K-State Adaptive/Native Plant Garden

I risk being accused of a new shallow approach to the intellectual content of this blog, and perhaps of  random promotional content and motivation, but while the iron is hot and before the weather turns hotter, I want to place another Manhattan attraction on the radar of those who may visit.  Appearing every day, approximately 364 times more frequently each year than the Manhattan Area Garden Tour, is the most excellent display at the K-State Gardens of the John E. Tillotson Sr. Adaptive/Native Plant Garden.



Those of you who are native plant enthusiasts should plan a whole trip around this garden because it is, in my experience, unequaled for the use of native prairie forbs in a garden design. Here columbines, milkweed, echinacea, butterfly milkweed, yucca, coreopsis, penstemon, prairie larkspur and evening primrose, all mix in glorious harmony and mature abundance.  The display is at its peak now, in early June.    

This view, down the long axis of the garden looking towards the old conservatory will give you an idea of the flowing masses of perennial forbs that make up the display garden.  Coreopsis in the foreground and Pale Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida) in the background provide the basis of a pastel palette for your pleasure.


I often find myself trying to take a peerless photo of a group of these echinacea in the fruitless pursuit of  photographic perfection.  It is most definitely an exercise in frustration for an amateur like myself, but there are lots of opportunities here to experiment with depth of field, framing, focus and shadows.  The hardest choice for me is always where the focus should be;  the plant in the center or the plant closest to the lens?   Sometimes, I capture a pretty nice image, only to realize that, on closeup, one of the flowers is damaged or blemished, marring the effect of the photo.  

The honeybees were going crazy over this newly-opened Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) during the Garden Tour.  The whole area was alive with bees moving quickly from bloom to bloom, humming with excitement and loud enough to drown out the noise from nearby traffic.  Does anyone else wonder, while viewing closeup photos of bees, how they ever lift those pudgy bodies with such small delicate wings?








I assume this is a form of Showy Evening Primrose, (Oenothera speciosa), but I've never seen it quite so blazenly pink in the wild.  I don't know if it is a collected species or a commercial cultivar, but the delicate petals laugh in the face of the hottest sun.  According to Internet sources, some of the Showy Primrose that start out pure white age to pink, like these, while others stay the pure white that I associate with the wild species.


 


Years ago, walking around the K-State Garden, I noticed an enticing sweet scent that seemed to be coming from some 6 feet tall, large-leaved plants.  In an embarassing display of naivete and stupidity, I asked what they were, only to find out that they were Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), the same weeds I'd grown up with in Indiana and fought hand-to-hand in my father's garden and fields.  They are a perfect example of how blind we can be to the good qualities of a plant that pops up in the wrong place.  I had no idea Common Milkweed was fragrant, nor that it would grow so tall if left alone.


I'll leave you with the sight of these bronze wildcats (the K-State mascot, for those who were unaware), which languidly observe the garden visitors during the day and come alive to patrol the native garden at night.   Sited in Phase I of the garden, right next to busy Denison Avenue, you can tune out the traffic and suddenly you're out in the middle of the Flint Hills.  I know that some gardeners (yes, I'm talking to you, Benjamin Vogt) believe that such an ethos is the only way we should be gardening.  When I view the success of this design, here at the Kansas State University gardens, I can only agree and encourage everyone to drop by and leave with some new gardening ideas.

Yeah, They Got Me

I, ProfessorRoush, of normally sane intellect and body, must now confess that yesterday I participated, nay, I joyfully surrendered, to that most simple of marketing techniques; The Impulse Buy.  While browsing a Big Box gardening center, in hopes of finding something besides 'Stella de Oro' and 'Knock Out' relatives, I happened upon this 'Raspberry Sundae' peony in full bloom.  In my own defense, I would ask that before you harshly condemn me, you click on these photos that I took on my iPhone the second after I plunked down my $24.98 and placed this peony in my Jeep.  Spend a few quiet moments in contemplation of this gorgeous girl.  Look at the immaculate blooms.  Look at the healthy, tall, foliage of this peony.  Oh, if only I could reproduce the fragrance for you!  For the gratification of others with similar weak-willed buying habits, it came from Menard's,

