Showing posts with label Garden Humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garden Humor. Show all posts

Sunday, August 6, 2023

My Old Friends

My old friend, I recall
The times we had, hanging on my wall
I wouldn't trade them for gold
'Cause they laugh and they cry me
Somehow sanctify me
They're woven in the stories I have told
                                My Old Friend; Tim McGraw

This 2004 Tim McGraw release, from the album Live Like You Were Dying, has been stuck in my head all afternoon, a so-called "ear worm" placed there by Mrs. ProfessorRoush after she had the utter audacity this morning to suggest that I trash my gardening shoes "because they stink up the closet."   



Setting aside the fact that the afore-mentioned closet is by the door to the garage, and that this is only one of two sets of my shoes in the closet, how could she possibly determine that they smell sufficiently bad as to be singled out to smell worse than the 45 pairs of her sandals, running shoes, exercise shoes, winter boots, and various others that share the closet?   Okay, okay, if you pick them up and smell  closely, there's a faint smell of mold or rot, but you practically have to be nose deep in them to detect it.  C'mon man, if you haven't been washed since the summer of '20, you might smell a little gamey too.

Mrs. ProfessorRoush isn't counting the emotional tie we (the shoes and I) have from the shared miles, the complete support of each other through rain and prairie fire, and the tons of earth and stone shoveled, nor does she value the ways a good shoe eventually mirror and mold the feet they protect.   These shoes started out identical to the 4 other pairs waiting in the wings (they're my go-to Amazon order for shoes), but the latter can never replace the memories.   Every torn stitch is a story told, and every scuff a battle fought and won.  They simply can't be replaced, not by newer, shinier shoes and not by the 2nd pair of my shoes in the closet, these made-for-the-garden waterproof clogs purchased 10 years ago on a whim and which hurt my heels if I wear them more than 5 minutes.

There are some topics, and some totems, that the wife of a gardener should just know to leave alone.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush should recognize that she has no more say over the condition of my garden shoes than over my choice of hoe or whether or not I'm going to spray weeds this weekend.   Silence and tolerance are called for here, not aspersion or defamation of a defenseless pair of beloved shoes.  With patience, eventually, they'll disintegrate, molecule by molecule, just like her gardening husband.  In the meantime, both shoes and ProfessorRoush can be washed, and although neither will look new, they won't look or smell any worse than this old set of Mrs. PR's sandals, will they now?  Birkenstocks, Smirkenstocks.

What will she go on to next, if I were to give in and replace these old friends?  My favorite gardening jeans with the hole in one knee?  My gardening cap? Tread lightly wife, for some bonds are simply stronger than marital ties.  The old sneakers fit me so well I don't even have to untie and retie them, I just slip into them now.  And this hat, well, it's just the perfect tightness to not fly away in the Kansas wind.  In the end, nothing should be feared more than a gardener with a good farm hat, comfortable shoes, and a shovel. 

McGraw's song lyrics, by the way, always leave me a little sad and angry anyway, so the continual replay of them in my head isn't helping the wounds heal today.  This song has always reminded me of a childhood friend, one who ran over the woods and farm with me from first grade through high school, and who died in his 40's due to complications from the Crohn's Disease he fought his whole life, shortly after this song was released.  I'm sorry, my friend, that I didn't see you as often as we aged, nor did I try enough to help carry your pain.  I pray now your pains have been washed away like the dirt from these shoes.  "From dirt, to dirt," is not as comforting to a old gardener, as it might seem, particularly when his shoes have been questioned.

Thursday, November 24, 2022

Christmas Conspiracies

While ProfessorRoush is usually a reasoned and contemplative individual (please pay no attention to Mrs. ProfessorRoush's cackling in the background), I am not ashamed to admit that the occasional attractive conspiracy theory does obtain some small foothold of territory in my mental processes.  In contrast, however, to those crackpots who insist that there was never a moon landing or those who maintain that the earth is flat, despite all the growing evidence against either view, I feel compelled to reveal, here for the first time, a real, personally documented, grand conspiracy. 

I'm positive that all of you, all gardeners and shoppers, all homeowners and plantspeople, have been experiencing a great sense of unease as Thanksgiving approached and local store aisles filled with holiday decorations and unwanted unnecessities, yet you've all likely been unable to pinpoint the cause of your disquiet.  I'll admit that I shared that underlying apprehension with you, until suddenly a great revelation appeared to me last week and, to my eternal shock I became aware, you might say "woke", that one of the great mysteries of civilization had been developing right in front of my eyes; a mystery I shall now reveal.

WHERE THE HECK ARE ALL THE CHRISTMAS CACTUSES THIS YEAR?   Normally, by this time, every checkout aisle and every floral display area would be filled with wilting but blooming $6-$9 pots of colorful red and white and pink and fuchsia Christmas cacti raised especially to capture your whimsy and your excess cash during your vulnerable moments of holiday shopping.  This year, there are none available, not one anywhere near Manhattan Kansas, a fact which I confirmed by personally visiting every big box store, grocery store, and hardware store in the area this week.  

