Yes, They're Here

'Prairie Dawn'

Those who know ProfessorRoush and his blog well have probably been wondering; why hasn't he said anything yet about Japanese Beetles?  Does he not have them? Are they late?  Has he given up the good fight and surrendered to inevitability?

Surrendered?  Never!  I will never surrender to
these shiny-helmeted alien invaders!   Vile creatures they are, ugly, immoral, bereft of a purpose in life, content only to defile and despoil that which is beautiful and pure.   Patrick Henry stirred a nation with the words "Give me Liberty or Give me Death".  To stir a nation of gardeners, ProfessorRoush loads up the poison bottles and cries "Give THEM the Death they deserve!"

The beetles came early this year.  I first noticed them on June 15th, a few stray males (males are smaller and emerge first) which I handpicked and dispatched under the heel of my boot, gleefully grinding them into the nearest landscape edger.  I then took the nuclear option and malathioned every rose in the garden, creating in essence a chemical border fence to repel friend and foe alike.  My apologies to the bees and ladybugs of my region, but war is ugly and accidental casualties are as unavoidable in the garden as they are on a human battlefield. 

'Marie Bugnet'

All was well for a few days, but a couple of nights ago, I noticed the beetles were beginning to return, right on schedule with the bottle instructions to spray every two weeks or, "in severe cases, weekly applications may be necessary."   I guess it was necessary, but I waited until today, mowing day, to reassess and reinitiate the wholesale carpet bombing of my garden.

'Prairie Dawn'

One of their usual victims, 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup', seemed free of beetles but Ms. Hastrup is not quite herself this year, recovering from a major surgery to remove a self-seeded clematis and rough dogwood from her interior. I first found beetles today on 'Prairie Dawn', a dependable, tall, pink Canadian rose bred by Harp in 1956. I've not written much about 'Prairie Dawn', but she's been there with me, all this time. You have to look closely, in the first picture above, to see the beetle in the flower above the pristine 'Prairie Dawn' bloom.

'Scabrosa'

I was more concerned when I found the loathsome creatures nibbling on 'Scabrosa'.   I've had trouble getting this rose going well and this specimen, at 2 years of age, is still barely knee-high, less than 2 feet in diameter, and she surely doesn't need the extra burden of beetles.

'Marie Bugnet'

It was finding beetles on 'Marie Bugnet' that strengthened my resolve and prompted me into immediate action.  My poor, innocent, virginal 'Marie Bugnet', now just a backdrop to a recreation of 'Caligula', beetles frolicking in mass orgy, 8 or 10 to a flower and in positions that are, frankly, not describable to civilized ears.    I can't fornicate in my garden, public nudity laws being what they are and lacking a good high solid fence, and I'm not about to allow the damned beetles to crap their frass on my beloved Marie while they madly make little beetles.  There are no doubts about what these beetles are doing, I'm just not sure if they know or care who's on top or underneath.

So, spray I did, wetting down the garden and beetles in a frenzy of rage.  The results are pictured at right, leaves dripping with insecticide and beetles glistening.  I can only hope I did some good, 3 gallons of toxic brew later, but it's hard to say.  I would feel better if the insecticides acted quickly and fatally, but soaking wet beetles continue to copulate with abandon right in my presence until I am forced through disgust and decency to look away.  It's only now, hours later, when I see fewer beetles and feel I've made some headway to keep Marie's flowers free of fornication and frass, that I feel better in my despair..

Just Bloomin'

ProfessorRoush has nothing clever to say tonight; no biting wit, no humor, not even a long love poem to a favorite rose.  I took advantage of a few hours without rain this afternoon and I'm just in from weeding the back patio garden bed and I thought you'd like to see what's blooming in my garden, because essentially everything is blooming in my garden.  This vista, in particular, caught my eye as I walked through picking up trimmings:   Bright red 'Survivor' and magenta 'Hanza' are blooming in the foreground, and in the background, from left to right, 'Pink Grootendorst', 'Madame Hardy', 'Polareis' and 'Purple Pavement' are the prominent roses.

