So Long Absent, So Weak

ProfessorRoush apologizes, my gardening friends, for my long absence from the blog.   I simply haven't had anything particularly interesting to say or show for a quite some time.  Oh, sure, there have been the usual spectacular sunrises such as that illustrated below, first looking West on the morning of December 12th;  I've just been saving them until I had something to say.

A harbringer of the snow soon to come, eh?  And a little turn northward, a pink reflection of the sun to the east tinting the grass below sky.

And then looking East the same morning as I went around the "S" curve and crested the hill leading me to work, an orange horizon ahead:

 And then two days later, a similar sunrise, a repeat of the joyous awakening of a Kansas day:

But, Alas!, I cry, for the more recent days have looked like this:  my back garden two days ago.   Where you can see grass sticking up, the snow is about 5 inches deep, but that drift on the patio in the foreground is closer to 3 feet high.   That's NOT melting anytime soon!

On a less "fisheye" view, with normal perspective, we can all feel sorry for the roses in the foreground.   To the right of the white "post" below (a dead spruce stump that I painted as a stand for a bird feeder), they are in order from left to right, 'Rugelda', 'Madame Hardy', an immature 'John Davis', and 'David Thompson', all fresh from a low of -14ºF that night, with now several nights of that repeated.   The forecast shows another night reaching -9º and then some more "moderate" temps through the weekend before a night down to -7ºF on Saturday next.   I think I'm about to see how winter hardy those Canadians and Rugosa roses really are.

Anyway, if you wonder about the whereabouts of ProfessorRoush, I'm either sobbing intermittently about the plight of my poor roses, shoveling through the 2.5 foot drift that keeps reforming on the front walkway, or, just maybe, marveling in the knowledge that in about a month, it'll be 50ºF and sunny outside some Saturday in February and I'll be clearing garden beds for another year and finding the daffodils pushing up.  

Hopefully.....

Beauty Pageants

'Marie Bugnet'

ProfessorRoush, at the beginning of a new gardening year, believes he has hit on a new theme that will at least temporarily increase his post frequency and simultaneously provide you with fitting flower pornography to fill your fancy.  As things bloom, I am simply going to run a series of beauty pageants of each grouping, leaving you to judge the winners for yourselves.  I'm optimistic that minstrels will indubitably hereafter sing songs of this season and look back on 2023 as, "The Year of the GardenMusings Beauty Pageants." 

'Marie Bugnet'

This week, as a start, we'll set aside any accusations of color bias and go with a simple "White Rugosa Pageant."   So, you get to look, you get to salivate, and you get to choose;  which one is the "Miss Gardening Universe" of the years' white Hybrid Rugosas?

'Blanc Double de Coubert'

First up this year is, as always, 'Marie Bugnet', she of shy nature and short form, blooming first for me in the annual garden race, nearly 2 weeks ago.  Marie struggles annually a bit, lacking vigor but persistent nonetheless, and I think she's doing better now that I'm pampering her with a little extra water and care each year.  She holds perfect white blooms without a spot of pink or brown on healthy foliage.  Is she your choice to win the double crown this year, the race to be the first to bloom AND the most beautiful?   Just look at that delicate center above, golden pistils held in perfect pristine order surrounded by stately stamens. 

'Blanc Double de Coubert'

Marie was followed quickly a week later by my 'Blanc Double de Coubert', a rather stocky gal of medium height, as round as she is tall.  Blanc has obviously bloomed out of her bloomers, as you can see from all the petals on the ground, although there are plenty of bountiful flowers left to fall.   Gertrude Jekyll, as I've noted before, thought Blanc was the whitest rose in existence and I won't quibble over that title when this rose is blessed by sunshine and heat as she blooms.  Sadly, a little rain and she turns from the purest virginal bride to the browned wilting and damaged unfortunate that fate decrees, turned out and soiled by the fickle weather of spring.  I'm a little biased, but isn't the pistil area in Blanc a little messier than Marie's?   And what a mess she leaves on the ground!

