I Told Them So

I tried to warn them. I really did.  You heard me just a week or so back, right here on this blog.  "Hush little darlings" I said, "Go back to slumber, it's too early."  Well, see them now, regretting their decision to open up quite so early.  Mother Nature strikes once more.  Now that I think about it, I believe I have taken a picture of daffodils covered by a little snow every year I have lived here. The impatient little devils!

I was hopelessly praying that my Magnolia stellata would hold off, but alas, this latest cold spell and bit of snow hit just when its display was at its peak.  I so wish I had taken a picture of the shrub yesterday before the blossoms browned and withered, if only for bragging rights.












Even worse, the musky scent is gone, vanished, without a trace from the flowers reduced to brown tissue.

I can only still hope that the few remaining unopened buds of the Magnolia keep their beauty and their fragrance hidden until better days appear.





And this apricot will certainly not be a producer this year.  There is a reason that Kansas is not a major exporter of apricots and you are witnessing it.

Still, however, the apricot blossoms and snow make a really nice photo composition, don't they?  Click on the closeup photo of the apricot blossoms and blow it up in all its splendor.  Wow, what subtle pastel colors!











And then there are the Scilla and the Siberian iris, peeking sky blue and purple out above their snowy feet.  Good gracious, can we just start spring over again?











I say again, "Garden, go back to sleep".  There will be time later for all this foolishness.  Let sleeping gnomes lie.

Inkling of Spring

Magnolia stellata 02/19/17

I had an inkling of spring.

In the garden today, while tearing down a bit of old fence, I had an inkling of spring, provided by my Magnolia stellata.  I had an inkling and I'm ashamed to say that my first thought, after having the inkling, was to wonder about the exact definition and origin of the word inkling.  You might think I should have been more concerned about the Magnolia, but such a straight-forward journey seldom occurs inside ProfessorRoush's attention-deficient mind.  It was inkling first, and then Magnolia.

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary: inkling derives from the Middle English word yngkiling, meaning to "whisper or mention," and perhaps further from the verb inclen meaning "to hint at."   Okay, so now I know that even the linguists aren't sure of the origin of the word, but at least the definition is fairly straightforward, meaning "a slight indication or suggestion."  Okay, I got it, I had a hint of spring today.  If so, why didn't I just think "oh, there's a hint of spring?"  No, it couldn't be that simple, could it?  I had to make inkling my vocabulary word of the day.

Pussy willow 02/19/17

Returning our attention to the Magnolia stellata, however, it is important to understand that my inkling derived from the fact that it has decided to begin peeling off its fuzzy winter coat quite prematurely, enticed by a few days of warm sunny weather.  Those delicate buds are exposed far too early, no proper garments under the coat, just lacy undergarments exposed before full consent is obtained.  I fear that the cold spell predicted later in the week will send a chill deep into this flower's innards, an ill wind blown up its skirt.

Likewise, I also noticed that the pussy willow (sorry the photo is blurry) on the other side of the garden is showing a little fuzz at the end of its prepubescent buds, an enticing bit of maturity destined only to fall victim to the icy reality of this cruel world.  Why, oh why does everything want to hurry along at a breakneck pace of living in the garden?   You want to shout at them, "Hush little darlings, go back to slumber, it's far to early to grow up and bloom."  But, nay, they heed not, speeding towards the inevitable damage of a reckless youth and headstrong nature.

Now I have an inkling of disaster.

Early Visitation Rights

As foretold by Br. Placidus of Atchison Kansas, commenting on my last post, my garden has paid little heed to my keenings against its early appearance, and the sequential progression of spring blooms has begun against my sage advise and consent.  Thankfully, it has not yet stormed enough to damage the blooms of Magnolia stellata, which reigns beautiful and fragrant in my garden only four days after I saw the first bud break.  Therefore, despite the insubordination of my garden, I have to admit that I am nonetheless pleased that it has forced me to abandon my seclusion within the house and drawn me outside into activity, fresh air, and ultraviolet radiation.