This particular 'Polareis', a sucker of my first, is in it's third or fourth year after transplanting and she's finally reached a height and width to stand out in the garden, particularly when she's blooming like there will be no tomorrow.  You've probably already noticed that I haven't trimmed out the winter dead twigs from among the roses yet in these beds, but 'Polareis' didn't die back at all despite the previous especially-brutal winter.  

She's also blushing a lot this year.  Normally a pure white in the heat of summer, her first blooms in the spring (and all of them this year) often retain a little pink blush from the cooler, wetter weather.  In that regard, 'Polareis' is a little bit of a changeling, affected by temperature and the Kansas sun, but beautiful in both versions. 

My original 'Polareis', shown here in front of pink and taller 'Lillian Gibson', is a little more beat up this year, but she's trying to maintain her 5 foot mature height.  Dwarfed and outclassed a little by the hardier and healthier 'Lillian Gibson', I still think she'll come back with a vengeance with a little loving care this summer.   She's been blooming just a few more days than her younger offspring, and you can see the fallen petals littering the ground at her feet.

Coming in from the east area of the garden, I'm well pleased by bright pink 'Foxi Pavement' and gray-white 'Snow Pavement', both just beginning to bloom here in the foreground, although I haven't got around to pruning the winter-damaged cane of 'Applejack' that spoils the picture hanging out over 'Snow Pavement'.  'Foxi Pavement'  and 'Snow Pavement' are both unkept and loosely petaled, but they both attract bees like...well,  like flies to honey.

Just behind them as I walk further towards the gazebo, the same roses from the opposite view of the first photo above, 'Survivor' and 'Hanza' fill the middle depth, with light pink  'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' just peeking in on the right.   My gazebo, in the far background, lends a little structure to the photo and view.  It's a little weather worn, but has stood through the worst of our storms, although I made a mental note today to replace the weakened wooden swing inside before it collapses under an unsuspecting Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  

I've seldom seen 'Pink Grootendorst' look better than she does this year.   She's a gangly, rough, farm-raised kind of gal, rarely dressed up for the ball, but she's a pretty lass even so.  I wouldn't ever bring her into the house in a vase, but in my garden, as a solid survivor of Rose Rosette disease,  'Pink Grootendorst' has earned her place. 

Last today within this photo-heavy blog entry, I'll leave you with a perfect bloom of 'Bric A Brac', one of the stripped peony creations of the Klehm's and Song Sparrow Farm.  I know, I know, this bloom looks far from perfect, ragged and misshapen as it is, but that's actually what 'Bric A Brac' is supposed to look like, a picture to do her creator proud.   An offering to my ongoing striped flower fetish, 'Bric A Brac' is a little stronger than her sister, 'Pink Spritzer', and she's always a welcome visitor here.

Moje Hammarberg

ProfessorRoush is proud to present to you, 'Moje Hammarberg', an astonishingly well-behaved Hybrid Rugosa born of Swedish origin in the same year as my father, 1931.  I planted Moje (pronounced "moyeh") two years ago as a mail order waif, wondered if he would survive the first winter here, and then fretted as he waited out the sodden swamp of solid clay where I planted my rose garden.  Despite my pessimistic expectations, however, in this instance his obvious Rugosa genes have come through and he looks like both a keeper and a survivor.  Well, a keeper so long as he continues his current healthy manner.

Moje may be a native Swede, but he fits none of the typical statuesque stereotype that a Midwest American expects from that far Northern country.  Moje is not a Viking warrior reincarnated in rose form, he is more representative of a squat little hobbit hiding behind the more heroic figures in the garden.  Of unknown parentage, the only thing for certain about Moje is that he must have some Rosa rugosa 'Rubra' in his immediate forebears, expressed in classic thick, wrinkled  and very dense foliage and a distinct tendency towards the mauve petals of the Rugosa genes.  There is, as expected, no blackspot or disease on this rose and he seems impervious to rose rosette virus as expected of that foliage.