'Sir Thomas Lipton'

Tall and stately 'Sir Thomas Lipton' has recently joined the ball, the perfectly white blooms of the 123-year-old gentleman (introduced to commerce by Conard-Pyle in 1900) held higher than my head atop the lean and thorny canes.   I like Sir Thomas more than most rose aficionados seem to (particularly Suzanne Verrier who called him "ungraceful...with the nastiest thorns imaginable"), but I think he probably does better in my arid Zone 5 climate than elsewhere in the US.   As a gentleman, he perhaps shouldn't be part of the pageant, but I'll choose not, in this moment, to be sexist and deny him an equal chance for pageant glory.  After all, a rose is a rose and their flowers contain both male and female organs, whatever gendered moniker we chose to hang on them.

'Sir Thomas Lipton'

Those are your contestants for the week.   Hybrid Rugosa 'Polareis' has started a few meager blooms but the night chill keeps them more pink than white, so I'm leaving her out.  And some of the Pavement roses that are near-whites are blooming, but I'm holding them for inclusion in a Pavement Rose Pageant.  Of the three presented here, which is your choice, my gardening friend?  Will you stand against the opinions of well-known garden writers and go with 'Marie Bugnet'?  Disdain the Canadian-born and stick with 'Sir Thomas Lipton'?   Or follow the herd supporting the strumpet, 'Blanc Double de Coubert'? 

Minor Miracles

It is, in fact, still a world where miracles can occur, as Spring has finally begun here in the Kansas Flint Hills.   A very late, dry, and windy spring, but still, I'll take it.   Yesterday, ProfessorRoush inhaled his first ever-so-faint fragrance of this Star Magnolia (Magnolia stellata), which finally began to bloom only 3 days ago and which is not wasting a moment of our temporary warm spell.   No redbuds, no forsythia, no other life out there in the garden yet, but where there are magnolias, there is spring.  

How late is it?  Well, this Magnolia stellata is two weeks behind 2015 and 2010, and almost a month behind 2016. On the other hand, it's about 4 days ahead of last  year so I suppose I should count it as a blessing.  At this point however, I don't care that its behind, I just want warm days this week to draw out that deep musky fragrance so that I can overdose while I putter in the garden proper.  And warm days to bring on the rest of spring. 

The Puschkinia have joined in at last.  The short white and blue flowers are one of Mrs. ProfessorRoush's favorites, so I'm adding this picture to send some love her way.   The poor woman is on extended grandmother duty this month, in Alaska, tending to our 1 and 5 year old grandsons and feeding chickens through 2 feet of snow and the under threat from moose that frequents my son and daughter-in-laws backyard.  Pray for her since she will miss spring in the Flint Hills completely this year.  Heck, perhaps pray for Alaska, which may never again be the same.

I witnessed a second miracle yesterday, as I shopped the local Home Depot to see what poor decrepit boxed roses they had shipped in.   No April Fool joke, I was surprised to find these badly-paraffined and undoubtedly rootless shrubs in stock there, terrible specimens, but important genetic varieties if I can nurse them into health.   Among all the doomed hybrid teas and floribundas were a few precious (to me) Canadian roses, 'Rugelda' and, low and behold, a 'Roseraie de l'Hay rugosa'!   Commercial big-box rose offerings are so strange in these days of post-Knock Out hysteria!    So I left with the rugosa, two 'Hope for Humanity', two of the aforementioned 'Rugelda', a 'John Cabot', a 'Morden Sunrise', and a 'Zephirine Drouhin', ten roses all destined to fill in some spots from my Rose Rosette losses.   I also spotted, for those interested, 'Morden Blush' and a Buck rose, 'Prairie Princess'.   So if you run quickly to your local Home Depot and if you know what you are looking for, you may get lucky.  Leave the hybrid teas and junk for the unwashed masses, but grab up those Canadian roses while you can!

P.S. Almost forgot, Home Depot also had 'Therese Bugnet'!!!   I left them for you since I have plenty!

Please Don't Eat the Pretty Things

Sorry everyone, ProfessorRoush has been absent from the blog a couple of weeks.  I was deserted by Mrs. ProfessorRoush for the first week after she made some weak excuse about needing to hold grandchildren and then promptly left Bella and I to fend for ourselves.  Last week, missing both her cooking and mere presence, and tired of Bella moping around the house, I tracked Mrs. PR down in the wilds of Alaska, spent a few brief days myself holding the grandchildren while being sick alongside everyone else in the family, and then I dragged her back to Kansas.   