'Raspberry Sundae' is a 1968 introduction by Carl G. Klehm, a bomb-shaped midseason lacriflora with pale yellow and pale pink and cream mixed into the most delicate display I've ever seen.  Martin Page, in The Gardener's Guide to Growing Peonies, states that "few flowers have been so aptly named," and he uses 'Raspberry Sundae' as his example when describing the central raised mass of petaloids that develop from both stamens and carpels, suggesting that the "bomb" name refers to a similarity with a "bombe" ice-cream sherbet.  I didn't have this peony in my garden before, but I will as soon as I can dig a hole this morning.  I need to find a prominent place for 'Raspberry Sundae' since she is very likely to soon become one of my favorites.

I was happy to see that 'Raspberry Sundae' was a creation of Carl Klehm, the third of a four-generation (John, Charles, Carl, and Roy) peony dynasty in the Midwest.  As I've mentioned previously, I have seen Roy Klehm speak in person at the National Arboretum and I grow a number of Klehm's striped peonies.  Now, my garden is host to yet one more Klehm peony.

Globemaster Grumbling

'Globemaster'

I've always believed that one of the best ways to learn new techniques or information, in a permanent manner so that it sticks, is to learn from your mistakes or from the mistakes of others.  I've often said to my students that the difference between a good veterinarian and a bad veterinarian is that a good veterinarian recognizes an error and never makes the same mistake again.  There are plenty of mistakes to be made in medicine without repeating them, but if you don't repeat the same errors, you eventually limit the damage you can do and by "practicing" you become good.  It might not be desirable to be the "practice-ee," but certainly over time the practitioner should get better and better.  Or so I believe.  Malcolm Gladwell, in Outliers, backs me up by hypothesizing that with 10000 hours of practice, anyone can master almost anything.

'Pinball Wizard'

It is certainly not a mistake for a gardener to plant fabulous large ornamental alliums, but in a hail-prone area, I just learned that you might not want to base an entire garden theme on them.  Of all the plants in my garden, they were the most damaged and seem to be the slowest to show any recovery.  The Oriental and Orientpet lilies were a close second in terms of initial damage, but they are now all putting out new, normal growth at their tops. In contrast, my large alliums are not responding to a tincture of time very well.  'Globemaster', photographed above, had developed buds of about 2 inches diameter before the hail and it went ahead and bloomed well after the hail, but the foliage at the base of the plant is still....horrible.  A similar group of three 'Pinball Wizard' bulbs, show here at the left, were only 10 feet away but were simply flattened, barely discernible now among the columbine and Dutch iris foliage.   They may not survive to bloom next year.

From my despair, I'd like to tell you that I at least learned something of the best variety of allium to plant in this region.  Last summer, I appreciated the display put on by the few allium in my garden, and by those in other area gardens, and I resolved to add more to my garden.  So last fall, I ordered and planted a number of new cultivars, including 'Ambassador', 'Pinball Wizard', 'Globemaster', and 'Gladiator'.  Of those, 'Globemaster', the trio pictured at the right, all kept their heads and necks intact, blooming well, but those were the only alliums to bloom well in my garden this year.  Is 'Globemaster' tougher than the others?  I'd love to say "yes," but my scientific training tells me that my data is inconclusive.  Not enough bulbs scattered around to form a valid opinion.  These were just as exposed as the others, but perhaps they just got lucky.

'Gladiator'

One might hope that a plant named 'Gladiator' could hold its own against a hailstorm, but the 'Gladiator' buds broke off and then proceeded to bloom like broken purple scepters (photo at left).  My group of 'Ambassador' wasn't able to negotiate at all with the hail and looks the worst of all these allium, not a single stem intact and leaves simply dying.  I'll spare you the horror of showing you a photo of the latter.

Is there any conclusion, any small thought or idea, that I can learn from this hail-ish experience?  Because I'd like to not repeat the same mistake of spending wads of money, nursing dreams of beautiful allium through fall, winter and spring, feeling hope rise with the stems, taller and taller, only to be dashed alongside the broken leaves in an instant.   Maybe, perhaps, just one.

