Instantaneous Shifts

 It seems to happen in an instant, these changeling days as I grow ever older.   Seasonal changes that used to take...well, a whole season...now seemingly occur in days, sometimes hours.  Just yesterday, (or on the 11th of November, to be honest and accurate) I was out and taking a picture of what I suspected was the last rose of the season, the English rose 'Heritage', seen here along with the very cold honeybee, the latter frantically gathering pollen to store away against a long winter.

And then, suddenly, instantaneously, this morning my southern view from the kitchen window turned from this colorful scene, which has been unchanged for several weeks:

To this, a Dicksonian still life created by a completely unpredicted and clandestine snow:

My front (northward) view this morning was no different in tone or despair, a world untouched yet by human or dog and bland and frigid, converted in an instantaneous, almost magical shift from autumn to winter, regardless of the date on my human-created calendar.

And now I'm relegated to joining my garden's Rip Van Winkle by awakening to a world changed, transformed both in appearance and liveliness, as cold and dead and hard and outright unwelcoming today as it was warm and sunny and vibrant yesterday.   I begin a winter inside, quiet weekends and periods of staring out the windows, sleeping under an opened book just as my cement friend outside.  It will be some time before I venture outside again to work and play, to smell and run my fingers through warm dirt, to plant life and nurture its growth.  I sleep and wait inside, hopefully not for the 20 years of Irving's tale, but at least fretfully waiting until the world changes back, awaiting a new year of life reborn.

Time Change, Seasons Change

 ProfessorRoush will spare you, this fine November morning, from his usual diatribe about the biannual time change (Fall Back, Everyone!) and the toll it takes on physical health, well-being, and our soul.  I maintain my offer, however, to not only vote for but to tirelessly campaign for any party or politician who abolishes it....not who promises to abolish it, but who actually makes it happen.  No promises trusted here, please; I don't trust anyone in a position to pander to the public.  One might ask, isn't pandering just another word for "begging," but Dictionary.com defines it as (Definition #1) " to cater to or profit from the weaknesses or vices of others."   Definition #2 is "to act as a pimp or procurer of clients for a prostitute."  I put it to you, is there a better explanation of politicians anywhere?

But enough of that.   Fall is a dozen days old now and with the change in seasons, after two months of drought, came rain, glorious and bountiful, cleansing and quenching rain.  I forgot that in my fall garden cleanup I had left out one rain gauge to chance freezes, but this morning it held 4 inches from either the rain Thursday night or the rain all day yesterday.   I celebrate so much rain because it is life itself for the prairie and the soil needed a good soaking before winter sets in.  Rain also washes the autumn dust away and makes the prairie come alive with color.  My back garden, if you don't look too closely at the disorder and unsheared shrubs, looks like a Norman Rockwell watercolor today from my kitchen window.   And that view will continue all week as, unusually for our area, we have rain forecast for 6 of the next 7 days.

As one perfect example of the native prairie response to rain, I give you this completely natural, native clump of Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) growing among the Switch Grass, Indian Grass and Side-Oats Grama common to this area.   This clump is right out front as I drive up to home each evening, one clump in a large "rain border" that edges my front yard, welcoming me home.   At least it did prior to today when it was still likely light as I came home.  From here on to spring, I come home from work in darkness, just one of many hated moments to our loss of daylight savings time.

And a few tough plants continue to bloom and provide fragrance.  I had some French lilacs rebloom unexpectantly a couple of weeks back, and today, the English rose 'Heritage' (at top) and some lavender (at left) are still trying to hold back winter.  I confess that I can't tell one lavender from another, but I treasure the soft gray foliage and scented blooms whenever they appear. 

My garden, my reading garden, is withdrawing its life beneath the soil now, waiting for spring.  Waiting along with this, one of my favorite statues, for warmer days and a return of shade.  It is aging too, my garden.  I noticed today the rain has nourished the green algae of this aging cement statue, softening it and helping it to join the garden as a full member.   Now not an ornament, but another beloved element in my garden, waiting, like me now, for Spring.  

Pleasing Prairie Fall

'Heritage'

Gracious, 4 weeks, almost 5 since ProfessorRoush blogged?  Yes, I've been busy, but it is not labor that has kept me from the blog.  I've simply lacked the muse, lacked the mood to just sit down and pour out my thoughts.  I haven't, however, been absent from the garden, a drained hose there, a peony support removed there, rain gauges put away (for the most part) and the last mowing done.  