Unlike many of the Rugosa's however, Moje is a complete gentleman and very diminutive in habit.  Rounded  and contained, at two years of age, he stands about two feet tall and two feet wide, healthy, but not overly vigorous.  His eventual size is reportedly only 3' X 4' from most sources (Peter Beales is alone in listing he could reach 6' tall), a tiny compact mass of restrained Rugosa hardy to Zone 3b.  In fact, he's shown absolutely no signs of suckering as yet, one of only two Rugosas in my garden to completely avoid that irritating tendency.  In that regard, he resembles my 'Purple Pavement', front and center in another bed only 20 feet away from Moje.  Perhaps those two polished specimens will have a good influence on the comely but aggressive 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' in their vicinity and serve as an example to repress her wanton ways.  

The large blooms of Moje, however, are not nearly as tidy as the plant and are, in fact, a fairly unimpressive 17-25 petal mop head of mauve crepe similar in appearance to the larger and more vigorous 'Hanza'.  Suzy Verrier, writing of Moje in her Rosa Rugosa, charitably describes the 3-4" wide blooms as "lovely, large, and asymmetrical,"  which is a very nice way of saying that they have form, but no substance, color without sophistication.  Peter Beales, in "Roses" describes the blooms as "nodding," and I would agree that they seem to hang from the bush to some degree.  Moje does, however have a strong spicy Rugosa fragrance and reportedly forms large hips in the fall, which I have yet to see.  He repeats sporadically but always has a few blooms around to display, albeit the display is nothing to get especially excited about.

You can probably tell that I'm less than enthusiastic about Moje Hammarberg, disease-proof as he may be.  It's not that he's a bad rose, he's just...uninspiring, although the members of  helpmefind.com/rose disagrees and label him "excellent."  At this stage of my experience with him, I'd recommend him as a decent basis for a rugosa hedge, perhaps for those living in salt-prone regions, but I wouldn't expect him to be the centerpiece of a garden.  He's a workhorse, not a fancied up Dressage, prancing around in splendor.  

Hope-filled Hips

This winter, I will not lose these urns of life.
This winter, I will not forget where I stored these pomes.
This winter, I will not place these seeds where Mrs. ProfessorRoush might displace them.
This winter, I will not forget to stratify the seeds.
This winter, I will not overlook the chance to grow a new rose.

This spring, I will remember to plant these children in sterile soil.
This spring, I will scarify the seed coat to encourage germination.
This spring, I will not overwater the seedlings.
This spring, I will keep the mildew at bay.
This spring, I will keep the fragile growing babes in full, bright sun.



I collected these hips today, on probably the last 70 degree day of the year. In the past, I've grown a rose seedling or two, but more than once I have lost the hips over the winter or seen them dry to death.  Not this year.  I'm going to do everything by the book, as closely as I can. We have already had several light freezes at night and I don't trust the deep freezes forecast in the coming week so it was time to bring them in for protection and start their journey into the future. 

The multi-colored, multi-shaped hips of the top picture are collected from a variety of Rugosa roses; 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup', 'Foxi Pavement', 'Purple Pavement', 'Snow Pavement', 'Charles Albanel' and 'Blanc Double de Coubert', as well as a few hips from 'Applejack', 'Survivor', and 'George Vancouver'.  Yes, to a rose purist, they are all mixed up and worthless and I will never know the true parentage of anything that grows from them.  In my defense, they were all open-pollinated as well, so even if I kept them separate, I would know only half the story.  And I really don't care what their lineage is; I'm looking for health, beauty, and vitality in these offspring, not for any specific crossing. The Rugosa genes should be enough.

The lighter, more orange hips of the second picture are from one rose; Canadian rose 'Morden Sunrise'.  Well, okay, there are two hips from 'Heritage' that I will take care to keep separate. 'Morden Sunrise' looks to be a great female parent based on her hips, bursting with seed and plentiful.  I don't know if she'll be self-pollinated or whether the bees did their jobs, but, regardless, I did want to see if any seedlings from these hips will survive and carry the colors of the sunrise down another generation.