Don't garden in Kansas.

White Profusion at Large

(Klaxon sounds) We interrupt your previously scheduled Garden Musings literary ramble for this special bulletin.  As you plan this year's garden, please be on the lookout at your local gardening center for this spectacular plant, Buddleia davidii 'White Profusion', wanted for exceptional garden performance by many gardeners over most of the continental United States.  This individual plant has been known to return and bloom reliably for 15 years, in a Kansas garden of all places, and its blooms exude a delicate fragrance that lures man and butterfly alike.  Standing 6 feet tall at mature height, 'White Profusion' withstands the worst of drought, wind, hail and searing sun, continually blooming in defiance at the elements. It has no known pests and is rarely accompanied by fungus or other
diseases in Kansas.


'White Profusion' has been known to associate with a number of vividly colored butterflies, including the Monarch butterfly and various fritillaries.  Aside from its more colorful butterfly collaborators, 'White Profusion' has also been known to consort with the Snowberry Clearwing moth (Hemaris diffinis), seen below at the right.  Also known as the "flying lobster" or "hummingbird moth", the Snowberry Clearwing moth may be found poking around the blooms (get it?  "poking around"?) in search of a handout.  Often mistaken for a bumblebee because of its yellow and black coloration, invisible "clear" wings, and haphazard flight pattern, the Snowberry Clearwing moth has a long, curled proboscis that is very useful for sampling the delights of a butterfly bush.  Thankfully for my landscape, the Snowberry Clearwing is not one of several Clearwing moths that are wood-boring pests for a number of native trees and stone fruit trees, although their larvae do feed on honeysuckle, cherry, plum, and viburnum.  Also, in similar thankful meme, 'White Profusion' has shown no tendency to spread or reseed in the landscape, and may be an improvement over Buddleias that are considered noxious weeds in many parts of the United States.

In other news, ProfessorRoush has officially declared 'White Profusion' the best butterfly bush he has ever grown.  Out of approximately 15 cultivars, some of which expired long ago to either cold or drought or neglect, this is the most dependable survivor here in a Zone 5 climate prone to inappropriate and random late freezes and snows.  The photo at the left shows the bush early in bloom last year, with only a small percentage of the number of blooms that eventually covered it.  'White Profusion' is well named, because blooms are exceptionally profuse, stay creamy-white despite rain and sunburn, and each individual panicle of flowers can reach 12 inches in length.  Blooming starts at the base of the panicles and new panicles are continually produced as older flowers fade.  Flower panicles are held erect at the tip of the deciduous stems, requiring only an early spring scalp back to live tissue or even to the ground to allow room for the growth of new stems. 

Repeating;  Be on the lookout for 'White Profusion', a butterfly bush of uncommon value.  We return you now to your regularly scheduling Garden Musings.
 

Heliopsis Summer Nights

At long last, a Heliantheae that I can live with.  I once thought that Helianthus maximilliana was the answer to my drought-stricken, Kansas sunflower-like dreams, and I sought them out wherever I ventured.  I've grown, and still grow Helianthus maximilliana 'Lemon Yellow' and 'Santa Fe', but they tend to out-compete anything in their vicinity, smothering less aggressive plants.  I keep eliminating clumps and moving them elsewhere.  One of my latest attempts to use them in the garden was to create an ornamental grass + H. maximilliana bed, in the mistaken notion that the ornamental grass clumps could hold their own amongst the H. maximilliana.  Boy, was I ever wrong.

Heliopsis helianthoides ‘Summer Nights’, in contrast, is a much better-behaved garden guest, lending its dark green foliage as backdrop in the early summer, and then livening up the action in Autumn with bright yellow daisy faces and maroon stems.   My 'Summer Nights' seems to be pest-free and at maturity stands about 3 foot tall and 3 feet around.  It is a good perennial for a medium-sized border, and it is creating a good display with the ornamental grasses behind it.  It slouches a little but doesn't spread, a model of grace and good intentions.