I started out on this conspiracy track innocently, merely wanting to see if a new color or variety was available to add to my collection and brighten Mrs. ProfessorRoush's windows, yet the absence of the cacti became more evident with every store I searched.  Querying the internet for an explanation has been similarly unsatisfactory.  There have been no media reports of mass destruction of Christmas Cactus nursery facilities, nor scientific papers on sudden mutations of fungal wilt that threaten the extinction of the cacti group.  Asking Google the simple question "Where have the Christmas cacti gone?" is rewarded only by 10,591,251 occurrences inanely explaining how to make a cactus bloom, and it undoubtedly results in one's name being added to some secret list somewhere as well as causing your mail and social media feed to fill up with hundreds of ads for plant sales and fertilizer.  

We will call it the Great Missing Christmas Cactus Conspiracy of 2022, or "CCC-22", and later generations will remember this blog entry as the initiation of the movement alerting the world to their loss.  It is a fact that Government officials are completely silent on the issue and appear to be taking no action to investigate the mystery.  This is surely an occasion for Congressional inquires and appointment of special prosecutors if ever there were, don't you agree?  The President, Dr. Fauci, or at least the Illuminati must be behind the disappearance.  No, wait, it's COVID-19, isn't it?   SARS-CoV-2 was not developed to destroy democratic societies, save Medicare, and unleash the New World Order, nay, the ultimate goal by some powerful fiendish billionaire Christmas-cactus-hater was for the virus to wipe out annual production and commerce in Christmas cacti, wasn't it?

If you don't hear from me again, you'll know I touched a nerve somewhere.   Wake up, everyone, before it's too late to save the cacti!  Write your Congresspersons, call your Senators, and let's make our Christmas-cactus-loving-voices heard!


Sunday, September 12, 2021

Mrs. PR and the Bumblebees

Friends, ProfessorRoush failed you miserably today, too weak in a critical moment to do what really needed to be done.  I failed to capture and share with you the video of a lifetime, a sure bet to spread like a virus across the globe, making ProfessorRoush a household name in the process.  

My Sunday began in a completely innocent fashion with no clue of the drama to unfold.   As I was preparing to mow the lawn, Mrs. ProfessorRoush mentioned that she was going to slip down to pick any remaining tomatoes in the garden before she showered and began her day.   Ever the helpful and attentive husband, I followed her down to the garden, where we picked a few tomatoes, snared a few deliciously ripe blackberries from the thorny canes, and then ambled over to the grapes, which were past ripe, sweet and juicy, and needed picking.

Let me set the scene for you.  As it happened, Mrs. ProfessorRoush had ambled down to the garden in a mid-thigh length pink cotton nightgown and slippers, her tanned legs bare and well-toned, a beauty among the brambles.   She was picking grapes off one vine while I, ten feet away, was distracted from her heavenly presence in the garden by the discovery that bumblebees were feasting heavily on the grapes (see the photo above and to the left).  

I was contemplating that astounding new bit of knowledge and engrossed in photographing one of the bees eating the grapes when Mrs. ProfesssorRoush began to complain that the bees were bothering her; complaints that turned quickly to excited chatter and then hysteria as the bees decided that the exposed hair and flesh of Mrs. PR seemed to be even more delicious than the bountiful grapes all around.   Perhaps it was her hair spray, perhaps it was her perfume, or perhaps it was just the delicious sweetness that is Mrs. ProfessorRoush, but those bees were dead set on either driving her away from their sweet grapes, or feasting on her, or both.

Now picture this:  a frantic Mrs. ProfessorRoush running up the hill in a mid-thigh pink-nightgown, arms flailing madly, the bowl of tomatoes and grapes cast upon the ground, Bella trotting calmly behind her, wondering at last, I'm sure, if she was going to finally see her rival for my affections dethroned.

And there I was, phone in hand, with it already turned on in camera mode, and I was laughing so hard I could barely stand, let alone thinking clearly enough to capture a photo or a movie for the future entertainment of humankind.  In hindsight, I'm so disappointed in myself.   Perhaps I wouldn't have become famous for a video, but I'm sure the pink blur of Mrs. ProfessorRoush's backside running up the hill would have at least made the nightly national news.  And perhaps distracted and amused, for just a moment, an entire nation bored from the pandemic. 

So, there you have it.  Bumblebees eat ripe grapes, I presume for the sugar and cheap energy.  I had never heard or read of that before.  And I've spent the day outside doing chores and snapping other pictures, like the last two photos of the bees on the light blue caryopteris near the back steps.  I remain hopeful that by nightfall my laughter will have faded from Mrs. ProfessorRoush's memory and she'll unlock the doors.  Surely she'll be able to see the broader humor of the occasion by then, won't she? 

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Amusing Daily Moments

ProfessorRoush should not make fun of gardeners unknown and unknowing, but still, with all the many trials of life, one has to find humor where one can.   Just a few evenings ago, the humor gods presented me with a surprise gift at, of all places, the Arby's drive- thru.   Friends, I give you, pictured at right, the meticulously maintained landscape efforts present at my local establishment.   Their new motto will soon be "Arby's, we have the weeds."

