 'Meadowlark', a 1986 introduction of Arnold Arboretum in cooperation with North Dakota State and South Dakota State Universities.   I have several other forsythia in bloom here and there, and they are accompanied and accented by early blooming daffodils hither and yon.  Yellow is most definitely the main theme of my early spring garden, with a splash of blue added by diminutive Scilla siberica.  

If you look very closely at the last photo, you'll see my raison du jour for being in the garden at the time of the photo.  Behind the garden beds, in the distant blue sky, you can see the plume of smoke from a distant prairie burn, which was also exactly what was happening 10 feet behind me as this picture was taken.  I spent yesterday dragging hoses around my property and, in cooperation with my neighbors, burning the prairie clean of debris and invasive plants.  A long and tiring day, but I was rejuvenated by my moments spent visiting with this Magnolia, buried nose deep in its creamy-white petals.

Forsythia UnCut

As a general rule, I prefer to allow my shrubs to grow according to their own natural manner.  Stated in another way, ProfessorRoush is quite derelict in his efforts to force unruly shrubs to grow in unnatural and restrained fashions.  Or, even more simply put, I detest topiary in any form and I really hate to prune shrubs. 

The result from these efforts, of course, is an informal, devil-may-care feeling for much of my garden, but occasionally even the best-behaved child needs a haircut lest the grandmother (or in the case of shrubs, Mrs. ProfessorRoush), think we are bad parents. 



Take the 'New Hampshire Gold' forsythia pictured above both pre- and post-bloom.  It had a very nice, prolific bloom this spring, but, as forsythia are prone to, once the flowers are gone, I've got an airy, messy green blob squatting on my landscape.  This year, one of my planned spring garden chores was to prune the forsythia, and along the way remove the many suckers threatening to spread the bush on into Nebraska.

So, I'll ask you to make the call.  Pre-pruning is on the right,  post-pruning from the same angle on the left below.  Did I do a good thing this spring, or did I capitulate to group-think and ruin the natural lines of the plant?  Should I have gone further and made a box turtle or an elephant out of the unshaped mass?  Mrs. ProfessorRoush has already weighed in and is definitely on the "haircut" side, but then, she always wants my garden to be neater than I'm prone to keep it.

Most important to ProfessorRoush, of course, will be the effect my pruning has for the next bloom of this shrub.  I'm hoping that the experts are right and the shrub fills in and has more bloom and is more compact.  Time, as always in a garden, will tell.

Way Ahead & Far Behind

It's madness.  Complete and undisguised madness.  My garden, and its gardener, are a full two weeks ahead of the normal cycle here.  In most years, I avoid starting the Spring cleanup of my garden beds until "Spring Break" here in the Little Apple.  The appearance of small green sprouts at that time often coincides with a little time off work and allows me some uninterrupted efforts at making my muscles sore and my garden tidy.  Often, at this date, the crocus and daffodils will just be poking up and I'll be noticing the first early weed children.  And the beginning of vegetable garden planting?  I'm normally a traditional Saint Patrick's Day planter, looking forward each year to the 17th not for drinking spirits, but for immersing my soul in the soil and thenceforth communing with the peas and seed potatoes.

This year the garden is pushing me out into the fast lane against my will.  Because the roses are leafing out and most of the Spring bulbs are blooming, I've been forced to begin cleanup earlier than ever.  I hate, I really hate, trimming off baby rose leaves once they've opened.  It does not bother me to trim the roses when the leaf buds are still tightly bound, but chopping off that shiny, unblackspotted green infant foliage is more than I can bear.  On Tuesday this week, I panicked and decided it all had to be done at once before my cleanup efforts resulting in trampling all the bulbs underfoot. So, I cleaned, and trimmed roses, and moved roses, and trimmed irises, and just generally gussied up the garden.

I moved, at last, a large 'Josee' lilac that was in the wrong place by first yanking it out by the roots with a rope and my Jeep, and then placing it into a distant site vacated inexplicably by a black currant bush.  The black currant had done well for several years, but this Spring it was not just suddenly and nearly dead, it was really most sincerely dead.  I cut off my coy, non-fruiting bittersweet couple ('Hercules' and 'Diana') in hopes of replacing them with a vine that would add another dimension to the garden beyond merely being a tall green tower.  I'm thinking perhaps of a clematis for the site.  And vegetable planting?  Oh yes, I admit, I planted peas and bib lettuce and broccoli and potatoes and onions a full 10 days before my normal planting time.  I blame the latter impatiences on my fellow Master Gardeners, all of whom were boasting about planting peas at our bimonthly meeting last week.

The forsythia watched all this activity while in full bloom, and the daffodils were already entering their twilight period, and we all knew it had to be done.  According to my historical notes going back to 2004, this early warmth is not unprecedented (2009 and 2005 were similarly early), but this is certainly earlier than the median year. I'm caught up, for now, on these garden chores, yet still far behind readying the Martin houses and spreading mulch and a multitude of other duties.  For now, however, I'm left hoping that Winter does not amuse itself by returning with a late fit of sadistic snow. 