No, we didn't get COVID during 19 hours of travel getting there and another 23 hours returning (and yes, all of us tested negative for the virus), but we did catch what seemed to be a plain old common cold from our germ-growing grandchildren, the traditional route to pneumonia and demise for old folks.  Such is the cycle of life, but my little microbe-factory descendants didn't count on grandpa having a robust immune system bolstered by plenty of sunlight and clean living and I survived to garden again.  

'Scabrosa'

Unfortunately, we spent most of our time in the Alaskan territory either in airplanes or cuddling indoors, my journeys outside limited to one short hike, during which we came across the showy specimen of Amanita muscaria pictured at top, delicious in appearance and full of hallucinogens and toxins too numerous to name.   Potentially deadly but beautiful, the internet tells me that this species is likely safe to nibble on if I wanted a different type of trip, but I'm not tempted in the slightest.  Near the Amanita, I was able to capture the more typical Alaskan lakeshore scene above, just to prove to naysayers that I was certainly out of Kansas.   I was, in fact, hiking in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, on a short trail near the visitor's center. 

In another brief venture outside the plague house, I was quite happy to find a neglected Rugosa growing by the front steps, pictured above, here, and below, undoubtedly 'Scabrosa' and if it wasn't that variety, it's surely a Rugosa worthy of cultivation.  Those deep magenta single blooms are nearly the size of my hand and look at all the healthy deep-green foliage!  Here near a coastline, in cool temperatures, nearly daily rain, and partial shade and a USDA 4A climate, this rose is completely defiant to the elements.   Hardy is as hardy does, or so an Alaskan Forest Gump might say.

Not even the weird insects crawling all over this bloom seem to disturb it, merely, seemingly, just present to carry pollen from flower to flower.  Drawn here, certainly, by the heavy scent of this rugosa or by the enticing color, they are a bit disturbing at first encounter, somewhat revolting to find amid the golden stamens, but they are likely harmless sycophants of the glorious flower.   Heck, I don't blame them a bit for I'm a Rugosa syncophant as well and one that could, shrunk down to the right size, easily get lost in the majesty of a cluster of these blooms.

We returned yesterday, my reluctant empty-armed bride and I, transported from the 60's of Alaska to a 101ºF day of early August in Kansas and, arriving home, were immediately greeted by this spectacular clump of Naked Ladies Surprise Lilies right out front in their full bare-stemmed glory.   It was so hot that I was afraid that Mrs. ProfessorRoush might want to join in their carefree display so I ushered her into the house before she created any kind of neighborhood gossip.  Anyway, now you know what I've been doing these past two weeks, busy from sunup to sundown, from sneezes and sniffles to nose-wipes to naked ladies.   It's been a good two weeks here in my world.

Beatles Out, Bumbles In

'Snow Pavement'

As ProfessorRoush toured the garden this morning, in the cool beginning of another scorching day, his heart was lightened and his spirits were raised, for the Japanese Beetles were gone.  Gone entirely, without a remnant beetle or frass pile to be found.  I wish that I could claim victory was due to my spraying efforts two weeks back, but even one day post-spray the beetles were everywhere, bulbous and fornicating among the flowers.  I suspect that it's simply the cycle of seasons, the vile creatures have bred and laid eggs and are now gone until July of next year.  

'Foxi Pavement'

In their place, in seeming celebration of their lack of competitors, were bumblebees, healthy and fat and carrying loaded pollen sacks everywhere I looked.   Some of the rugosas, relieved of their beetle battles, were beginning to bloom again, scruffy, crinkled Rugosa blooms to be sure, but beetle-less blooms none-the-less.

'Foxi Pavement'

The bumblebees were on nearly every blossom of  'Snow Pavement' (above, right) and 'Foxi Pavement', above (left) and 'Dwarf Pavement' (below left).   Sometimes they frenetically fought over the blossoms, two or even three bumblebees colliding in their corybantic search for pollen (right).  