I chuckled as I realized what the plant was, and I'm sure the drive-thru window server and the car behind me thought I was severely mentally deranged as I suddenly paused the car, whipped out my phone, and snapped this picture.  I simply was unable to stop myself.  It's not every day that a Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius) is so carefully tended and prominently displayed.

I sincerely hope that this planting is a soon-to-be-classic representation of Dunning and Kruger's "Unskilled and Unaware" hypothesis, inadvertently illustrated by a well-meaning teenager employed at minimum wage for the summer, rather than an intentional effort by a local landscaping firm hired by the restaurant.   One never knows, however.  It is only obvious that leaving this weed in place was purposeful, the perfectly-sited weed growing in an otherwise cleaned and weed-free area.  

Oh, how disappointed management is going to be when this blooms in a week or so, those small pale yellow blooms that will turn quickly into downy tufts of seed.  There are some definite downsides to using Goat's Beard in the landscaping as they spread everywhere and the sticky sap doesn't lend itself to weeding by an ungloved hand.  There are some upsides that I can see, however, as well.  First off, this particular weed is an obvious genius, placed here next to an unending parade of cars to hitch a ride on and enhance its procreation.  Second, I have an enormous crop of Goat's Beard seedlings in my iris bed that I can pull up and transplant for Arby's at a bargain price whenever they want.  I've always wanted to start a nursery and here I am, with a vast quantity of product ready to sell.  And a chain of thousands of restaurants to sell them to.    

Saturday, May 15, 2021

Photo Thiwivery

Effective immediately, ProfessorRoush is instituting a new policy to combat the theft and illicit use of his photos by extremely unscrupulous life partners (alias; Mrs. ProfessorRoush) for the sole purpose of falsely enhancing the perpetrator's Facebook feed. It's not thievery by strangers, it's thievery by wife, hence my coined title "Thiwivery."   From this point on, I will add a watermark to my better photos BEFORE I give in to the puppy eyes of Mrs. ProfessorRoush and send her copies of them.  Spousal privileges are one thing, but posting your husband's garden photos is just a step too far! 

Under normal circumstances, I don't mind at all if others download and use photos from this blog for their own purposes.   I've given explicit permission to some readers for their use of photos in the past, and, frankly, if I find one of my pictures being used elsewhere on the vast internet, I find it flattering rather than infuriating.  I just draw the line at seeing my own photos pop up on my own feed from HER Facebook page before I get a chance to post them myself.  I suppose I could unfriend her so I don't have to see her posts, but that seems a step in the wrong direction for good marital relations. 



Case in point, the gorgeous captures of orangey Morden Sunrise pictured above, the rose in full bloom in the evening sun as at the top, and just opening up in the morning dampness as above left.  I took them.  They are fabulous captures, if merely iPhone quality, are they not?   How maddening to see them first displayed on Facebook above comments from her followers over how wonderful HER garden must be.

In her defense, my larcenous spouse is always quick to respond to these comments and shift all credit to me, although at that point her diversions sound a bit disingenuous.  Since the photos are brazenly displayed on her page and the evidence is clear, those weak excuses are not admissible in court and hardly sway the jury. Verdict delivered, the court finds the defendant guilty of rapacious photo pilfering in the first degree.  The sentence is final and the punishment of being provided watermarked photos will be carried out immediately.

Mrs. ProfessorRoush also begged shamelessly for the luscious photos here of a purple columbine that self-seeded itself years ago into the garden and they have since also found their way onto Facebook.   Hey, lady, I know these photos are second only to your own beauty and grace, but take your own photos!  Mine are for my blog readers.  You can steal them later, just like everyone else!



Saturday, May 2, 2020

Guilty Gardening

ProfessorRoush is embarrassed, embarrassed I say, by his own recent display of poor taste.  I blame it on perfect product positioning, I blame it on a weakness for impulse purchases, I see it as a culmination of  poor life choices.  No, forget those, it is surely all due to the coronavirus quarantine.  Wants have replaced needs and frivolities have replaced necessity in the service of boredom.

For whatever reason, I have twice recently succumbed to the wiles of blatant consumerism.  The first was when I spied this plastic Zen Flamingo during a grocery run for milk and eggs.  I did not ask myself why a large grocery would be selling garden statues in the middle of a pandemic.  I did not ask myself where I would place it in the garden or more importantly WHY I wanted it.  I did not remind myself that I hate fake flamingos in the garden and in the past have poked fun at every pink plastic abomination I've seen.   I simply looked for the price and, of course, found it on sale, marked down to acceptably-priced luxury from its original fictitious retail level.

And then, later, there was this over-adorned solar garden lantern that I came upon while dodging the gauntlet of coronavirus-ridden zombies at Walmart.  I picked it up and put it back thrice before my weakened soul surrendered to its siren song and I came back to my senses as it was being placed into the back of the Jeep.  It is rather unique and a focal point in the garden for those moments when I choose to admire the garden while stumbling around in pitch darkness, but its rechargeable solar nature does not outweigh its garish construction, nor that I suspect it will barely last a season before disintegrating into worthless rust and plastic.  I apologize in advance to the Seventh Generation.