Next year, I will grow roses.  New roses.  My roses.

Foxi Pavement

There are roses that you love from the first glimpse, and roses that sometimes have to earn your love over time.  ProfessorRoush is here, live on blog, to tell you that 'Foxi Pavement' is just another potential Hybrid Rugosa that you've heard of and don't really care about, right up until finally you grow her.  I promise that 'Foxi Pavement' will grow ON you as it grows IN your garden, just as it did for me.

'Foxi Pavement,' also known as Luberon®, UHLater,  and, inexplicably, as "Buffalo Gal" (the approved ARS Exhibition name), is a 1987 introduction Hybrid Rugosa by Jürgen Walter Uhl.  Well, according to helpmefindroses.com she's a 1987 introduction, but Modern Roses 12 lists her under 'Buffalo Gal' as a 1989 introduction.  As readers know, because of the rose rosette catastrophe which struck here, I've chose to grow as many roses with R. rugosa heritage as I can find, regardless of their color or form.  I may not have formed the most perfect display rose garden, but the experience has made my garden into an exquisite testing ground for roses I might not otherwise have bothered after.  'Foxi Pavement' is one of those roses that I'm happy to have happened across.

In my Kansas climate, she is often a little frazzled and worn, but she's resilient and seldom without a few flowers. All the pictures on this page were taken this week, in a random moment while I was mowing.  Her R. rugosa genetics show up in the heavily rugose, light-green foliage and complete disease resistance.  The pictures on this page are of a mature 'Foxi Pavement' near the hot end of summer, only the slightest bit of blackspot near the bottom of the plant and a little mild insect damage on the unsprayed plant.  Most importantly, there are no signs of rose rosette disease anywhere on my 4 year old plant.  Her mature size is 4 foot tall and 5 foot wide in my garden, and the semi-double to mildly double flowers (17-25 petals officially) have a strong R. rugosa fragrance.  She is completely cane-hardy with no die-back in my Zone 5-6 climate, and she sets fantastically large hips after bloom, giving her a second season of display in my garden.

When compared with the other Pavement roses, that I grow, 'Foxi' is the intermediate color choice between pale 'Snow Pavement' and dark 'Purple Pavement', with a size and form bigger than the latter and identical to the former.  One big advantage of 'Foxi Pavement' is that she doesn't show any signs of suckering.  In my garden, 'Purple Pavement also hasn't suckered, but 'Snow Pavement' suckers occasionally and 'Dwarf Pavement' is a diminutive (2 foot tall) monster, spreading over 5 years to cover a 10 foot wide area in one of my garden beds.

'Foxi Pavement has earned her permanent place in my garden and I'd recommend her in any garden.  I grow a distant and better known relative, 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' nearby, and comparing the two, I think I much prefer 'Foxi' over 'Fru Dagmar'.  'Foxi' is taller and more upright, and although the lavendar-pink tone is similar to 'Fru Dagmar', I think 'Foxi' is a brighter pink, perhaps helped out by her higher petal count.  Both plants are very healthy and their gorgeous hips are almost identical in number, color, and size.   Remember, ProfessorRoush likes big hips and he cannot lie...(don't hesitate to click the link here, it's SFW...mostl)

Also...pretty proud of himself, and I'm sure you're pleased, that ProfessorRoush avoided any puns or plays on the 'Foxi' name.

The Arrival

I turned the corner last night, July 5, 2019, and there, right there on the top of virginally white 'Blanc Double de Coubert' in full-on public display, fornicating, yes FORNICATING, in flagrante delicto, caught red-handed (or, in this case, green-bodied) in naked embrace, were the first of the Japanese Beetles to invade my garden this year.  Immodest, immoral, deplorable and disgusting Japanese Beetles!

