Lilacs, Lavender, & Lepidoptera

ProfessorRoush fully realizes this entry may seem like a rerun of last week's post,  but he came back from a short trip today to see that Syringa vulgaris ‘Nazecker’ had bloomed in his absence; more blush pink than the springtime blue tones it normally holds, but blooming gloriously nonetheless.  And fragrant, sweetening the air, detectable by my non-discerning nose for 10 feet around it!

Once again, these blooms are covered in butterflies, luring in this beauty with its folded upper wings and slightly green body as one example of the attention it captures.  I'm terrible at butterfly identification, but I think I can legitimately limit this one down to the Skipper family, and further, as a Grass Skipper  (subfamily Hesperiinae) due to the vertically-held upper wing pair and other characteristics, such as the oval club ( or "apiculus") on the antennae tip.   But which Grass Skipper?  It could be a Sachem, or another Skipper entirely.  I can't find a perfectly matching picture and there is a lot of variation within the species and genders of this group.  I don't believe it's a Fiery Skipper because it has longer antennae than that species, but I need an assist to ID this one correctly.   Phone a friend, please?

In contrast, the Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia) feeding on this nearby lavender is easily identified by the large, colorful eye spots on both upper wings.  I enjoyed reading and learning about this widespread species, including the fact that it was featured in 2006 as a US Postage Stamp.

The 'Nazecker' lilac pictured here provides a backdrop to my lavender "hedge", so these two species and more are concentrated and attracted to a small area of bloom right now.   Are they drawn to the area by fragrance, bloom color, bloom form, or some other factor?   I'll never know, but I do know it was first the sight of the  bountiful lilac and then the movement of the Lepidoptera that drew my attention here.

I wish I could identify a few more of the Skippers that were moving around, but, as you can see, many are shy about opening their wings to help a fellow out.  Oh, if only I could make time stand still at will, to freeze a moment so I could experience it fully and examine them to my deep content!  Alas, like the life of a butterfly, these instants pass quickly in my own life, experienced briefly, but never still.  I'm just not willing, as the Lepidopterists of old, to kill and "pin" these specimens for my leisurely examination.

Lilac Libations

Earlier this week, ProfessorRoush noticed that one of his "old French" lilacs was blooming.  It is not, in itself, an unusual occurrence for a lilac to bloom here in the Fall, although I am always grateful and attentive when they do.  This year, this old and anonymous Syringa vulgaris has already dropped most of its leaves but is quite prolific in bloom, a half-dozen inflorescences adding fragrance to the cool morning air.  A neighboring pink 'Maiden's Blush' and lilac-colored 'Wonderblue' are also blooming in this row, more sparsely, but blooming nonetheless.

When I first noticed the bloom, I merely thought "well, that will be my blog subject for the week," and snapped a few pictures to document the occasion in time and memory.  The shrub is ugly at this time of the year, bare and worn, and the panicles mildly out of place against a background of drying prairie, but the presence of a lilac out-of-season is still a gift from the gods and an occasion to celebrate.

I was entirely unprepared, however, two days later, when I saw a Monarch (Danaus plexippus) butterfly flitting about the blooms, and I failed to capture more than a blurred butterfly-silhouette at the time.  I was more deliberate and careful today, however, when I noticed, not one, but several Monarchs on the fragrant blooms.

They were patient, these Monarchs, uncaring that I hovered nearby as they slowly made their way over the panicles, briefly feeding at each floret as they went round and round the inflorescences, silhouetted and then in full glory to my phone camera.  One of my frequent failings as a photographer is to capture images of insects in perfect focus on plants, but these golden subjects were nearly posing still, allowing the lens and the photographer to sync up for a frozen moment of glory.

As I marveled and frantically took photo after photo, I finally noticed that not just Monarchs, but other butterflies were taking advantage of the offering of late-season nectar.  The fuzzy-bodied Silver-Spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) in the photo at the right, is likely the third "flight" or generation of this year, but it too was patient enough to pose for the admiring ProfessorRoush.  I owe the ID, by the way, to this amazing Pocket Guide to Kansas butterflies.

A "libation" is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an offering to a deity or spirit, and in this time, in this place, the lilac is surely offering a libation, its precious remaining energy as nectar, to these delicate deities of the wind.  God Speed, Monarchs and Skippers all, on your travels to the future.   May the flowers in your path be sweet and the wind be always at your back. 

Dandy Standout

Any ideal hobby should have variety, and gardening seems to have it in spades (yes, pun intended).  Gardens provide variety of species, cultivar, and plant size.  Variety of color, variety in foliage (in fact, some foliage is "variegated"!), variety in season of bloom, and variety of leaf shape, petal shape, and plant form.  Gardeners induce variety (or chaos) themselves by how they site a plant, how they fertilize and care for it, and how they protect it from temperature extremes or insects.