The worst part of these narcissistic indulgences is that my guilt for breaking every self-imposed rule of tasteful garden practice has not yet caught up with the internal endorphin release from their purchases.  Fresh from the damage of late spring freezes and snowfalls, a dispirited gardener has no apparent limit to shame.  I would argue that the garden lantern is, after all, quite pretty in a faux-Vegas-glitter sort of way.  Moreover, the Zen Flamingo makes a fitting partner to my long beloved Totally Zen Frog, don't you think?  Two small echoed passages joining in the symphony of my garden?

Alternatively, I could just own up to a complete collapse of any sense of decent garden style and refinement and place all the blame on COVID-19.  Surely, that sounds much better than "I lost my mind during quarantine."

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

SWMBO Minimality

I have spoken before, tongue-in-cheek, of She Who Must be Obeyed, easier abbreviated as the acronym SWMBO, in reference to the beautiful and home-ruling Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  Imagine my surprise then, while google-navigating across the Washington DC landscape the week before last, when I saw "She Who Must Be Obeyed" pop up on the google map on my iphone a few blocks from where I was at the time.  Feeling a sense of unease at my prescient phone and wondering why my wonderful spouse might be stalking me halfway across the country, I decided to meander innocently in the direction the map indicated, fully prepared to explain why I had wandered from the conference that I was supposed to be attending.

Eventually, I came across this somewhat enigmatic modern sculpture by Tony Smith which is titled, you guessed it, "She Who Must Be Obeyed."  It sits innocuously on the plaza lawn of the Department of Labor building (the Frances Perkins building) near the east wing of the National Gallery of Art, hidden from broader view by the buildings around it and unvisited by the art-unwashed like me.  My personal tastes in art, as described before, trend to figures recognizable as tastefully nude humans or cuddly animals, not abstract geometry.

While I was humbled that a statue was named after my lovely wife, this minimalist rhombus does not look anything like her, nor does it do any justice to the feminine figure of Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  The statue does have a mildly disapproving air about it, but that is as far as the resemblance goes.  I am further a little bit angry at the artist for the flippant naming of the structure, likely to cause confusion and anxiety in any married male who comes across the statue in a blissful moment of hiking across the D.C. mall.  Shame on you, Mr. Smith, for this monochromatic miscreation.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

The Heads

My garden, especially this time of year, does what it can to add to the seasonal festivities.  At least, Mrs. ProfessorRoush thinks so, having recently referred to certain ProfessorRoush-approved features as "creepy."  I would like to take that as a compliment to the ambiance of my pre-Halloween garden, but I really think she means it in a seriously derogatory fashion.  Her tone and disapproving demeanor suggest that she doesn't like the harmless "heads" dispersed in my garden.  Yes, I'm sure it is the "heads" she disapproves of.  Before you go off creating fake news, I should make it crystal clear that SWBMB (She Who Butters My Bread) is not referring to ProfessorRoush, the gardener himself, as being creepy.  At least I don't think so.


In actual fact, Mrs. ProfessorRoush doesn't like my "heads" at all and never has.  There are several disembodied heads, you see, dispersed in the garden, popping up just when you aren't really looking for them.  Merely faces, really, they provide some companionship to me in the garden while watching over the safety of the tree peony or while they just simply keep a watchful eye on the scenery.  I don't see them as "creepy" at all, but I confess that I have a thing for them, these concrete or iron mute inhabitants of my garden.  I've gathered a few over the years, still far fewer than the concrete rabbits in my garden, but the heads are growing in number.

The Lurker, pictured above, is the most startling to discover, peering out beneath a variegated eunonymus through the iris leaves, keeping the corner of the garage and driveway under surveillance at all times.  He actually is "only" a face, a concrete pour into a plastic  mold I purchased for $5.00 at a bookstore in years past.  I made just this one Lurker, but I still have the mold.  Do you think Mrs. ProfessorRoush would regret her harsh condemnation if I made a few more, say twenty-five or fifty of them, and put all over the garden?






I am really quite fond of The Iron Maiden, a grape-cluster adorned goddess permanently attached to the brick of the east side of the house.  It is she, the unyielding cast iron visage, who protects my only tree peony, sheltered with it in a spot that receives only gentle morning sun and protected from both the north and west winds. Oh, the stories she could tell of the golden peony and its resident garter snake.









Evidence suggests, however, that Mrs. ProfessorRoush's disdain and loathing is most directed at this beautiful feminine pottery sculpture, the Goddess of the Stones.  A Hobby Lobby special purchase, I bought her a number of years ago on clearance for, as I recall, the grand sum of $2.  I will freely admit that at the time I expected her to last only a short season or two, believing her to be just a little fired clay figure that would chip and disintegrate under the first few freezes.  On the contrary, she has held both her striking lines and gentle cream complexion for nearly a decade, sitting undisturbed on the limestone landscaping corner at the southeast point of the house, impervious to wind, sun, and rain.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush has repeatedly referred to The Goddess in the most disparaging terms, and she refuses to acknowledge the simple symmetry of this most comely countenance. If I could bring one of the heads to life, I would choose The Goddess of the Stones for lively lunch conversation or other diversions.