All right, all right.  My indignation is false, my outrage is fake, although this Japanese Beetle sightings is most certainly not "fake news."  I've actually been expecting them, waiting and watchful, forewarned and forearmed.  In point of fact, while I'm spilling the beans, these weren't the first Japanese Beetles that I saw yesterday evening.  I had already found one a few moments earlier on 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup', cornered it, captured it, and crushed it under my sole.  On the first day, the total casualty count for the Japanese Beetle army at my hands was 6; the pair above on 'Blanc', the pair below on 'Applejack', the single stag male on 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' and another single male on a second 'Applejack'. 

They are right on time, these horrible hordes.  Based on a search of my blog, from the very first time I spotted one in my garden, 7/7/2013, to the beginning of last year's seasonal foray on 7/1/2018, they've never been earlier than July 1st, nor later than July 7th, with the exception of the fabled beetle-less summer of 2016.  My blog is full of beetles, and I noticed tonight that if you click on the search box at the right and type in "beetles", I've accumulated almost a dozen musings on these hard-bodied trespassers.  Go ahead, I promise it is an entertaining side-path through the blog.

Sore from recent marathon weedings of the garden, nursing what I suspect is my first ever episode of trochanteric bursitis, and in no mood to trifle with more garden interlopers after the earlier spring invasion of rose slugs, I've chosen the nuclear option this year.  Full-on, no-prisoners-taken, garden-wide thermonuclear war in my garden, insecticide at 50 paces, and may the human win.  My sole concession to the less onerous garden critters was to spray as early in the morning as possible so as to spare as many bumblebees as I could, but I'm in no mood this year to stand on the ethical high ground and spend every night and morning searching the garden by hand to interrupt and dispatch Japanese beetle couples in the process of making more Japanese beetles.  So this year, I'll spare myself the bursa-inflaming activity and spare you the daily body count, and I will simply report any spotted survivors here later.  To my fellow gardeners, ye of beetle-inflicted pain, the skirmishes have begun again.  Good hunting, my friends.

Thoughtful Rest

OA lily hybrid 'Kaveri'

ProfessorRoush is almost there; nearly to the autopilot period of the summer garden, the period of the summer where the grass barely needs mowing, the weeds are under control, and the primary chores are behind him.  Time to rest and enjoy the garden, perhaps not to read in the garden shade along with these bright lilies, but at least to slow down and enjoy what he can.  Before fall arrives in haste, before finishing the rose dead cane removals, weather-protecting the patio, staining the gazebo, re-blacktopping the blacktop, and the thousand other things that I think of when I'm in the garden, I must take time to enjoy it's life, the life of my garden.  Besides, keeping it all running smoothly can be chore enough.  Yesterday, the lawn mower quit 20 minutes before I was ready to finish.  I was far too hot and tired during my 7th hour in the garden when the temperatures hovered between 95º and 100º to care to work on it yesterday, but I got up this morning and revived the lawn mower, a major victory by this gardener of no mechanical skill.  Sometimes, even a blind squirrel finds a nut, as the old saying goes.

'Fru Dagmar Hastrup

I need to enjoy my garden alongside the bees, who are certainly enjoying the second bloom of 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup'.  This one and his friends were going crazy spinning around the many fresh blooms.  Lots of blooms, lots of hips, healthy foliage, and not a single Japanese Beetle yet to be seen. 'Fru Dagmar' is having a moment, and it's a moment not to be ignored.

'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' second bloom

 Despite all my complaining about rose rosette disease and its devastation of my garden, I'm beginning to see the other, brighter side of the post-RRD schism.  The young rugosas and old garden roses are coming along and there are now small shrubs in many places where there were bare spots last summer and fall.  And the older, more mature rugosas, like 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup', are picking up the slack, providing me some needed bloom and food for the bees.  I'll soon be blogging about new roses again, new roses to my aging garden.