And every season, it seems, some plants seem to decide all on their own to step up and stand out, to shine or sparkle.  This year the first plant to do so seems to be the lilac 'Yankee Doodle', a relatively recently introduced (1985) cultivar of S. vulgaris selected by the late Jesuit priest, Father John Fiala at his farm in Medina, Ohio, the acreage he called Falconskeape.

My 'Yankee Doodle' caught my eye today as I was engaged in my first spring mowing, mowing not so much grass as a crop of rampant henbit, chickweed, and other spring nuisances.  'Yankee Doodle' was planted in 2003 among a line of right lilacs along the west border of the garage pad, a line that perfumes the entire yard if provided the proper temperature and a gentle breezes comes out of the south or west.  My intention at the time of planting it was to both screen out the two-foot tall ugly concrete wall that constitutes the edge of the garage pad, and, to create just the sort of saturated fragrance showstopper that it has become.  My lilacs amply fill both roles.

Most years, 'Yankee Doodle' struggles, lanky, tall, and sparse, its stems prone to borers and breakage, as are the cultivars that flank it, 'Nazecker' to the right and 'Wonderblue' to the left.  I should complain less about them since this bed is labeled "Forsythia Bed" on my maps and contains not a single forsythia, all perished or shovel-pruned for their inconsistent bloom.  This year, somehow, 'Yankee Doodle' bloomed extra-prolifically and it is the most prominent lilac of its immediate group, indeed of the whole line.  It is at the end of its bloom cycle as pictured here, the deepest purple single flowers of lilac-dom faded just a bit here by age and a recent rain.  And yet, still it caught my eye as I mowed, a 'Yankee Doodle' all dandied up and showing off its best side in this, its seemingly random year to stand out.   So now, 'Yankee Doodle' fading, I'm left to wonder what species, what variety, what plain, regularly overlooked plant will step up to be the next Cinderella or Dandy.

Accepting Miracles

The title is the subject for ProfessorRoush today, a meme on my mind for all this past week.   My week of miracles started a week ago on a warm Saturday as I was engaged in lots of late Fall work in the yard, mowing, trimming, bushhogging, putting up hoses, and fully engaged in the activities I lump into "Fall cleanup."  My first glimpse of the miracles to come was this late crocus, Colchicum autumnale, a single, annually reoccurring survivor of the few toxic bulbs of the species that I planted years ago and long forgot.   Old age and fading memories sometimes provide unexpected benefits to old gardeners beyond our creaky knees and grumpy exteriors. 

And then, the same day, sitting down outside with Mrs. ProfessorRoush while we chatted with our grandsons, I spied this little sprig of life, a baby juniper bravely growing in the middle of a clump of River Birch, shaded from the sunlight it so desperately wants but also kept moistened and protected in the embrace of the birch.   Can't see the miracle for the tree?   Look closer!

If I left it here, to grow in the rotting organic debris gathered in the birch clump center, will it survive?   Choke out the birch?   Wither eventually, starved for light?   The young scientist in my mind still wants to know so I'm going to leave it growing here in the true sense of "letting nature take its course" while I observe.   A good gardener should always know when to accept miracles when miracles appear.

The sun and earth also conspired in the parade of miracles this week to give me these views of home and prairie as I came home late Tuesday.   Sometimes the light on this corner of the globe overwhelms me, although perhaps poorly captured in these photographs, as it did on this day.   The right angle, the right moment, and the grasses and trees and house were all shining left and right of me as I opened the mailbox and I just couldn't let the miracle moment go uncaptured.

Thursday, another miracle presented to Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I as we came home from supper, a moment of marriage so like many others until we pulled onto the garage pad and I noticed this unexpected bit of Spring transported to Fall, a blooming sprig of common lilac, isolated and alone among a dry and beaten hedge, but full of fragrance and hope for the next Spring to come.  I robbed the bees by taking it indoors where, for a few days, I could smell lilac before it faded into time again.

And was Saturday again, a Saturday like so many others but as welcome as rain on the prairie after a summer of drought.   My Saturdays are miracles every week, miracles brought by a dog wanting only love and a little game of frisbee to break up its long days of napping.  Bella has lots of gray now on her muzzle but her soul is still that of a puppy and her love waits only for me.   I'm convinced this dog counts the days of the week, knowing when it is Saturday and our weekly drive to McDonald's occurs and that I'll stay home and play instead of disappearing until darkness.   This last miracle, Bella in my life, is one I treasure every day, a daily reminder of all the beauty and love and happiness that the world can hold.