I hope to see further exuberance from this mature Star Magnolia before the rain predicted for Saturday stains its petals with brown rot and moots the warm scent.  Right now I'm thankful that, as the good Brother suggested, I've already enjoyed more uninterrupted days of M. stellata than I can expect in a typical Kansas spring.  This shrub/tree never seems to get to full display before another cold spell or snow or freezing rain front strikes here.  This year, however, spring is early but shows no sign of backsliding in any long range forecast.  I'll be content as long as the hard freezes stay away.

The reign of the Star Magnolia, however, is quickly being overrun by the peasants of my spring garden.  You can see, below, the backdrop to the magnolia of three forsythia in full bloom, in this case Forsythia hybrid 'Meadowlark', a 1986 introduction of Arnold Arboretum in cooperation with North Dakota State and South Dakota State Universities.   I have several other forsythia in bloom here and there, and they are accompanied and accented by early blooming daffodils hither and yon.  Yellow is most definitely the main theme of my early spring garden, with a splash of blue added by diminutive Scilla siberica.  

If you look very closely at the last photo, you'll see my raison du jour for being in the garden at the time of the photo.  Behind the garden beds, in the distant blue sky, you can see the plume of smoke from a distant prairie burn, which was also exactly what was happening 10 feet behind me as this picture was taken.  I spent yesterday dragging hoses around my property and, in cooperation with my neighbors, burning the prairie clean of debris and invasive plants.  A long and tiring day, but I was rejuvenated by my moments spent visiting with this Magnolia, buried nose deep in its creamy-white petals.

Oh No! I'm Not Ready!

While I've been hiding inside, either at work or at home, my garden has clearly been conniving to play a little trick on me.  Today, instead of staying hidden, it quite suddenly shouted "Ready or not, here we come!" in full fortissimo and to my stunned surprise.

I'm not ready to round the corner and see this Magnolia stellata already showing white petals.  It's still partially sheathed, shy to display full wantonness to the warm gaze of spring, but I can already smell the warm musky scent of the Cretaceous seeping forth, sensual siren to my senses.  Another warm day and I'll see the yellow stamens and glistening pistils, the first mating of spring in full view.  Pray with me that no hasty frost browns these creamy petals.

I'm not ready to see my "Pink Forsythia" (Abeliophyllum distichum 'Roseum') already in full bloom and display.  This bush has been a minor part of my garden since 2004, long enough that my memory had made her into the natural "white forsythia" instead of the pink form.  Ah, the fickle memory of age!  It is moderately scented, but in odd fashion that I would liken to a sweet acetone with overtones of sweaty feet. I'm not ready nor desperate enough yet to present this questionable bouquet to Mrs. ProfessorRoush's more discerning nose.

Abeliophyllum distichium 'Roseum'

My Abeliophyllum has struggled, scraggly and slow-growing here in Kansas, but it has survived to finally reach the expected three feet by three feet mature size.  And now, at last, the display is full enough to enjoy, the first major shrub to bloom in the Kansas spring, just ahead of its yellow cousin.  The native white form of the species is now endangered in the wild, known to exist in only seven locations in Korea, so I'm glad that this specimen has survived here in the middle of a drier continent.





I'm certainly not ready to see roses leafing out, including this particularly thorny specimen of 'Polareis' which seems to be betting that the frosts are over.  Rugosas are tough plants, but I still wish they would be a little slower to stick their stems and leaves out into open air.  Almost all the roses are showing green, willing victims to the guillotine of a late frost that will surely yet come.  Patience, my children, patience is a virtue, and haste tempts a thorny termination.

I'm not ready, and neither is my garden.  Go back to sleep, child, and wait for a warmer morning.

 

Devastation

This is what a night low of 25ºF does to a beautiful magnolia flower. The only casualties seem to be this magnolia and one other, an apple tree full of open blossoms, and the daffodils that were blooming.  Thankfully, everything else, including the baby roses made it with minor or no damage.  Until next time.

Stellar Magnolia

Magnolia stellata 'Royal Star'

Despite the lack of much rain, there is a bright spot in my garden.  I've mentioned it before, but a nine year old Magnolia stellata is once again the center of attention in my garden...or at least it was yesterday.  A "center stage" performance, even though it is positioned in the wings of the garden, east of my peony bed.