Along with the satisfaction they bring this gardener, the "heads" have one more most redeeming feature in relation to Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  They have made her completely forget, and indeed perhaps almost accept, my Kon-Tiki head, the first and largest head of my garden.  When I purchased it, nearly 20 years ago, she thought it was the most stupid thing she had ever seen in a garden.  She mellowed as the 'Rugelda' rugosa rose thrived around it, and today she hardly mentions it and certainly not in the same  association with the other heads.  It has faded from its original artificial antique green shade, now weathered concrete, and the rose around it has perished and been replaced by other plants, but it remains in the same spot as ever, watchful for the return of the gods from the east.  Perhaps it is simply less threatening to her jealous bone than The Iron Maiden or The Goddess but it's hard to argue that Kon-Tiki is far less frightening to unexpectedly encounter than the Lurker.


Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Can You See Me Now?

In my garden, after all these years, I'm reasonably sure that 99% of what lives there won't kill me.  It took ProfessorRoush all these years of jumping at the first sight of a slithering serpent or running madly away from the minuscule movements of a measly mouse to finally cultivate calmness in the face of garden calamity.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush thinks I have lost my fear of snakes entirely, but in truth, although I still react with the instincts of a chimpanzee and want to scream and throw feces at them, I have simply restrained my response to reaching a safe distance in a reasonable period of time rather than at full panicked gallop.

Thus it was that this morning, while picking strawberries on my hands and knees, I didn't react at all when there was a rustling beneath the strawberry leaves and movement a few inches away from my hand.  I didn't, in fact, even move my hand away.  I had just picked strawberries from all over the area in question, so I figured that if it was finally time to encounter a scared and biting copperhead, it was just my turn.  In actuality it was something else entirely.  Can you find it in the picture at the upper right?

How about this one?  Can you make out the tiny furry ear in the center of the picture at left?  Both the diminutive creature at the center of the first picture and the non-moving ear in the second are a pair of baby rabbits who were concealed in a small depression in the center of my strawberry patch.  I imagine Mama Rabbit must have thought, "what a great place to put my babies, here in all this foliage where no one can find them.  And only 20 feet from a few nice rows of peas and garden bean seedlings"  Which also explains what happened to a row of my just-sprouted peas that disappeared one night last week.


Well, as much as I have plans to kill or trap the several adult rabbits that are eating my hosta and small shrubs presently around the house, I'll just leave these two babies alone.  They aren't bothering the strawberries (as evidenced by my harvest today, pictured at the right), and they already lost their best chance at causing me a heart attack, so they can stay.  At least until next year when they're fully grown and eating the baby roses and asian lilies.

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Crane Fly Interlude

When ProfessorRoush spots an unusual insect in the garden, some chitinous-shelled life form beyond his ken, he takes note of it.  When it's on a rose plant, and particularly on a rose bloom, he moves into panic mode (or as close to it as he ever gets), and he looks it up as soon as possible. 

This week, in the garden, the unusual insect was this six legged, winged creepy-crawler that I believe I've correctly identified as the adult form of a "crane fly," Family Tipulidae,  known colloquially in England as a "daddy long-legs," or in other quarters, as a "mosquito hawk."  I first spied him on a bloom of 'Snow Pavement' as I was searching for the first appearance of Japanese Beetles, and then saw a second one nearby on the foliage of "Foxi Pavement."   A quick check of Internet sources tells me that it has no relation to the eight-legged monsters that I knew as granddaddy long-legs that infested the tents of my childhood, seemingly reconstituting themselves inside tents stored for decades between uses.  I also found that its diet does NOT include mosquitoes.  In fact the adults, which only live to procreate during a life-cycle span of 2 weeks, normally don't eat during that period at all.  They can reportedly copulate for up to 2 hours (who actually watches and times such things?), which would be pretty neat but would also make me pretty hungry, so unfortunately I'd conclude that the extended pleasure is not worth trading for the stomach cramps.

So what are they and what kind of fresh H-E-double toothpicks are they starting in my garden?  First, I learned quickly that these little morsels won't damage the rose blooms, much to my relief since I have few left to damage.  It may be the larvae, known as leatherjackets, that I have to worry about, if any.  The larvae live in the top layers of the soil and feed primarily on decaying organic matter, although they sometimes also feed on the roots, root hairs, and crowns of crops, stunting growth or killing the plants.  Bloody heck, in 1935 the little buggers invaded Lord's Cricket Ground in London, caused dead patches on the wicket, and the pitch exhibited unusual spin through the season.  What a balls up!
I've decided to leave them alone, as crane flies are also likely important in the soil ecosystem, improving microbial activity and recycling oganic material and because they serve as prey for other predatory insects and spiders, perhaps providing a food source to keep them alive long enough to consume other, more rose-harmful insects later.  I don't think I can blame them for the loss of so many roses to Rose Rosette Disease, and they're so much more dainty and delicate than the blundering Japanese Beetles I was expecting.  I'll consider the crane flies as my guests until they start tracking up the carpet or leaving the toilets unflushed.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Gone to Pot

Cannabis sativa.  Weed. Pot. Indian Hemp.  Mary Jane, buds, hippie lettuce, skunk weed, wacky tobaccy, combustible herbage.  Marijuana.  Completely to my surprise, as I was leaving work last week and noticed, in the parking lot island in front of my Jeep, this foot-tall, suspicious specimen with 7-fingered leaves and a weedy disposition.  On the grounds of Kansas State University and in full view.  I looked furtively around for federal or local surveillance and, finding none, snapped a quick blurry picture as proof.

