Warning; Zealots Crossing

We've all seen them.  The bulging eyes moving frantically from side to side seeking an exit. Antic feet sliding sideways in a fruitless attempt to escape.  The dazed expressions that signify aural and mental overload.  Saliva pooling and drool overflowing as the higher cognitive functions are beaten down and dulled.  All of these and more the signs of a normal person trapped in a zealot's snare, unable to fly to freedom against the onrushing tide of words and enthusiasm.

Such was the lot of a few poor souls this week when I gave a Tuesday Talk at the K-State Rose Garden sponsored by The Friends of the KSU Gardens.  I'd been tapped several months ago to talk about the Garden and rose history in general during a walk around the rose garden and my anticipation had built up to the boiling point, but at last the scheduled time had arrived.  A half-hour came and went in an instant as I poured forth a partially coherent stream of information about rose classes and the AARS and the Gamble Fragrance Award and rose breeders and anti-Knock-Out-ism.  No one actually ran from the venue, and no children were permanently scarred by the lecture, but I'm concerned that several attendees will require some recovery time before they can again look at a rose as a simple lovely flower.

Zealots and fanatics can both be defined as being "marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion".  Synonyms for the words include "rabid", "bigoted," "phrenetic," and "mad."  Winston Churchill is quoted as saying "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."  All right, I hear all that, but I still don't understand why zealotry is seen as a bad thing.

I put to you that little progress would be made in the World without a zealot or three or four challenging The Man. Yes, the world might be a calmer place and there might be fewer wars, but without a little irrational enthusiasm, little gardening would be done.  Who among us would garden if we didn't conveniently forget annually that every year the quail would come to eat the corn before it sprouted, that a late frost would nip the first tomatoes we put out, and that a drought in August will always cause us to carry water daily for the pumpkins?  And if some fanatic doesn't pick up the torch of rose snobbery and defend the Old Garden Roses, who among us will stand to speak out against scentless and bland 'Knock Out'?  

Somewhere out there, I hope I planted a seed at the lecture.  A seed that will grow and cause someone to shun the Big Box Stores and their 'Knock Out's in favor of a real rose.  Perhaps an English/Austin hybrid, or a mail-order Gallica, or a hard-won Griffith Buck-bred 'EarthSong' or an EarthKind-recognized rose?  A rose worthy of the name rather than just another colored flowering shrub.  Such incremental changes are the lifeblood of a zealot and I'm proud to be so labeled if I can cause yet another 'Knock Out' to dry up on the shelf, unpurchased.  And, somewhere along the way, provide a little aid and comfort to the Friends of the KSU Gardens.   

(Author's note;  The picture above is of the "Rose" statue in front of the KSU Rose Garden, surrounded, ironically in light of this blog entry, by 'Livin Easy' roses).

KSU's Tillotson Native Plant Garden

To finish off my native wildflower weeks on
Garden Musings, I'll move to one blog subject that I'm planning to return to more frequently as this year goes on.  I feel I should do a better job at alerting readers to the learning opportunities available at the K-State Gardens and the various sub-gardens in the project.  I work only a block away from this fantastic gardening resource, and I have the honor of being allowed to provide some volunteer labor time in the KSU Rose Garden.  So please allow me a small advertisement for a very deserving garden.

The Kansas State University Gardens project is a privately-funded display garden on the campus of KSU that serves as an educational resource and as a learning laboratory for KSU students and the visiting public.  When completed, a 19-acre garden is planned that will show off hardscape and tested ornamental plant material in different aesthetic settings in the Flint Hills environment.

One of the already-existing specialty gardens in the project is the Adaptive/Native Plant Garden which was sponsored by the late John E. Tillotson.  It was redesigned in the past two years by a KSU student under supervision of the Gardens Director and it is a marvelous display of plant material that is found growing in natural areas throughout Kansas and the Great Plains Region.  As you can see from the pictures on this page, native prairie plants can make both a floriferous and cohesive display with a little pre-planning.  Last year, I was stunned when the milkweed bloomed and as you can see from the clump of milkweed around the commemorative garden sign above, those large leaves and big flower heads make a standout display if properly placed.   Amateurs and professionals alike can learn new approaches for commercial or residential landscape design from this garden.  Visit it online at the KSUGardens site or in person on the KSU campus.  And please consider becoming a Friend of the KSU Gardens to support the continued development of the garden.

UnRedBud Sport

Although I earn a living from K-State here in Manhattan, Kansas (not as a gardener), I have been remiss in not blogging more about the KSU Gardens, just right down the street from my work.  In fact, as a volunteer for care of the Ottoway Rose Garden there, I'm in the garden on a weekly basis and I should blog more about this growing botanical display garden and I will occasionally in the future. The KSU Gardens project, if you haven't yet heard about it, is a plan to complete an eventual 19-acre garden that doubles as a public resource to K-State and the surrounding community, and as a teaching laboratory for Horticulture students at the University.  It is funded primarily  by private donation, garden sponsorship, and through the work of a group known as the Friends of the KSU Garden. Phase II of the Garden project has begun, eventually expanding the current garden to double its size and moving some of the plant collections to more permanent homes.

My prompt for today's blog, however, was seeing the blooming tree pictured at the above right last week in the Gardens.  It is a non-commercial redbud sport found locally and given to the Gardens several years back by K-State Professor Emeritus, John Sjo.  It made a stunning display this year, the very light pink of the sport set off against the more normal Eastern redbuds that line the front of the old conservatory as it appears on the left side of the picture below.  The multistemmed nature of the tree makes a nice architecture point during the winter, but its flowers set it off from the garden during Spring.  The Garden's director is talking about cloning and commercially introducing the plant as 'Pink Sjo', which would seem to be an apt name.  I hope it comes to past because I'm drooling over a chance to have an offspring of this tree for my own garden.