My M. stellata is a cultivar named 'Royal Star', according to the label.  Those wonderful waxy white blossoms began opening a week ago and seem to be peaking today.  I believe this year's performance is the best of its short lifetime in my garden, and perhaps because it is reaching towards the heights promised at maturity.  My 'Royal Star' is about 5 feet high and 3 feet in diameter, a bit below its advertised 10'X8' maturity, but still a respectable size to make an impact.  She's reportedly hardy to Zone 3B, and I've never worried about her health, only about whether a late spring freeze would shorten the life of these blossoms.

M stellata's best input to my garden is undoubtedly sensory.  During these showy days, a unique fragrance wafts across the garden.  Although I'm not a "fragrance expert", I'd describe this one as dense or heavy, warm, moist and musky, a suiting aroma for a genus that first made sugar from sunlight in company with the dinosaurs.  If I were to make a dinosaur park, a playground reminiscent of Crichton's The Lost World, I'd surely fill it with magnolias from edge to edge.  Those thick heavy petals also echo the mists of time and the presence of swamps and humid breezes and dark jungles. Creamy white at first glance, if one looks closely at a flower, one also sees a slight pink blush when the flower first opens, as if it were embarrassed to be caught in such an immodest display.  Born new into a world when asexual means of plant reproduction were old and unfashionable, and pollen and stigmas and flower sex were new and "hot", magnolias exude sex, from the heavy musk of their fragrance to their brazen display of desire.  "Come up and fertilize me sometime," says this early Mae West.

So, if there's a plus side to not yet having spring rains, its that M. stellata is blooming in peace, petals unstained, perfect and beckoning in the sunlight.  It is a sad thing to think that I'd trade all this beauty for a measly inch of warm spring rain.

Update:  I wrote this before things turned bad yesterday.  This morning my 'Royal Star' is almost stripped clean by last night's wind.  Plus it's below freezing out there.  A fleeting moment of beauty followed by bare nothing.  I'll bet the dinosaurs went out the same way.

Magnificent Magnolias

Magnolia 'Jane'

I still linger in wonder, sometimes, that I have not only one but three magnolias growing in my Kansas garden.  I associate magnolias so strongly with the true Southern United States, that I simply have trouble accepting these large leathery petals will survive on the Kansas prairie.  If the cold doesn't kill them in the long run, surely the dryness and wind will.  I wasn't much of a gardener at the time, but I don't recall them growing in the zone 5B area of my Indiana childhood, so I never expected them here.  I was only experimenting when I first attempted Magnolia stellata 'Royal Star' here, pessimistically expecting only a wasted effort, but it is difficult to argue with success.

'Jane', on the prairie

They're all blooming now, all three of my magnolias, causing me to daydream of dinosaurs and foot-wide dragonflys, coal swamps and pterodactyls.  Something about those large leathery tepals and the deep musky scent evokes a memory from deep in my brainstem, instincts and dreams from times past.  This is one of the early flowers, the Dawn Flowers, as Earth's flora leaped into the sexual reproduction revolution and left the cycads and conifers behind.  Magnolias, evolving before the appearance of bees, were forced to toughen up their carpels into these rigid toothy mounds so the heavy, ungraceful beetles of the time could facilitate pollen transfer.  The glorious center organ of my young 'Jane', pictured above right and as a whole bush to the left, just seems to scream of warmth and dampness and sex, does it not?

Magnolia 'Yellow Bird'

Every year, I hold my breath until my Magnolias bloom, particularly until my baby 'Yellow Bird' (Magnolia acuminata 'Yellow Bird') shows signs of life, always hoping against hope that this year will not be the one I'm taught a painful lesson about the dangers of zonal denial.  Magnolias always burst into bloom naked, with no warning by accompanying leaves that life has begun again.  This year again, 'Yellow Bird' became, for a short time, the focus of my garden, tiny though it is, even prompting Mrs. ProfessorRoush to ask me what the beautiful yellow shrub was in the back garden.  I always know I've got a hit on my hands when it registers on the consciousness of my horticulturally unaware spouse.  I personally thought the yellow hue was a little less bright this year than last, perhaps "washed out" by the extremely wet weather a few days before these buds opened, or perhaps less developed when the rapid onset of heat pushed these flowers into an early Spring.  I was shocked to reread last year's post on the first bloom of 'Yellow Bird', dated April 18th, 2011, knowing all the while the tree has almost finished blooming this year at this end of March.   Again, evidence of an extremely early Spring.