'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' hip

'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' is also going to provide a second later season of pleasure for me, these big plump hips from the first bloom just starting to turn and covering the plant alongside the newer blooms.  Their shear mass, the size of a plum or large grape, is only rivaled in my garden by the bodacious hips of 'Foxi Pavement' , pictured below.  I like big hips and I cannot lie. I'm interested to see which hips are more red as we progress towards fall, and which hips stay so prominent and full.

'Foxi Pavement' hip

Lilacs, Plantings, and Peonies

Oh, it's been an eventful weekend here on ProfessorRoush's home place.  Work, work, work, sunup to sundown, soreness to sunburn.  I'm catching up rapidly on the chores, trying to do the massive and minor garden chores alike before it gets too warm to enjoy.








But first, I must announce a tie this year for "First Rose to Bloom".  'Marie Bugnet' (at left) is struggling in my garden, down to a single stem that I'm going to try to layer and root before it goes, but she still managed to sneak in her perennial virginal white claim to "first bloom."  She was given a run for her money, however, by 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' (above), who managed not one, but two of these delicate pink blooms to greet the sun on the same day.  The final decision was left to the judge, however, like this year's Kentucky Derby, and I've awarded First Bloom to Marie B. again, handicapped as she is by the meager foliage beneath her.


In the meantime, I've got a massive list of accomplishments this weekend.  1) I finished all the bark mulching and weeding of the beds around the house, which involved a total of around 45 bags of mulch in this round. 2) I purchased and planted 13 daylily starts sold yesterday morning at the Farmer's Market by the Flint Hills Daylily Society.  3) I painted our eyesore of a mailbox, much to Mrs. ProfessorRoush's chagrin, since she will have to find something else to express displeasure over.  4) I painted the pasture gate, which was starting to show rust through the previous 20-year-old paint.  5) I opened up 20 or so bales of straw and mulched several lower beds. 6) I planted the gladiola corms you see at the right; a row of multi-color and a row of bright reds to serve as cut flowers later in the season.  7) I weeded the strawberries, onions, peas, and potatoes.  8) I repotted the indoor Christmas Cacti and Easter Lilies. 9) I pruned back several crape myrtles. 10) I mowed the front and back yards. 11) I planted several small shrubs into empty spots.  12) I put Gerbena Daisies into the pots near the garage. 13) I planted two Miscanthus sinensis ‘Purpurescens’ into two large landscape pots. 14) I filled the bird feeders. 15) I tidied up the garage. 16) I made two trips to box stores to purchase various and sundry needed gardening items including mulch and potting soil. 17) I repaired the vents on the septic bed. 18) I did approximately a seemingly infinite number of "Honey-do" chores for Mrs. ProfessorRoush. 19) Whew...I've forgotten what else. What a weekend!

In other news, I'm very pleased this year with the look of the front landscaping.  Even without blooms at present, there's a fair bit of foliage color visible as you can see at the left, looking from the west to the east across the front.  Ninebark 'Amber Jubilee', Japanese Maple 'Emperor 1', Forsythia 'Golden Tines', Lilac 'Scent and Sensibility', variegated euonymuses (euonymi?)  'Moonshadow' and 'Emerald Gaiety' and many others give some pleasant texture to all the green around them. 

'Scent and Sensibility' dwarf lilac

Speaking of Lilac 'Scent and Sensibility', I'm very happy with this well-behaved addition to the front garden.  Standing at 4 years old and a mature height of 2.5 feet and width of 3.5 feet, 'Scent and Sensibility' is marketed as a "dwarf" lilac and is just coming into major bloom as the Syringa vulgaris types fade out, the former's sweet scent permeating the entire front garden at just the right moment.  I'm very pleased that this 2015 addition to my garden is making her own mark in the landscape.


Last, but not least, in other blooms, my Paeonia suffruticosa Tree Peony continues to survive, a miracle here on the prairie.  Yesterday it had this single yellow bloom and in today's sunshine, it opened up two more.  I mulched around it carefully this weekend, cognizant that last year a garter snake surprised me by peering out of its leaves, just as I was taking a closeup photo of a bloom.  I'm pretty sure the same snake is back, as a couple of branches rustled around when I came close this time as well.  Such a nice peony and I can't enjoy it up close again.  Drat.