If only they had named it something besides the unfortunate 'Summer Nights'.  Every time I look at it, I'm reminded of the song "Summer Nights", from the movie Grease, which leads my hyperactive mind to the vocalists of the song, Olivia Newton John and John Travolta.  I can agree, like other boys who were teenagers in the '70's, that Olivia Newton John has a certain appeal, but I've never been a John Travolta fan.  So I see the plant and I end up with John Travolta singing in my head for a few hours, over and over.  Thus, I always am impressed at first glance by this plant but walk away with a slightly sour expression that the plant doesn't deserve.  "Summer dreams, ripped at the seams, but oh, those 'Summer Nights'!"  

Black Diamond Blush

Orange may be the new black, but ProfessorRoush believes black will always remain in style, nonetheless.  Women never go wrong with a simple basic black dress and pearls, and well-turned out gentlemen seldom look out of place in black suits and white shirts.  In contrast, black tulips and dark roses and chocolate zinnias are novelties craved by many gardeners, but I've never jumped on that bandwagon, myself.  Does black really ever belong in the garden?

I was excited, however, late in the season last year, when I found a number of Black Diamond Crape myrtles (Lagerstroemia indica) at the local Home Depot.  I had never seen or heard of these varieties before.   Crapemyrtles as a rule are only marginally hardy here, but I couldn't resist that dark foliage as an accent plant.  Several varieties were available, but I didn't like the combination of red flowers and dark foliage on 'Best Red' , nor the off-red shading of slightly lighter 'Crimson Red'.  I chose to try out 'Blush', a white-flowered variety that is technically a very light pink, but looked primarily white in the parking lot.

This spring, it was killed back to the ground (as were the rest of my crapemyrtles), but I left the spot untouched and, sure enough, in late May, a single dark stem arose that I babied and protected throughout the past few months until it began to bloom.  And here it is, stunning at last, the earliest of my crapemyrtles to bloom and the most noticeable.  Tell me, what do you think? An entire forest of Black Diamond 'Blush' might resemble a scene from a Tim Burton movie, but I'm pretty happy with it as an accent plant.  With a little more global warming, perhaps it won't kill back to the ground and I'll be able to see it get a little larger and more prominent each year.  Happily, it seems to be both drought-tolerant and able to withstand wet spring feet, and it has been unbothered by pests, both six- and four-legged in form.

There was a little bit of sleight of hand in the introduction of the Black Diamond series.  A little bit more research led me to the information that this commercially-offered series is the same as the Ebony series bred by Dr. Cecil Pounders and registered with the U.S. National Arboretum in 2013.  Black Diamond 'Blush' is the same plant as 'Ebony Glow'.  The breeding background of these plants are detailed in the HortScience article linked above.

Now, I think I'll watch for the new purple-flowered 2015 introduction, 'Purely Purple'.  The black foliage and purple flower combination of this new crape seems tailor made for a K-State oriented garden bed, don't you agree?

Blue Flowering Grass?

Common Dayflower

Sometimes Nature, herself, smacks us on the forehead with the creation of a little unsolicited garden plant combination that draws our immediate attention.  I had just that sort of mental face-slap as I strode into the veterinary college within the last hour, noticing these pretty blue flowers waving among a ornamental grass clump to the left of the entrance.  My semi-aware brain immediately snapped into frantic overdrive.  Blue flowers?  Ornamental grass?  What new cultivar was this?

A closer look revealed the beast lurking within the beauty.  The ornamental grass clump is a Panicum cultivar, probably something like 'Cheyenne Sky' or 'Shenandoah', beginning to turn red on the tips here in late July.  I grow several at home, and every Fall I enjoy the soft spikelets atop the stiffly erect blades of the grass.  Here, in front of the limestone building, this blue-green cultivar stands out in nice contrast, although it doesn't create quite as lively a scene as it does in my constantly wind-swept garden. 