Hey, I'm a gardener.  I notice plants.  I've been known to pull over on major highways and come to a full stop just to identify or photograph a particular flowering plant on the roadside.  You're looking at the far off scenery?  At the sunset or architecture or road signs?  I'm looking for unusual plant form or flashes of color, or interesting foliage.  I'm surveying habitat, speculating on species, and scrutinizing clumps that catch my eye.  The only hobbyists in the running for Voted Most Eccentric have to be gardeners or birders.  And I'm a little of both.

So I could hardly miss this plant, as it waved its lanceolate and toothed leaves and begged for attention.   Given its height, I might have noticed it sooner if I had parked in the nearby spot in the past week.  But there it was now, in plain view.  Not that I should have been surprised.  Hemp is, after all, naturalized in Kansas.  This Asian native was brought to the Great Plains in the 1880's.    Assuming the best intentions of our ancestors, it was presumably introduced for hemp fiber and used in production of rope, nets, and paper.  All that dancing around campfires was probably just coincidental.    

 I've never seen it in my own garden, likely because the disturbed areas of ground here were native prairie only a few relative years ago and doesn't contain seed.  Its presence in the Vet School parking lot could be due to avian-aided spread from wilder environments, or because some unburned herbage containing seeds was dropped nearby, or because it was intentionally planted in anticipation of a fall break period between classes.   The local police sit  next to this island frequently during the day, but I assume their motivation must be to utilize the afternoon shade of the tree in this island, not to protect their growing stash.

Anyway, there it is.  Or was.  You needn't find a sudden excuse to visit the Vet School.   The K-State groundskeepers had pulled it up by the next morning when I came back for a better picture.  All I found was a single partial leaf trampled to shreds near where bounty had been.  All that's left is the mystery of whether it was wild or a cultivated, fast-growning strain.   And who has the remnants of the plant and what they've done with it.

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Yes, Size Matters...

...for rain gauges, anyway.  I have no experimental data regarding other subjects.

ProfessorRoush has always been a purchaser of those little cheap 1 inch diameter rain gauges, both for price and for their ability to be mounted easily to a post.  I always wanted them cheap because, as often as not, I leave them open-side-up a little too long and lose one to frozen shatterage nearly every year.  For ages, I had one down at the garden and one up by the house, the nearest for convenience on cold rainy spring mornings and the farthest because the rain in Kansas is so spotty that I thought the second often might have differing readings (though it doesn't).

Then, a couple of years ago, I purchased a 2 inch rain gauge that stuck into the ground on a little metal stand (pictured at left) and I immediately noticed that it commonly registered more rain than the smaller gauges, sometimes double the amount of rain.  What the heck, an inch is an inch in regards to rain, right?

Recently, on an experimental whim, I purchased the rain gauge pictured at the right below this paragraph, which is about halfway between the two previous sizes.  And in the recent rains over several days, the tally was; Biggest gauge, 3.4 inches, medium gauge, 2.7 inches, and two small gauges, 2.1 and 2.2 inches respectively.


What I neglected to previously consider was that rain never falls straight down in Kansas.  It commonly sweeps in at a 30º angle to the ground.  Sometimes, it seems to be completely horizontal and never actually reaches the ground, or thereabouts.  I'm pretty certain that if my face didn't sometimes intercept the path of rain, those individual droplets might make it as far as Missouri before they fell.  So a simple explanation might be that some of the rain is hitting the side of the gauge instead of dropping into it.

Of course, any decent mathematician would have calculated in seconds that the area of a 1 inch circle is πr², or 0.785 square inches.  Held at a 30º angle to oncoming rain (and estimating by eyeball), the apparent opening of the now ellipse is 1 inch X 0.6875 inches.  The formula for the area of an ellipse is πab, or π(semi-major radius)(semi-minor radius).  In this case, that is π(0.5)(0.3438) = 0.54 square inches.  The same amount of rain just doesn't have the same target area, so the gauge doesn't fill as much.  Voila!

Of course, the real "angular diameter" of the gauge to rain that falls at near subtornadic velocity has a more exact formula  (δ=2 arctan(d/2D)), but then you get into arctans and deltas and other things that I don't want to spend time relearning. I'm still confident enough to put the validity of my crude explanation and estimates of rain depth up against the likely validity of a specific 20-year future climate change prediction by any scientist, "settled science" or not.  Bigger IS simply better, regarding rain gauges, and I'm sticking to it.