'Dwarf Pavement'

This moment, this smidgeon of summer, is why you need to grow the Pavement series rugosas.  Never mind that 'Dwarf Pavement' spreads like it is hellbent on world domination.   Never mind that the blooms of many Rugosa Hybrids wrinkle and fade quickly in the hot sun.   Pavement roses are here now, blooming now while little else dares, present in the moment, while even the daylilies are waning in their defiance of summer's peak.   They're providing food and color and fragrance as the rest of the world wilts without moisture.  Three bumblebee's in the photo at the left all give a "thumb's up" to Rugosas in summer!

'Snow Pavement'

Look at that healthy foliage around the delicate blooms of 'Snow Pavement' (right).  I don't spray for rust or blackspot or mildew, but those rough leaves are spotless and eternal.  They're not chewed to shreds, and the rose slugs and leaf cutters leave them alone.   They just sit out there in the garden, in the middle of 100ºF temps and without moisture for the past month, blooming away for the bees and for me.  They may not be fussy Hybrid Teas, shy and elusive in endless virginal glory, and they may not be Bourbons, spilling over with exquisite fragrance and grace, but they are perfect and beautiful and I welcome their languid lascivious display and their 2nd and 3rd and 4th bloom cycles each and every summer.  Don't you feel the same?

Parfumed Future

I neglected to show you one new rose in ProfessorRoush's garden this year, the Hybrid Rugosa 'Parfum de L'Hay' that I purchased as a baby early this spring.  It seems to have taken pretty well to its spot, so I have great hope for its survival this winter.  It bloomed sparingly this year, however, and my timing was never right to catch a bud coming into full bloom.  

So, you're stuck, at present, with the poor photograph here, just a tease of color and foliage to sustain you until next year, assuming its rugosa genes allow it to survive drought and cold and deer, and that it doesn't develop a case of rose rosette virus before it reaches maturity.   

'Rose à Parfum de l'Hay' is a 1901 introduction by Jules Gravereaux of France.  Even though this is a lousy photo, the bloom itself represents the mature color well, those double petals of carmine red displaying their lighter edges.  She has a strong fragrance and repeated two more times this year in my garden, albeit playing hide and seek with my camera and schedule.  Less mauve and more red than most of the rugosa hybrids, I would guess that she takes her fragrance and color from the 'Général Jacqueminot' grandparent on its mother's side, as it reminds me of that Hybrid Perpetual perhaps more than the pollen R. rugosa rubra parent.  My season-old plant is about 1.5 feet high and has three solid and prickly stems at present.  Before the cold weather moved it, 'Parfume de l'Hay's  foliage was matte medium green, only very mildly rugose, and free of blackspot.  

Suzy Verrier, in her Rosa Rugosa, noted that 'Rose à Parfum de l'Hay' is often confused with the more rugose and deeper colored  'Roseraie de l'Hay', but the appearance of my rose would leave me to believe that I received the right cultivar.  Both were introduced in the same year in France, and both were meant to honor the renowned rose garden in Val-de-Marne, created in 1899 by Gravereaux on the grounds of an Parisian commune dating back to the time of Charlemagne.   Peter Beales included it with the rugosas in his Classic Roses, but noted that its maternal R. damascena x 'Général Jacqueminot' parent confused the classification of the rose.  Me, I'm just happy she's in my garden, carrying the weight of history along with her blooms and giving me hope for her survival.  Now where, do you suppose, that I can find a 'Roseraie de l'Hay' to plant alongside my 'Parfum' next year?

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.  

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.

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

Old Friends and New

'Topaz Jewel', risen from the muck

While ProfessorRoush's exterior surfaces are a bit "dampened" by all the rain we've been getting, he was still overjoyed today to see the little bit of "sunshine" to the right, re-entering his garden on a cloudy day after so many years of absence.  This is 'Topaz Jewel', planted in 2009, a nice rose in a lousy spot. Blasted by winter, forage for Japanese beetles, she has survived all that and risen again.  She has not bloomed in my garden for the past two years, and in 2017, in fact, I wrote her off as extinct when I found nothing but a dry corpse of stems in her stead.  Then, last year, among the weeds and the Rosa Mundi that I let spread a little too much in this area during my drought-garden ennui, there was some rose foliage here that looked slightly different than R. mundi, a little lighter green, and a little rougher leaf texture.  This spring there was a start of a stronger growth, now more visibly rugose, and I've been holding my breath for months as this bud grew and grew and matured during the rain until two days ago, the sepals began to spread and showed this brilliant yellow hue, confirming that 'Topaz Jewel' had survived against all odds.  In the midst of all the death from Rose Rosette Disease in my garden, one small bit of rugosa resistance is all I really need to lift me as high as the storm clouds around central Kansas.