'Yellow Bird' at 2 years

Magnolia stellata 'Royal Star'

And, as always, Magnolia stellata 'Royal Star' was the anchor of the Spring season, opening a couple of weeks back with the first scented bloom of Spring.  It always preempts the stage before the Witch Hazel here, before the tulips, almost before the daffodils.  This year it bloomed only briefly but gloriously, showing the ground with fresh clean white tepals during the strong winds and rains a week past.  Right now, unusually, some tardy buds are blooming again, making sure that this shrub makes its statement in my garden for another year.  A last brief shout before the rapidly developing summer heat makes this Magnolia dream again of dinosaurs past.

A-Pear-antly Popular

As I drove to work this morning down from the highest point in Manhattan (a small hill called "Top of the World" overlooking the river valley the city sets in), I was suddenly struck by a vista of endless white trees sticking up over and around the roofs of all the houses.  Manhattan in Spring, it seems, is a monoculture sea of spring-flowering trees that makes it appear as if the very city itself was drowning in a tub of foamy soap bubbles.

I blame this sensory overload on the local landscapers, professional and amateur, who were planting 'Bradford' pear trees (Pyrus calleryana) ad infinitum twenty years back, and who, when Bradfords proved too weak for the Kansas winds, turned to the stronger 'Chanticleer' pear trees, or 'Snowdrift' and "Spring Snow' crabapples. You would think that in an area where Eastern Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) grow as a native understory tree there might be more use made of them in the landscape.  You would think that landscapers could choose randomly from a number of KSU-recommended crabapples, many of which happen to be something other than white (such as pink 'PrairieFire' or magenta 'Radiant').  There are pink-flowering ornamental peach trees, pink cherry trees, scarlet Hawthorns, dogwoods, and even a few purplish or yellow Magnolias that will survive here.  In contrast, I know of only a few tree-size Magnolias that survive in town, all of them white.

I don't have anything particularly against planting white-flowering trees.  My rebellious nature kicks in when white is the only choice and when the planted trees all bloom white and simultaneously.  Landscape architects are seemingly as bad in this regard as they are in using purple barberry and 'Stella de Oro' daylilies to excess.  Have they no imagination?

In my own yard, I could actually use a few more white-flowering trees.  I've got a 'Royalty' purple-pink crab, a pink 'Red Barron' crab, a 'PrairieFire' crab, a red peach, a Scarlet Hawthorne, and a bright yellow Magnolia (to be featured in a few days) that all are blooming now or will bloom soon.  My only currently-blooming white trees are an honest-to-god fruiting apricot tree and a Star Magnolia (Magnolia stellata).  Neither of the latter really matter as white trees because orchard trees don't count and the Magnolia stellata is still too short to see.  Maybe someday I'll fall into lockstep with the herd, but for now, I'm just going to keep being a pink blight on the white horizon.

Shrubs for your Soul

For all those gardeners who haven't happened upon it, there is a new online gardening magazine titled Toil the Soil at BestGardenBlogs.com.  For the first (and free!) issue, I wrote an article in it about Plains-adapted flowering shrubs for MidWest gardeners titled "Shrubs for the Soul."  I thought I should post the text and some of the pictures here as well on my own blog, since the clickable pictures should be better quality here.  It may take a couple of parts:

Shrubs for the Soul:  Plains-adapted flowering shrubs for the winter-weary Midwestern gardener.
 