An Unholy Combination

The flowers, of course, are those of the Common Dayflower, Commelina communis, a thug that I've mentioned before and wrote about in my book, but never really discussed here.  It is quite a beautiful flower, really.   The gorgeous dual sky-blue petals soar above the bright yellow staminodes, while the less conspicuous anticous fertile stamens hover over the single, smaller, obscured white petal.  Harmless in appearance, the plant is actually one of the most invasive plants I've ever known, a fearless Asian invader bent on world domination and more ruthless than any human barbarian horde.  I obtained a single clump early in my gardening career from a friend fiend who grew them beneath a shade tree.  Released into the unrelenting sunshine of my Kansas garden, I quickly found that it spread ruthlessly, impervious to glycosphate. 2,4-D, and everything else I've thrown at it.  I've tried to burn it out, starve it, and stomp it to death.  In its native environment, it grows primarily in moist soils, but here it has laughed equally at droughts, heat, drowning and frigid winter temperatures.  I haven't let a single plant flower in my garden for 15 years now, and still it persists, defying my best efforts at Dayflower genocide.  My sole hope is that somewhere, hidden in a small laboratory, a mad scientist is working on a small nuclear bomb suitable for garden-size applications. 

No matter how beautiful this combination seems, consider this a forewarning that you would have to be crazy to try it in your own garden.  Of course, I'm overlooking the fragile sanity level of most avid gardeners.  Anything to outdo the neighbors, right?  Several of you already have mentally placed this combination into your gardens, perhaps along the garden paths where it can be experienced at close quarters, perhaps just around that specimen bush, where it will surprise and delight a visitor?  Don't.  I'm telling you, just don't.  God only knows how many years, State workers and tax dollars it will take to eliminate the Common Dayflower from this one clump of ornamental grass.

Kaveri in Kansas

'Kaveri'

It is high time (well, not "High Times" in terms of the magazine of that name, but high time in relation to being the proper time) for ProfessorRoush to report the results of a commercially-initiated experiment, that of my experience with the 'Kaveri' bulbs.  As I reported earlier, I received 5 bulbs this Spring from Garden Media Group for evaluation by and had planted them shortly after arrival.

 'Kaveri' lily is a brand new cross between Asiatic lilies and Oriental lilies (OA) that was introduced by Longfield Gardens.   Sources describe it as being fragrant, to produce 6-8 flower buds that open into upward-facing blooms, and to grow up to 40 inches tall.  While I admit that I was not and still am not excited about the orange and red color mixture of 'Kaveri' itself, I was intrigued by the interspecific cross.  I grow a number of Orientpet lilies, the interspecies hybrids of Oriental and Trumpet lilies, and because Asiatic lilies grow well here, I was hoping for a similar happy experience with 'Kaveri'.

My five bulbs, planted immediately into the alkaline soil of Kansas and then watered excessively by the very wet and cool spring we experienced, resulted in two full-grown lilies with open blooms.  Of the three "failures," one bulb failed to come up, one came up and then fizzled eventually in the rain,  and the third was trampled by Bella when it was a foot tall.   All in all, not a spectacular result, but about par for the course for a typical plant trial in Kansas clay.  They bloomed just past the peak of the Asiatic lilies in my garden, and are probably one to two weeks ahead of any of my Oriental lilies.  They thus fill an important niche bloom time between the species, and their bloom in my garden coincides with the peak of the daylily cultivars.

These two mature lilies are both 31" tall and each has 5 blooms or buds ready to open.  I presume the number of buds will increase over the next couple of years to the expected 6-8.  The blooms are quite large, approximately 6 inches across, reflecting Oriental lily size more than Asiatic, and the petals are likewise thick and waxy like their Oriental ancestors.  They do face forward and up and a mature clump should make a nice statement in a garden.  And they ARE fragrant, but pleasantly so in my opinion.  Their fragrance is sweet, like an Oriental lily but happily not nearly as thick or cloying as the latter, and it doesn't carry more than a couple of feet away.   Since I can't be in the same room with more than a single bloom of a strong Oriental lily, and sometimes not even that, I'm happy that 'Kaveri' keeps its fragrance available when I want it, instead of smothering me with it.