In fact, my entire rose garden area is a swamp, a clay-based water basin of pure ooze.  It is placed on a slight slope behind the house, but still, this morning, after an inch of rain Saturday and another 3/4's inch last night, you can see the water standing next to this bed right in front of 'Topaz Jewel' in the photo to the left.  I planted a couple of new roses yesterday in a bed near here, slipping and sliding them into their designated spots, and found that if you dig a hole 6 inches deep anywhere in these garden beds, it will fill instantly with water.  I will probably have nightmares tonight of all the rose roots screaming for oxygen in the yard while I helplessly listen to the storms forecast to visit once again.  'Topaz Jewel' and her immediate neighbors are at least in a raised berm, probably their only salvation at present.


New roses are beginning to bloom this year, however, to fill in the gaps from RRD and to keep my hopes "afloat."  The striped rose pictured at the right, in keeping with my switch to RRD-resistant Hybrid Rugosas and Old Garden Roses, was planted just last year, and today was the first bloom in my garden of Mr. 'Georges Vibert'.  Mr. Vibert, or Georges as I will affectionately call him, is an 1853 Gallica bred by M. Robert of France.  You all know my weakness for striped roses, and this one seemed like an obvious choice to fill in a gap in both my garden beds and in my soul.  I'm hopeful for Georges continued health and vitality in my garden, especially since helpmefind/roses states that the Montreal Botanical Garden rated it as one of it's most disease resistant roses in 1998.

I should finish by apologizing for being unable to resist the water-referencing puns I've "sprinkled" through this entry.  Puns, though painful to the reader, are often, in my opinion, just one manifestation of a tormented writing soul, or, more specifically in my case, one "drowning" in an unusually wet season.

Burned the Cold Away

Sunday morning, bright, sunny, and my Iris tectorum variegata is a standout in the garden.  I just love the way these green and yellow leaves catch and amplify the sunlight in the early spring.  Every year, I divide and spread this iris across my garden, now 10 clumps from the original one.  It's one of the few plants that I grow specifically for the joy of the foliage rather than the flowers.  Although the flowers of I. tectorum are nothing to sneeze at since they are plenty fragrant as well!



My neighbors and I burned our little spot of prairie yesterday.  The burn went well, a decent wind for headfires but under control when we were careful, and there were no mishaps like last year when my neighbor burned out one of my small apple trees.   It was the second really cold morning (approximately 32ºF) of the week and as there are no other mornings in the immediate forecast that cold, I think we can truthfully say we burned away the last of winter, in many, many ways.   The ground, now black and foreboding, will quickly warm and in two weeks it will be a carpeted vision of Eden. Thankfully, no more frost is in the immediate forecast because I had three gallon-size roses come in last week for planting and I've got several more coming this week.  Yesterday, I planted "La Ville de Bruxelles', 'Park Wilhelmshone', and 'Rosalina', a damask, modern gallica, and Hybrid Rugosa respectively, and then covered all three plants with glass cloches which I will remove in the mornings of next week when we have 80º highs predicted.

At last, Mrs. ProfessorRoush's favorite tree is blooming, the redbud outside the kitchen and laundry room.  I always think of redbuds as the real start of the garden year, this major landscape tree associated in my mind with so many other garden chores (the start of asparagus, the timing of crabgrass preventer, etc).  Pictured here with 'Annabelle' lilac, also just beginning to bloom, the redbud is as late as I've noted before, on a par with 2005 and 2006 for bloom time.  Our late spring continues on the Kansas prairie. 

Ann Endt

'Ann Endt'

It is high time, I think, that ProfessorRoush shows you a rose new in his garden.  My garden where every new rose has to be a Rose Rosette resistant Old Garden Rose or a Rugosa.  At present, the rugosa newcomer 'Ann Endt' is on deck, and she will suffice, I think, for a rose-related post today.