 Imagine that it is February 1st, 2011 and the biggest winter storm of the decade is throwing snow and ice at your windows and creating six foot high drifts around your shrub roses. You are a gardener in the Kansas Flint Hills who hasn’t seen a single sprig of green plant life for 2 months and your soul aches for any sight of a cheerful spring bloom. You are also an amateur writer who is trying to choose a topic for a new garden magazine and you’re under a short deadline. I’d be willing to bet my entire mail-order plant budget that eighty percent of you would choose, under those circumstances, to write about the spring-flowering shrubs that your heart pines for. The other twenty percent might write about either starting seeds indoors or about forcing spring bulbs, but I’m a conventional kind of guy, so I’ll stick with the cliché.

Here in the Flint Hills of Kansas, shrubs that can survive our cruel, arid Zone 5B winters, flower reliably in the soggy clay abetted by the April and May downpours, and then hold on steadfast through the hot dry summers, are indeed few and far between. Some spring shrubs counted on for the earliest displays in some regions of the country, such as the Witch Hazels (Hammelia sp.), need more acid soils to thrive than we can usually provide in the Flint Hills. I have, for instance, a specimen of ‘Jelena’ witchhazel in my garden and it is seen seldom enough in the area that most gardeners who visit either ask what it is or express surprise to see it. Those shrubs that do thrive in our soil and climate, however, are the pillars of Kansas gardener’s hopes in the Winter and provide the restoration of those gardeners’ souls each Spring. Eight intrepid shrubs that are well-equipped for the Kansas and Great Plains climate are:

  

'Meadowlark' Forsythia

Forsythia sp: Everyone with any gardening experience in the MidWest knows that Forsythia is going to be on this list, so we might as well get it over with early. Many varieties of Forsythia grow and perform very well here, and in fact, Manhattan, Kansas and the surrounding towns are pretty well covered in early April with the pastel combination of yellow Forsythia shrubs and pink Redbud trees. Some varieties of Forsythia can sustain damage from the more extreme winter temperatures of the Flint Hills, so it is useful to search out and plant the hardier varieties. Forsythia x int. ‘New Hampshire Gold’ (USDA Zone 4-8) is a mounding, arching shrub to about 5 feet tall that has reliably flowered every spring for ten years in my current garden. I tend to prefer the less brassy yellow tones of the newer Forsythia ovata ‘Meadowlark’, however. ‘Meadowlark’ has a taller and stiffer form to about 6 feet tall and the blossoms are much larger and showier than ‘New Hampshire Gold’. ‘Meadowlark’ was developed in a collaboration between the Arnold Arboretum and the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station and is widely proclaimed as the hardiest of the forsythias (Zone 3-8), with buds resistant to cold damage to -35®F. Variegated Forsythia varieties, such as ‘Fiesta’ are planted here in hopes of a better display in the off-flower seasons, but they often suffer damage when fully exposed to the hot prairie sun and buds are not as reliably cold-hardy as the varieties previously mentioned.

Magnolia stellata

Magnolia stellata: One of the earliest flowering shrubs in my garden is Magnolia stellata, the Star Magnolia. I know that some gardeners in other zones or climates might think of this magnolia as a tree, but it definitely remains shrub-sized everywhere I’ve seen it in Zone 5. . I have cultivar ‘Royal Star’ which grows to around 10 feet, but other larger M. stellata cultivars are also available. But, regardless of ultimate size, this beauty is a god-send for early fragrance. I’ve never been particularly excited about the smallish 3-inch white blossoms against the bare branches, not like I am with some of the larger and more colorful magnolias, but the Star magnolia more than makes up for it in scent production. The survival of this one has encouraged me to try a few other of the hardier magnolias, including ‘Jane’, one of the “Little Girl” hybrids from the U.S. National Arboretum, and Magnolia acuminata ‘Yellow Bird’, a recent introduction from Monrovia. Both are reportedly hardy to at least Zone 5 but they are too young to be certain performers in my garden.

Syringa sp: Lilacs of all species and types are well-adapted to the alkaline soils of the Kansas Flint Hills and are cold-hardy far beyond our region. They bloom early in April in Zone 5, and sometimes the earlier blooming cultivars can be burned by a late frost or even dusted with snow. Although the hundreds of Syringa vulgaris cultivars all do well,  Korean lilacs and newer cultivars such as ‘Josee’ also thrive in the Kansas sunshine.  And the scent!  What would the scent of a Kansas spring be without Lilacs? 