Fun, Disappointment and Home

ProfessorRoush has been away this past week, away from still cold and windy Kansas, to...well, I'll let you guess.  Where, might you guess, have I been this week?

Wormsloe Allée

If you guessed the South, you're correct, and some of you know of the Wormsloe Plantation ruins and its live oak allée.  You perhaps even recognized the statue photographed at the right.   I've been to Savannah Georgia, enjoying a few days traveling to new places with Mrs. ProfessorRoush while at the same time lamenting that I was missing the peak bloom of my lilacs back home.  The statue, for the unknowing, is Bird Girl, a bronze creation of  Sylvia Shaw Judson made famous by the book and movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.  At the time the book and the movie were famous it was located in the Bonadventure Cemetery of Savannah, but it is now exhibited in the Telfair Academy, an art museum we visited this week and where I took the photo.

Owens-Thomas garden and Enslaved Persons Quarters

Don't, please, think for a moment that ProfessorRoush is an aesthete, or that I, in fact, have any knowledge of art or appreciation thereof.   Most of art is lost on me other than the thought that I'm looking at a "neat painting."   We ended up at the Telfair Academy by accident, as the ticket is combined with entry to the nearby Owens-Thomas House (garden and enslaved persons quarters pictured above), which we DID want to see.  Although the art museum was lost on me, I did enjoy viewing the Bird Girl and I allowed myself to covet it for a brief moment for my own garden.  

Gardenia jasminoides 'Daisy'

I hoped to visit Savannah at the heart of the garden season, but I must admit I was sadly disappointed in the garden offerings there.   I missed by three days (although tickets sold out last November) the annual charity tour of private home gardens, which was probably spectacular, but the public gardens of Savannah were surprisingly few and far between and nothing to travel for.  The Southern Magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) were in bud everywhere, but not yet openly blooming.  There is a small, poorly labeled "Fragrant Garden" in the world-famous Forsyth Park where I took the Gardenia jasminoides photo at the right and enjoyed the vining jasmine and a nice blooming but unlabeled specimen of 'Zephirine Drouhin'.  However, honestly and without the slightest hint of humility, I have to say my Kansas lilacs and garden here rival the best that Savannah could produce for fragrance.  There's no place like home.

I had hoped to finally see, in person, a few Hybrid Noisette roses in their native south, or at least a good display of other roses in a warmer, wetter and kinder environment than Kansas, but I was completely disappointed everywhere we went.   I spied here and there a few barely-surviving English roses and some ugly Drift and Knockout roses.   But even the Savannah Botanical Gardens had a less-than-inspiring collection of a few straggly Hybrid Teas, barely surviving in too much shade.   It was at the SBG that I took the completely appropriate picture at the left.   The label says "Iceberg, Possibly Best Floribunda Ever," and the fact that the actual rose is completely absent here sums up my feelings about 'Iceberg' after I've tried several times to grow that overrated bush unworthy of being called a rose.  

One highlight of the trip, however, was a turn off the main road made on a whim to the Pinckney Island Refuge, which we happened to drive by as we came home from Tybee Island.  There, we saw this rookery of Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets, socially nesting safe above the alligators waiting below in the pond.  I was tickled by the three fuzzy little egrets sticking their heads up in the lower right corner of the photo.   Click on either photo to blow it up to full size!

Now that I've mentioned both birds and magnolias, I'll close with photographs taken today of my 'Yellow Bird' magnolia, just past its blooming prime, and of my "lilac row", also past prime.  When we left, not a single bud of 'Yellow Bird' had opened, yet six days later I return to find that I almost missed it blooming this year; an unspeakable tragedy narrowly avoided.   Since the wind here has blown in gusts of 30-40 mph all day today after a thunderstorm and tornado watch last night, I expect another day of vacation would have left me missing the show.  If I can't see magnolias in Savannah, at least I've got them here.

'Yellow Bird'

  

Finally, Spring

Lilac 'Betsy Ross'

At last, Spring has arrived in Manhattan, Kansas.  It is and was a long-awaited, miss-conceived, desiccated Spring, but I'm declaring Spring nonetheless.  I have to, for if I waited any longer, I'd be in mid-summer and sweltering. This is no longer  a Spring of a few wee annual bulbs now, this is full-blown everything growing Spring.   No spring rains yet, but hopefully the ground will get re-saturated before July steals it all away.   There is plenty of wind blasting past, however, wind that kept me awake all last night and wind that has kept my roof from being repaired for over 3 months since the December gales that lifted a few shingles.   And frosts galore, frosts that ruined my annual celebration with Magnolia stellata and has dampened the impact of purple 'Ann' this year.