Tomorrow, it's supposed to snow and freeze down into the teens, so the last delicate 'Heritage' rose above is blooming in vain, no pollinators around to attract, just Mrs. ProfessorRoush to please.  I'll bring it and others indoors today, a few last desperate moments in a vase to grace us before, as former Vice-President Biden called it this week, a "dark winter."

I'm thankful now, I am, for all the plants I have planted for fall accents over the years, and for the prairie itself.  My back yard is as alive with color in the fall as in the spring, although the tableau goes from pinks and yellows in spring to umbers and tans in fall.  Now, with any wet weather, the tall grass prairie lights up with red, grasses full of flame into winter.  Big bluestem and little bluestem lift up my landscape and carry the beauty of summer into winter.

In the center of the photograph above, and pictured closeup at left, you can see the yellow beacon of Amsonia hubrichtii, the 'Arkansas Blue Star'.  I planted it decades ago as a trial plant, a low-maintenance plant for the prairie, never realizing how many seasons of joy it will bring.  Small bright blue flowers in the summer, feathery trouble-free foliage for backdrop, and then this bright yellow ball into fall, shining as if it has stored the sunshine of summer and reflecting it back in the face of winter. Pest-free, the only trouble it has ever given me is it that it has a tendency to spread by seed, but it is easily recognized and eradicated wherever it pops up.

I've waited several years for this Black Gum tree, Nyssa sylvatica, to begin to grow and show the potential of its species.  From a $10, foot-tall seedling, it has made it in a dozen years into an 8 foot tall, drought-resistant sapling.  This year was the first chance I've gotten to see it turn red enough to pick out from across the garden, a mere promise of what I hope it will display in another dozen.  I've had to trim the lower branches to be able to mow around it, and I probably slowed the growth of the tree as I did so, but I'm willing to be patient for its full fall foliage impact even if it takes the rest of my lifetime.

That being said, I'm going to cut this blog short today:  I just noticed how small and vulnerable this trunk looks and I'm going to run out right now, into the cold damp morning, and get some fencing around it before the young bucks come around and rub the bark off.  If there is one thing a Kansas gardener learns, it's preemptive fencing!

Heritage of Blooms

'Heritage'

It occurred to me last weekend, and I find it incredibly hard to believe, that I've somehow overlooked blogging about David Austin's 'Heritage' rose before now. 

'Heritage' has a prime spot in my landscape, right out in front of the house towards the right corner, next to the driveway and walkway.  That site is on the west side of the house and she gets a little less sun (maybe 8 hours/day at the height of summer) than some of my roses, but she seems none the worst for the partial shade.  She is about 8 years old, own root, and she's a tall vase-shaped rose (about 6 feet tall) with a lot of presence in the border.  That first bloom, with all those shell-pink delicate blossoms, is a stunner.

'Heritage', or 'AUSblush', has always been a healthy bush for me, with little blackspot and no mildew.  I don't spray her healthy, glossy dark green foliage, but I do provide a little extra water to this bed at the height of summer because it tends to dry out fast with the hot afternoon sun.  She has strong erect canes, never slouching or breaking to the wind, and I commonly go into Spring with between 10 and 15 healthy strong canes on this rose after pruning.  Winter hardiness in my formerly Zone 5B climate was and still is very good, with no dieback noted in most years.


'Heritage' was released by Austin's English Roses breeding program in 1984. Classified as a shrub rose, like many of Austin's creations, she bears light pink, fully double flowers of up to 40 petals that are 4 inches or so in diameter. The flowers are, as advertised, very fragrant when you bury your nose in them, but this is not a rose that I've noticed perfuming the air around it, no matter how prolific the bloom.  I've also found that she doesn't last very long in a vase, but her initial beauty keeps me bringing those blooms inside to stay in the good graces of  Mrs. ProfessorRoush.   She keeps her few thorns to herself (the rose, not Mrs. ProfessorRoush), and is ladylike in her manners, and so she is safely placed near my walkway to the front door.  A tetraploid rose, her parentage is described as a seedling X 'Iceberg'.  Knowing that, I'd like to add that 'Heritage' is a much healthier rose in Kansas, in my experience, than 'Iceberg', who seems to be a better rose everywhere else than here.

I only grow a few English Roses, among which are 'The Dark Lady', 'Mary Rose', and 'Golden Celebration', but so far 'Heritage' would be my pick for Kansas, since the bloom form, hardiness, and health of the bush are more dependable than the others.  It is not an accident that this rose is likely the first that a visitor to my house would encounter.