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Fanatical Frisbee Fido

In this modern age, where self-proclaimed exercise experts abound and continuously expound their unsolicited and dubious wisdom through all forms of media, scarce any gardener will be unaware of the purported health benefits attributed to digging holes in soil to the point of painful arches or the lugging about on a regular basis of various potted plants and bags of organic materials weighing between 6 ounces and 20 tons.  Not to mention the aerobic benefits of sudden spurts of increased heart rate from snake-sightings and the mental stress that is purged alongside the profanity hurled at various garden plagues ranging from late frost to drought to hail.  Yes, gardening is generally regarded as good for your physical and mental health.  Why then, do others seem to want to keep us from gardening?

Many who revolve in the immediate vicinity of a gardener seem not to recognize the health benefits of gardening or, alternatively, they believe their own fitness regimes will benefit you more or are more important than the needs of your zinnias.  Take for example, my constant gardening companion, the intrepid Bella.  The lovable pooch is a frisbee fanatic.  Her morning routine for Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I is 1) wake us up by licking us enthusiastically chin to ears, 2) ring the bell hanging from the front doorknob so we will open the door and then stand outside in the chilled air sleepy and barely clothed while she pees, and 3) throw the frisbee as far as possible across dew-soaked ground and as many times as possible or until the neighbor catches us in our sleeping attire or lack thereof.   Sometimes she skips steps one and two and just wakes us by banging the frisbee into our face.

And it goes on all day.  Every time I turn around, she's waiting patiently, frisbee in her mouth or at her feet, for me to notice.  I'll be planting a shrub, step backward, and trip over the frisbee.  I'll be watering a container, feel eyes on my back, and turn around and there she'll be, frisbee in mouth, pupils wide with excitement.  I come home from work, ready to garden and gain some physical activity, and I have to play frisbee before I can fire up the lawn mower or pick up the pruners.  If, for an instant, rain or shine, she comes upon you sitting down or perhaps even moving slowly, her solution to your inactivity is to go find her frisbee.  The dog is as fanatical about exercise as Richard Simmons and just as bat-crap crazy.

All of this might make more sense if she was a Golden Retriever or a Labrador Retriever, but Bella the mostly-Beagle is a stubby, short-legged, portly, thirty-pound ball of obsessive-compulsive canine cuteness.  She doesn't actually want to play fetch, she wants the frisbee to be thrown for her, but when she brings it back, she fights you for it.  She teases, dropping the frisbee from her mouth but always keeping a foot on it, never willing to let it go without a battle.  So we get exercise at both ends, from throwing the frisbee and from wrestling it back away from her.  Some might call that a win-win but that "some" would only be Bella.

In the meantime, I may not be gardening much but I'm getting plenty of exercise.  In fact, you could say I'm bedogged by the doggone dog until I can't do my gardening.  Deep down, though, I suppose I don't really mind.  My exercise time is better spent increasing the rate of tail wag in a happy pooch than it is in growing alliums for hail to destroy.  


Saturday, April 23, 2016

Tulip Trysts

A recent post by Carol, at May Dreams Garden, reminded ProfessorRoush that he previously started a draft blog entry on the species tulips in his landscape, the few colorful little clumps that add very little to my overall garden ambiance, but which mean so much to me as they sneak back into the garden each year.

Species tulips, you see, are one of my garden guilty pleasures, a little niche of my garden that others seldom discover, visible and yet hidden behind the more blatant garden performers.  In my garden, alternatively Zone 5 or Zone 6 depending on the whims of weather and weather maps, a few species tulips return reliably, while large and showy Dutch tulips return in annually diminishing numbers until they finally just don't return at all.  

'Little Beauty'
Such a species tulip is Tulipa hageri 'Little Beauty', photographed at left, a  4-6 inch tall dwarf (or to be politically correct height-challenged), fuchsia flower with a slate- or cornflower blue star-shaped  center inside a narrow white zone.  A daytime lover, 'Little Beauty' can be enjoyed only in the sunshine because she opens up her flowers every morning and closes them every evening, an exhibitionist by day and shy at night.  She is supposed to naturalize well, but mine seems to have confined themselves to a single clump, her survival in Kansas perhaps dependent on some combination of light, moisture and soil unique to that spot in my landscape.  
Tulipa clusiana var. chrysantha
A similar "one-bunch" species tulip for me is Tulipa clusiana var. chrysantha, the "Lady Tulip", originally thought to be native to the Middle East, but some more recent authorities believe it to be native to Spain.  Many T. clusiana are red and white, but my variety, 'Cynthia' is a subdued red and yellow blend, brighter if the springtime has been cloudier on average.  A little taller than 'Little Beauty', about 8 inches in my garden, the buds are also larger and longer and they also are shy to display their beauty at night or on rainy days.  To search for mine, you need to go to the westernmost point of my front landscape, where they return year after year to greet the afternoon sun.