'Betsy Ross'

I was struck, two mornings ago, by the morning light and beauty of my awakening back yard.   Color drew me out to take the photograph above, pastels and spring pinks, a cool morning but sufficient to celebrate the collage of spring colors in the back yard; volunteer redbud in the foreground, occasional blush of magnolia in the borders, my red peach in full bloom in the back.   And the houses on the ridgeline south, across the golf course, visible now, but invisible to my inner eye which still sees the bare hilltops I used to see here.

My primary focus this morning is on my lilac line, the end of the garage pad at the house, beloved pink and white 'Annabelle' at the back.   Some are in full bloom, some just partially open and others yet to start, but a mere whiff of air on that side of the house saturates you with lilac and converts every racing thought to a lazy dream.  The "Most Spectacular" award this year goes to Syringa oblata 'Betsy Ross', a  2000 U.S. National Arboretum introduction from the 1970's breeding program of Dr. Donald Egolf.   My 'Betsy Ross', planted in 2013 and photographed this cloudy morning.  She is certainly now well worth the Andrew Jackson photograph I traded for her when she was a small plant.   Perfect white panicles, non-damaged this year by frost, wind or rain, and as fragrant as a bottle of perfume.   I can't ask for more.

It is, in fact Spring outdoors and indoors right now.   This rare (I think) yellow Christmas cactus is now blooming for the third time since November, and the colors are even more rich and deep than it's first bloom.  Fully 80% of my Christmas cacti are still cycling bloom, months and months of delicate color to fill the sunroom.

I leave you, this cloudy morning of Spring, with the last of the daffodils that live in the coldest, darkest, northern exposure of my landscape.   Last to bloom, they are protected there from wind at the least, perfect blooms and cheery faces to remind  me they will be back next year again.   Yes, we've had a few sprinkles this morning to brighten them up, but the ground beneath is bone dry, crying for moisture, for the re-quenching rains that should come with Spring.   Is that still too much to ask for? 

Dabs and Dribbles

'Cole's Red' Quince

Spring, this year, is a fight within our witness, a struggle by life to leave behind the cold winds of February and March and move to sunlight.   There has been no knockout blow, no sudden blitzkrieg of either heat or snow to change the fortunes of garden and man, but the to and fro, the feint and parry, of the seasons continues with no easy end in sight.   We will not see spring, I fear this year, in broad strokes of pastel color, but in dabs and dribbles, slowly meting out its glory in smaller packets of pleasure.

'Betsy Ross'

It is both dry and cool now, continuing the pattern of past weeks and it seems, promising the weather for weeks to come.   The sky has not provided enough moisture to yet ignite the irrepressible forces of life, nor has the sunshine been overly generous with its sustaining energy.   It benefits me little to blame the cheerful weatherpersons for the slow strides towards summer, nor do I deign to fret over the millions proclaimed to be in severe weather danger each day, not while I'd happily risk bad storms to quench the thirst of the ground.  I wait instead, patiently, for these pictured buds to open and clothe the garden and world with beauty.

'Annabelle'

The quince alone is fully open and meeting my lust for rusts and reds, Chaenomeles japonica ‘Coles Red’ in this instance, pictured at the top.   I appreciate quince but it struggles here, the prairie a smidge drier than it likes, the winters and deer a little harsh for its full comfort.  Stronger for us are the lilacs, but they are still biding time this year, afraid perhaps to fully commit lest a late snow or freeze catches them in full exposed blossom.  It would not, of course, be the first time I've seen snow on lilac panicles.  Naked and afraid, 'Betsy Ross', above, and 'Annabelle', here, are providing only a glimpse still of the promising maidens they could become.  One night in the next 10 is presently predicted to be below freezing, so I am content in this instance to indulge their teasing and patiently await their full exhibition.

In similar fashion, the red horsechestnut leaves remain tightly furled, the rough, prehistoric texture safe from frost and marauding deer, and my beloved red peach is mightily trying, but failing, to become a beacon of spring for the neighbors.   It is covered, as you see below, in buds, but yet to glow, the cloudy skies and brisk winds battling against its nature, its reason for survival, those buds to become seeds, those seeds to be trees.

Red Peach

And so, I wait here, still wait this Easter, for the annual rebirth, the rebound of the world.  With Easter comes promise, a guarantee of life's return, a revival, not promised this year perhaps in trumpeted herald, but softly spoken in dabs and dribbles.  Regardless, I close singing in full voice along with Sara Evans, her lyrics:  "Hallelujah, a little revival....amen to love."