For the Bees, You See

Today, I'll show you why, in photos instead of my usual wordy rambling, that I handpick the Japanese beetles off my roses. All the photos are taken the same lovely morning.

No insecticides in my garden on anything that blooms.  I eliminated the bagworms by removing the junipers.  I'm letting the melyridaes make minimal and merry damage on whatever they want.  And I'll put up with momentarily holding a few squirming Japanese beetles in my palm to hear the music of the bees in my garden.    How could anyone possibly take a chance on hurting these wholly-innocent and innocently-beautiful creatures?  Here, Mr. Bumble is visiting delicious 'Snow Pavement'.

And here, another bee almost covers the private parts of this delicately-veined 'Applejack'.  

Fru Dagmar Hastrup' entertains and feeds this street urchin.  Look at that perfectly formed bloom against fabulous foliage here in the middle of summer and scorching sun.

Fru's short, nearby gentleman friend, 'Charles Albanel' allows another bumble deep into his double petals.  Charles doesn't make as many hips as Fru Dagmar, but he shows off more while he's in flower.

Okay, it's not a rose, it's a Rose of Sharon, Hibiscus syriacus 'Blue Bird', to be exact.  But it also has its part in feeding the bees in my garden.

One more of 'Snow Pavement'.  I'm going to write about 'Snow Pavement' more soon, as she is reaching her mature height and presentation in my garden..  In the meantime, I'll leave you with her soft pink blooms while you contemplate how you're helping the bee species in your garden.

(Fru) Dagmar Hastrup

When a gardener is pressed by misfortune, by weather, illness, or insect, he or she will sometimes stoop to admiration of the unadmirable; to false flattery of the faulty.  Thank heavens, for the salvation of my sanity and reputation, 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' is performing at her nondeplorable best this year in my garden and I can be honest about her virtues.  Perhaps in a normal year, she would be and has been outshined by gaudier specimens, but this year she is the rugose Belle of the Spring Ball.



She's about a three-year old plant in my garden, this simple Danish maid, and just now reaching early adulthood and nearly mature growth.  Standing at approximately 3 feet tall, she's short for a Rugosa, although she already shows a middle-aged spread, wider than her height.  Suzanne Verrier, author of Rosa Rugosa, suggests that she "is usually larger on its own roots than on an understock. "  For me she has been, in the past, a not very ostentatious lass for most of the year, although the exceedingly excited bee in the photo at the upper right might disagree.

'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' was discovered by Knud Julianus Hastrup at the Hastrup nursery in Vanloese near Copenhagen, Denmark in 1914.  Herr Knud is said to have likely named the quiet lass after his wife, Dagmar Henriette Vilhelmine, and according to Marianne Ahrne, writing on helpmefind.com/roses, she has always been known throughout the Scandinavian countries as simply 'Dagmar Hastrup'.   "Fru" is the older Scandinavian equivalent to the English Mrs. or Mistress, an older formal title dropped by the 1960's Swedish population  in a wildly du-reformen fit of familiarity.  In the interest of political correctness, I should probably also bend to the winds of conformity, since Modern Roses 12 also lists her as merely 'Dagmar Hastrup', but as a married gentleman, I'm going to stick here to the formal address out of respect to Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  

A silvery pink, single Hybrid Rugosa, 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' blooms freely and often, forming beautiful scarlet hips each fall as I've previously described.    I haven't yet noticed, but she is also reputed to don attractive foliage in the fall, trading her flawless rugose medium green foliage for new and more warmly-colored attire.  Verrier gave an extremely flattering review of her, stating she "ranks as a classic among the rugosas."

Until this year, however, when she finally reached my waist, I did not know that this single rose packed a huge punch of fragrance, the clov-iest spicy clove fragrance that I've ever experienced.   I suppose that sauce for the bee is also sauce for the gardener.  'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' is completely cane hardy, drought-resistant, and, best of all, disease-free.  If there were a Tinder for roses, everyone would be swiping "up" for 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup', intent, like this bumblebee, on an easy hookup.   Like most Rugosas, I'm sure 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' would be happy to use her thorns to oblige.