Lilacs 'Wonderblue', 'Yankee Doodle', and 'Annabelle', left to right

the next week or so, I'll post the rest of the article, including a discussion of honeysuckles, viburnums (yes, in full sun!) and mockoranges.  But not right away, because I've got other things to touch on first!

Buds of Hope

M. stellata

Even as the garden winds down for winter, I gain hope and strength from the briefest hints that my garden fully expects that Spring will return in due time.  I'm writing, of course about the many hardy buds on shrubs and trees that each are whispering to me, "Just wait, you'll see, I'll be green again when April beckons."  Hope springs eternal in the gardener's breast.







There were four candidates for faith in Spring in my garden this past weekend.  The first of these were the small fuzzy buds of the magnolias, most prolific of which are my Star Magnolia (Magnolia stellata ‘Royal Star’).  Magnolia stellata is one of the few magnolias hardy enough to prosper in this area (I grow three different magnolias in total), and so I watch it carefully during the winter, holding my breath as the buds swell and the shrub proves to me that it has yet again survived the winter. 



Lilac bud

Lilacs, of course, provide a reliable display of tight brown buds in the Kansas landscape during the winter, seemingly armored against the winter cold, and the lilacs are our alkali-soil-loving stalwarts for spring fragrance.  Native sumacs, of course, dot the prairie everywhere, but their buds in my garden are best contemplated on the tamer Cutleaf Staghorn sumac, 'Tiger Eye's' (Rhus typhine) cultivar. The fuzzy stems of the sumac resemble, of all things, deer antlers (interestingly, since deer love to eat these stems) and the buds as small scars, but eventually the buds grow out.


 



 

'Tiger Eyes' Sumac



If there are buds that I watch most closely, though it's the hard brown orbs born by Aesculus carnea 'Briottii'  that stands as a specimen tree, albeit still small, in my back garden.  I had a heck of a time getting this one to grow, trying twice before I got a specimen to survive its first winter.  And even now I must watch carefully in the spring as the turtle-like shell of these buds opens to reveal the most delicate fuzzy green innards that slowly expand like cabbages.








A. carnea ‘Briottii’



The second year I had this tree, I was examining the newly opened buds and looking at the delicious-appearing light green foliage and I thought "hey, I bet the deer would really love this thing and I'd better get some fencing up."  I procrastinated of course, and the very next morning I found half the tree denuded of the new pubescent foliage.  Figuring that the deer had already had their fun, I still didn't cover the tree and, unsurprisingly the following morning the other half of the tree had been nipped in the buds.  That spring, the tree started all over again producing leaves, but it survived and ever since, I make sure to protect it when the smallest green shows through the buds.  Fool me once, shame on the deer, fool me twice and I'm going to be stocking the freezer with venison. 

Blinded to Drought

Oops, I made a slight gardening error by taking a short four-day vacation this week.  We've had higher than normal temperatures for a month (one day topping at 110F) and the last significant rainfall was 1 inch on July 14th (this is being written on August 8th).  I knew things were getting a little dry, but prior to leaving, I watered the newest plants and everything else was looking pretty solid. Oh sure, I'd noticed that the clay soil was pulling away from my limestone edging a little bit, but the plants were toughing it out.  Normally, I don't even think about watering plants that have been in the ground over a year. I prefer to practice the tough love xeriscapic approach to gardening.

Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight'

But I should have listened to the story told by the clay and edging.  Upon my return, it was obvious that my 'Royal Star' Magnolia (Magnolia stellata ‘Royal Star’) and several panicled hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’, for instance) were showing the effects of the hot weather and drought.  And a 'Jelena' Witch Hazel (Hamamelis x intermedia 'Jelena') was practically burnt to a crisp.  Obviously I could have avoided the worst of the damage if I had recognized that the drought was reaching a critical phase and if I had started watching these indicator plants earlier.

Rudbeckia hirta

Happily, nothing else in the garden has yet been blasted in the Kansas furnace.  All the roses go merrily along, although perhaps they are not blooming as profusely in the heat, and the crape myrtles and the Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) are just laughing at the heat.