Autumn Cometh

Hi, Everyone!   I apologize for the long lapse in posting, but autumn has been moving along and the world is streaming past my eyes at the speed of life.   

Both Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I agree (for once) that this fall has been a colorful one in Kansas; despite the national media predicting poor autumn displays in the usual tourist spots, we've been fortunate here.   As you can see from the back yard, photographed above last Wednesday, the prairie grass has great color this year and the garden is settling in and ready for cold.   And the cold is coming this week, lows down to 30º, highs in the 50's.  We should finally see a fairly hard freeze to shut down the final growth mania.

I hope, however, that this Aster frikartii ‘Flora’s Delight’ somehow survives the frosts.  I don't believe I've mentioned it before, but it's been a garden stalwart since 2004.  I seldom pay this plant much positive attention until now, when it lights up a corner of my front bed to the right of the sidewalk.  I spend most of the spring ripping it out and keeping it within a 6 foot diameter area.  It's one of those plants which should come with a hazardous warning label, but most web sources about it only suggest that it makes a good "container" plant.   Oh, yes it does, because if it isn't in a container it makes a fairly tall invasive groundcover to about a foot high!  By July, however, it stops being a bother and I forget all about it.  

I forget about it until now when those soft lavender blue blooms highlight those bright yellow centers and catch my eye.  Aster frikartii is also attractive to bees and is probably one of their last source of nectar before winter.   This cold bumbler stood fairly still for the camera, not moving until I almost touched it.  And now I feel guilty because I should have let this aster spread and bloom more; for the bees, you see.

We finally, finally received a nice rain this week, about 3.6 inches total over a long night and day of rain, so I hope the garden will go into another Kansas winter well-hydrated and ready to rest.  

And I hope the garden stops the weird antics that fall sometimes brings.  I've been worried about the row of lilacs to the west of the driveway pad.  Several of them, primarily the older Syringa vulgaris, have leafed out some of those precious green buds after they dropped their summer leaves and a couple even bloomed, like this 'Nazecker' light blue lilac.  I won't minimize the sublime joys of smelling lilacs in October, but I also don't need to constantly feel like they've sacrificed their last for me.  I suppose the chance always exists that I won't be around to smell lilacs next spring, but I'm planning to be here when the snows melt and the lilacs bloom next April, the world right and everything in its own time, just as it should be.

I Just Love Spring!

There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of a gentle, lamb-like spring easing into summer.  The world reborn, brown changed into green, rainbows all over the landscape.  Crocus yielding to forsythia bowing to redbud and magnolias, ceding to viburnums.  Peonies budding up to be the next star in the garden beds.  The feel of warm sunshine on skin, the smell of damp earth stirred by fingers, the cold undulations of disturbed earthworms in turned soil.  Sore muscles unused from winter, aching rough hands, and a tired gardener each night.  Yes, there is nothing like a good spring.

Spring continues here in full force, best evidenced by the fantastic bloom this year of our purple wisteria, a mere generic Wisteria sinensis, but a pleasant surprise for Mrs. ProfessorRoush when she discovered it.  She told ProfessorRoush she liked the fragrance of his yellow wisteria more, causing some confusion on his part since he doesn't have any yellow wisteria and had never heard of the existence of  yellow wisteria.  As it turned out, Mrs. ProfessorRoush was confusing the name "wisteria" with "forsythia," further confusing ProfessorRoush because he doesn't remember his forsythia having much fragrance.  Ah, the perplexities of long marriages of dissimilar interests.

Still further confusion ensued later, when intrigued, I decided to search the internet for yellow wisteria.  There are fabulous pictures everywhere on the internet of bright yellow pendulous blooms labeled Yellow Chinese Wisteria (which I want lusted for instantly), and offers for seed from any number of irreputable sources, but no descriptions of yellow wisteria from either more scientific sources or offers of grown plants by reputable nursery wholesalers.  Wisteria, I maintain, likely only comes in white, lavenders and blues, and offers to purchase seed for the mystical yellow forsythia are likely hoaxes, but I'm happy to be educated if I'm wrong.

I've stayed busy in the garden this week.  One major project for me this year is to mulch many of the beds with straw.  For years, I have mulched most of my larger garden with lawn clippings, but because of all the dust I raised last summer during mowing, which continued into the first mowing this year, I think this year the lawn needs the clippings more than the garden beds.  Maybe a year's worth of thatch will begin to restore my prairie.  Besides, don't the lilacs look happy at the anticipation of far more moisture conservation and cooler soils from me than they've know in the past?  I think so.  That 4 inches of packed straw will eliminate any weeding this year and maybe the next in this bed. One bed down, six to go.