Shrubs for your Soul

For all those gardeners who haven't happened upon it, there is a new online gardening magazine titled Toil the Soil at BestGardenBlogs.com.  For the first (and free!) issue, I wrote an article in it about Plains-adapted flowering shrubs for MidWest gardeners titled "Shrubs for the Soul."  I thought I should post the text and some of the pictures here as well on my own blog, since the clickable pictures should be better quality here.  It may take a couple of parts:

Shrubs for the Soul:  Plains-adapted flowering shrubs for the winter-weary Midwestern gardener.
 

 Imagine that it is February 1st, 2011 and the biggest winter storm of the decade is throwing snow and ice at your windows and creating six foot high drifts around your shrub roses. You are a gardener in the Kansas Flint Hills who hasn’t seen a single sprig of green plant life for 2 months and your soul aches for any sight of a cheerful spring bloom. You are also an amateur writer who is trying to choose a topic for a new garden magazine and you’re under a short deadline. I’d be willing to bet my entire mail-order plant budget that eighty percent of you would choose, under those circumstances, to write about the spring-flowering shrubs that your heart pines for. The other twenty percent might write about either starting seeds indoors or about forcing spring bulbs, but I’m a conventional kind of guy, so I’ll stick with the cliché.

Here in the Flint Hills of Kansas, shrubs that can survive our cruel, arid Zone 5B winters, flower reliably in the soggy clay abetted by the April and May downpours, and then hold on steadfast through the hot dry summers, are indeed few and far between. Some spring shrubs counted on for the earliest displays in some regions of the country, such as the Witch Hazels (Hammelia sp.), need more acid soils to thrive than we can usually provide in the Flint Hills. I have, for instance, a specimen of ‘Jelena’ witchhazel in my garden and it is seen seldom enough in the area that most gardeners who visit either ask what it is or express surprise to see it. Those shrubs that do thrive in our soil and climate, however, are the pillars of Kansas gardener’s hopes in the Winter and provide the restoration of those gardeners’ souls each Spring. Eight intrepid shrubs that are well-equipped for the Kansas and Great Plains climate are:

  

'Meadowlark' Forsythia

Forsythia sp: Everyone with any gardening experience in the MidWest knows that Forsythia is going to be on this list, so we might as well get it over with early. Many varieties of Forsythia grow and perform very well here, and in fact, Manhattan, Kansas and the surrounding towns are pretty well covered in early April with the pastel combination of yellow Forsythia shrubs and pink Redbud trees. Some varieties of Forsythia can sustain damage from the more extreme winter temperatures of the Flint Hills, so it is useful to search out and plant the hardier varieties. Forsythia x int. ‘New Hampshire Gold’ (USDA Zone 4-8) is a mounding, arching shrub to about 5 feet tall that has reliably flowered every spring for ten years in my current garden. I tend to prefer the less brassy yellow tones of the newer Forsythia ovata ‘Meadowlark’, however. ‘Meadowlark’ has a taller and stiffer form to about 6 feet tall and the blossoms are much larger and showier than ‘New Hampshire Gold’. ‘Meadowlark’ was developed in a collaboration between the Arnold Arboretum and the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station and is widely proclaimed as the hardiest of the forsythias (Zone 3-8), with buds resistant to cold damage to -35®F. Variegated Forsythia varieties, such as ‘Fiesta’ are planted here in hopes of a better display in the off-flower seasons, but they often suffer damage when fully exposed to the hot prairie sun and buds are not as reliably cold-hardy as the varieties previously mentioned.

Magnolia stellata

Magnolia stellata: One of the earliest flowering shrubs in my garden is Magnolia stellata, the Star Magnolia. I know that some gardeners in other zones or climates might think of this magnolia as a tree, but it definitely remains shrub-sized everywhere I’ve seen it in Zone 5. . I have cultivar ‘Royal Star’ which grows to around 10 feet, but other larger M. stellata cultivars are also available. But, regardless of ultimate size, this beauty is a god-send for early fragrance. I’ve never been particularly excited about the smallish 3-inch white blossoms against the bare branches, not like I am with some of the larger and more colorful magnolias, but the Star magnolia more than makes up for it in scent production. The survival of this one has encouraged me to try a few other of the hardier magnolias, including ‘Jane’, one of the “Little Girl” hybrids from the U.S. National Arboretum, and Magnolia acuminata ‘Yellow Bird’, a recent introduction from Monrovia. Both are reportedly hardy to at least Zone 5 but they are too young to be certain performers in my garden.

Syringa sp: Lilacs of all species and types are well-adapted to the alkaline soils of the Kansas Flint Hills and are cold-hardy far beyond our region. They bloom early in April in Zone 5, and sometimes the earlier blooming cultivars can be burned by a late frost or even dusted with snow. Although the hundreds of Syringa vulgaris cultivars all do well,  Korean lilacs and newer cultivars such as ‘Josee’ also thrive in the Kansas sunshine.  And the scent!  What would the scent of a Kansas spring be without Lilacs? 



Lilacs 'Wonderblue', 'Yankee Doodle', and 'Annabelle', left to right

the next week or so, I'll post the rest of the article, including a discussion of honeysuckles, viburnums (yes, in full sun!) and mockoranges.  But not right away, because I've got other things to touch on first!