I obtained 'Ann Endt' from Heirloom Roses last year and she bided her time growing a little bit and basking in the summer heat.  This year she is still a small plant, about a foot high and little more than that in diameter.  Because her mature size is supposed to be anywhere from 3.5 to 6.5 feet, I'm expecting much more growth from her this year.

But she IS blooming, her continuous single (5 petal) blooms feathery against the Kansas winds, and so she's our favorite at the moment.  Last year she bloomed, as a seedling, sporadically for me, teasing me with only a few blooms before disappearing for the winter, but in my garden and full sun, she is pretty close to a real red, with not much blue in the mix.  Each bloom has, as you can see, prominent yellow stamens that sand out against the almost-red background.   'Ann Endt' is officially a dark red or magenta Hybrid Rugosa rose, discovered by rosarian Nancy Steen in New Zealand prior to 1978.  There are those experts who believe she is the same rose as a Rosa foliolosa x Rosa rugosa cross made by Phillipe Vilmorin in the 1800's.  Her buds are long, held above soft green, matte, mildly rugose and very healthy foliage.  No blackspot on this rose!  Her listed hardiness is Zone 2A, and she came through a really tough, dry winter for me with no protection, so I will choose to believe her reputation for drought and winter resistance.  There is supposed to be a cinnamon fragrance attributed to her R. foliolosa parent, but I have yet to really sample it. 

Named after a famous New Zealand rosarian, Nancy Steen wrote about her discovery of 'Ann Endt' in a 1966 book, The Charm of Old Roses.   I hadn't run across this book yet, but I have ordered a used copy from Amazon and hope to review it for you soon. I have seen a quote from the book stating that the rose is also shade-tolerant, relating that "Even the partial shade of a tall purple birch does not seem to affect its free-flowering habit."   She is also supposed to produce hips, a trait that I enjoy in roses and will take as an advantage.  Suzy Verrier, expert on all things rugosa, wrote in Rosa Rugosa that this is "an interesting hybrid of R. Rugosa", but "neither widespread nor well-documented."  Verrier herself did not provide a picture of the rose.  ProfessorRoush didn't find much else written about 'Ann Endt', but maybe this blog will serve to help others find and grow this tough rose. 

Blanc & Beetles

ProfessorRoush's cardiovascular health was tested this morning as I had a bit of a shock while enjoying my garden.  I went out for a "spot check" of things and got excited about how many blooms were being visited by bees, and then I saw this bloom, of Blanc Double de Coubert, that wasn't being visited by a bee.  Instead, I found the first Japanese Beetle of the season (in fact, the first of the last two years since I didn't see any here in 2016).  

Curses.  A brief panic ensued and then I settled down and looked the bush over closely, finding around 6-7 beetles in all, lounging in the blooms, creating holes in the petals and depositing frass all over those virgin white blossoms.  I took great pleasure in knocking all of them into the ground and grinding them into the hard prairie clay.

Those who have read my past statements about Blanc Double de Coubert are aware that she is far from my favorite rose, and not even my favorite white Rugosa.  In the past,  I've found it nearly impossible to get a perfect picture of her; petals are always browned by rain or dew, blossoms don't last long in the Kansas sun, and the bush is just generally a mess, as you can see in today's impromptu photo at the left.  She's short and squat and has been a prima donna in my garden, demanding close supervision and extra care unbecoming of a Rugosa.  And now, to top it off, she is the Japanese Beetle Magnet of my garden.  Today, out of about 30-35 roses currently in bloom, along with some early Rose-of-Sharon and among scads of blooming daylilies and hollyhocks, she was the only plant with Japanese Beetles on it.  The only one, and believe me, I scrutinized every other bush in my garden for signs of a second stealth attack.  Why Blanc?  Something about the degree of whiteness that is attractive while nearly-as-white Sir Thomas Lipton (also blooming and without beetles) isn't?  Something about the fragrance that is different from all the other roses in my garden?  All in all, this is just another reason for me to really not like this rose.

I will remain vigilant for the next few weeks and make sure to watch this rose and others for any further Japanese Beetle mischief.  I'm trying very hard to keep these blasted bugs from establishing a breeding colony in my back yard and I may have to go back to the traps I previously employed.  Squeezed between beetles and rosette disease is a hard place for a rose gardener to keep his chin up.

(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.