Baby Got Hips

I like big hips and I can not lie
You other gardeners can't deny
That when a rose shows up with its foliage rough and tough
 And puts some red balls all around
You get glad, want to make some jam
'Cause those hips ain't full of spam
Seeds in those hips she's wearing
I'm hooked and I can't stop staring
Oh baby, I want to plant them wit'cha
And take your picture

Sorry, but once again, Baby Got Back seems to be my muse for starting a post.  Our first frost is finally upon us,almost 4 weeks late, and 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' is ready, ripe hips shining in the sun.  These hips are the biggest and juiciest of the rugosas that I grow, and in these, I can finally see why wartime Britain relied on rose hips as a source of Vitamin C.  The first hip, at the top, is larger than a quarter, and the second is nearly that large.  Many sources state that these hips should be accompanied by fall color changes in the foliage, but I have yet to see my bush provide any color this fall.  Perhaps she will develop it later, once that first frost does its damage.

I do intend to plant the seeds within this scarlet dreams this winter and try for a crop of Rugosa hybrids.  After the loss of so many roses to Rose Rosette, I might as well hope and pray that 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' was indiscreet with one of the Griffith Buck or English roses in the vicinity, making little roses that could have some RR resistance.  A gardener can hope.

Our average first frost in this area is around October 15th, but today, November 13th, is our first this year.  The view below was out my back windows into the garden as the sun rose this morning, bright and determined to chase away the frost.  I spent the cold morning indoors, and then ventured out into my garden on a beautiful afternoon to trim some volunteer trees from the garden beds; mulberry, elm, and rough dogwood are the usual culprits here.  It wasn't a huge chore, but I'm nibbling my way back into the garden slowly, picking away at the things that bug me the most from this dismal year.  For once, I welcome winter and I want a cold one to sweep the slate clean, so I can start over anew.

Ice Time

Rosa rugosa 'Hunter'

Ice, what change thou has wrought on the landscape of Eden!  A night of frozen tears, a dawn of day, and earth seems shackled in a skin of glass.  Breath of North, a frozen gale has bowed brave 'Hunter' down, closing pistil and stamen against the will of the bloom.  It's suitors absent, huddled in their hives, the red flower now becomes a jewel, a ruby amidst thorns.  This glowing center of winter's garden pleases under ice but will fade at the next kiss of a warm breeze.

The view from my southern back window is lightened this morning, the garden itself somehow cleaner and calmed.  In contrast, the front, north-facing windows are opaque with ice, mere light without form in their distance.  Under the weight of solid water, the Sawtooth Oak on the left sighs and spreads, hoping to ease the burden of load.  

I worry for the trees, especially the proud but precarious Redbud to the west.  The favorite of Mrs. ProfessorRoush, a stiff wind could undo it in seconds, cracking it to kindling in a contest of will.  The existing gale already broke the resolve of the garden's photographer, sending him fleeing into the warmth of house, to the fire of hearth. 

There will be no further sticky-fingered tree frogs on my bottle tree, blue cobalt turned death trap for amphibian skin.  Summer is long past, and I pray that whatever moist skinned creatures survived the droughts of August have long burrowed into shelter.

'Carefree Beauty'

'Fru Dagmar Hastrup'

The orange hips of Carefree Beauty are preserved today, cased in glass, but will soon turn brown and shrivel.  So to, the relucent redder rugosa hip of 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' will dim to dull.  Life in these hips has been stolen by the relentless ice, the seeds yet to spill upon the ground.

The cherub of the peony bed presides over all, calm and quiet, chaste and cool, reminding that this day was anticipated, nay expected, in the course of seasons.  The gardener heeds the stoic stone at last, slowing heartbeat, resting thoughts, reassured that the garden will survive again the orbit of years.