If you're in search of a similar guilty garden pleasure, I'd recommend planting both or either of these little ladies in an out-of-the-way place of your garden.  You all know what I'm talking about; a spot with a gardening "no-tell-motel" sort of feel, away from the beaten path, a seedy spot where you can sneak away and enjoy some brief illicit pleasure, just you and them.  The best meeting times between gardener and species tulip are always, as one would expect, in the middle of the day, a gardening nooner of sorts.  Mea culpa, with these little Sirens in my garden, I can easily be be accused by a careful observer of slipping home more often at noon for a couple of weeks each April.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush thinks the frequent visits are for her company, but you can keep a secret, can't you?   

Monday, September 28, 2015

I've Stooped So Low

'Carefree Sunshine'
My ongoing battle against Rose Rosette disease, and the annual Kansas summer scorch, has led to a few casualties over the summer, with a corresponding number of empty spots in my garden.   "Beggars," as they say, "can't be choosers," and consequently when a good friend generously offered me several established 'Sunny Knockouts" that she was planning to discard, I decided to take them for filler.  



'Carefree Sunshine'
I already have a 'Carefree Sunshine', or 'RADsun', in my garden, a lone rose placed in my "peony garden" in the shade of an Oak tree.  It survives, barely, and gets absolutely no care including a lack of pruning.  'Carefree Sunshine', for those who know it, was bred by Bill Radler before 1991, and is a light yellow shrub rose with semi-double blooms that form in clusters.  In my garden, it has reached about 3 X 3 feet in size, and it remains there, shaded almost out of existence, but clinging to its square foot of soil without being a nuisance.  It seems to be reasonably resistant to blackspot and is cane hardy throughout most winters here.  I originally planted it to please SHE-WHO-PREFERS-HER-ROSES-NOT-TO-BE-PINK (Mrs. ProfessorRoush), and despite that knock (sic) against this Knock Out cousin, I would like the rose more if it had more petals and shined a little brighter.

'Carefree Sunshine'
'Sunny Knock Out', or 'RADsunny', is a different rose than RADsun, a paler yellow, and single (4-8 petals).  Also bred by Radler, it was introduced by Conard-Pyle in 2008, a yellow addition to the Knock Out rose family.   I chose three plants from my friend, which are now planted in several prominent spots in my garden, spots that I will probably regret if both the roses, and I, survive the winter to come.  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate my friend's generosity, I just don't want to admit that I've sunk to such depths of despair.  

I am consoled by the thought that these roses, like many of the Knock Out family, are probably overly susceptible to Rose Rosette and will succumb to that decrepit virus, so that someday I will be as likely to find a Dodo in my garden as a 'Sunny Knockout'.  Just yesterday, dropping my daughter at her apartment, I noticed that one of three fully grown 'Knock Out' roses outside her front steps was badly infected with Rose Rosette and likely to spread to all the others that adorn her entire apartment complex.   Given my usual fortune, my new 'Sunny Knock Out' bushes will likely survive however, and thrive to brighten Mrs. ProfessorRoush's days for years to come, while I loathe their presence every time I pass them.  Such is the plight of the desperate gardener.

Friday, August 21, 2015

Cantaloupe Planting with Benefits

This blog entry is absolutely not about what you think it is.  Well, okay, it may be about what you think it is, but as a blog with G-rated intentions and only mildly titillating innuendo, whatever you read into it is your own doing.  Freudians should stop here and look elsewhere for entertainment. Contemplative philosophers may pause and ponder the cantaloupe photo.  I'll come back to it later.

Everyone is familiar with the late-Generation-X concept of "friends with benefits," correct?  In full disclosure, ProfessorRoush. an old and simple gardener, has no personal knowledge of the practice, which was invented far after my college years when I was long captured in the caring embrace of Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  I may strain occasionally under her tightly wound Victorian petals, I may stare open-mouthed at the voluptuous displays of a 'Madame Hardy' or a 'Maiden's Blush', but any benefits derived from such floral distractions are strictly limited to home gardening.

I do, however, practice "cantaloupe planting with benefits," a concept that I have perfected and can enthusiastically recommend to other older male gardeners.  Cantaloupes, which I consider malodorous and disgusting fruits, grow effortlessly here in Kansas, requiring little more than a few early rains to establish them, protection from box turtles, and hot August days to mature them.  They spread and proliferate with spheroidal abandon, first green and silent, then golden and lethal.  The odor of a fully ripe muskmelon has been known to drive me out of a room.  You may wonder, then, why I grow them every year and give them more than their fair share of my garden efforts?

Simply stated, Mrs. ProfessorRoush loves them.  She joyfully reaps the annual results of my labor, gorging for days and weeks solely on the shimmering stinking flesh and sugary essence.  And over the years, I've discovered that such spousal satiation enhances the possibility of future companionable benefits that are more useful to an older gardener. You all know what I'm talking about.  Appetizing meals. Clean bedsheets.  Offers to rake the sidewalks.  Other rare perks.  Call it what you like, muskmelon mania or muskmelon mind-melting, but don't mock the power of the melon. Follow my lead, boys, plant a few muskmelons for your cantaloupe-crazed spouse and the benefits extend far beyond what you can get from friends.  

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