It may be obvious from the above comments that I like the idea of an OA hybrid, but I wasn't excited by the particular color of 'Kaveri' itself.    While there is certainly no accounting for taste, I hope for my own tastes that the future brings other colors into this mix, because I really prefer the quieter colors of the Orientals over the brash colors of the Asiatics.    I could only find one more OA hybrid on a quick internet search, 'Sunny Crown' and it looks much like 'Kaveri', perhaps with less orange centers and more yellow margins.   Alas, in further reading, I found that the F1 hybrids of Oriental and Asiatic lilies are all sterile due to lack of chromosome pairing, and so they cannot be used for further cross-breeding without modification.  Leave it to scientists, however to find a solution;  it seems that doubling the number of chromosomes with colchicine allows the polyploid progeny to produce some backcrosses that hold promise for the future.  A future bright, I hope, with fragrant-but-not-too-fragrant OA lilies that are pink or white.

All that being said, I do think 'Kaveri' is a nice accent for my reading garden statue, don't you agree?

Yarrow Yearnings

'Moonshine'

ProfessorRoush is completely gaga this year over his yarrows. I've resolved to seek out more of them as the summer goes on, perhaps even braving a trip to a nursery that is unfortunately infested with Japanese Beetles, to look for new varieties.  My Achillea, drought resistant and tough as they are, also came through our recent monsoons well, tolerating swampy ground and, in fact, thriving on it.  My sole complaint is that the established clumps of yarrow in my garden outgrew themselves and are flopping around.  I've found that yarrows stand better if they haven't been fertilized and grow under a smidgen of drought.

'Cloth of Gold'

I've long known that there are some really fabulous yellow yarrow varieties available in my area, and these two, 'Moonshine', and 'Cloth of Gold' are the yellow yarrows in my garden.  While most of my yarrow are A. millefolium, 'Cloth of Gold' is actually A. filipendulina, which grows taller and broader (at around 3-4 feet) than the A. millefolium varieties who top out at around 2 feet.  'Cloth of Gold', however, is flopping everywhere right now while 'Moonshine' is erect.

'Pomegranate' 

Some great red yarrows have also been recently introduced. I have promised a gardening friend a division of 'Pomegranate', the deep red variety of the "Tutti-Frutti" series.  This year, mine is "to die for", a sensuously deep purple-red mound of color that isn't well represented by the photo at the right.  And the picture below of the whole clump, accentuated by a bright red daylily whose name has been lost, is just fabulous.

'Red Velvet'

'Red Velvet', at left, is a more routine red in the same bed, almost mundane compared to the nearby 'Pomegranate', while 'Strawberry Seduction' (below right), in an adjacent bed, is a saucier yarrow wench from the "Seduction series" by Blooms of Bressingham,  Sprouting bright yellow pistils as accents for the bright red color, it is a little stiffer, a little more compact than the other red varieties pictured here.  Tonight, I read on some Internet sources that 'Strawberry Seduction' is supposed to fade to a nice light yellow, and, checking this morning, I see that they are right.  I've never noticed that before.

'Strawberry Seduction'

'Colorado' series 

I've recently added a plant from the 'Colorado' series that I hand-selected in bloom at a local nursery.  The picture here looks a little more white than the actual bloom, which is a very light gray with pink tones that I thought was attractive.  The 'Colorado' series is another recent set of introductions, more compact and drought tolerant than many.

'New Vintage Rose'

The most brazen specimen blooming at present, however, must surely be 'New Vintage Rose', about 3 years old for me.  This neon beacon is hard to overlook in the garden, for both humans, and butterflies.  'New Vintage Rose' is shorter, very floriferous, about 20 inches tall, and the color darkens as it matures.  I need to remember to also divide this one and make a new bed of riotous color with it and some other gems.  

I hope you include Achillea in your drought-tolerant landscapes.  They have really come a long way from their pasture forb ancestors.

Duplicitious Bulbs

I believe that I must be the last gardener on the planet to realize that John Scheepers and Van Engelen are sister companies, but I offer this information for others of my unbaptized and unknowing ilk.

They tipped their hand this year, bulb emperors without clothes, because I received both catalogs by mail on the same day, a seeming coincidence that initially elicited my amusement at the acute timing of the two companies.  That night, as I feverishly looked through the luscious, colored John Schleepers catalog for some desired lilies and alliums, and then through bland Van Engelen, I realized that both catalogs had the SAME OFFERINGS listed BY THE SAME EXACT ORDER!  Always slow, and one to easily be fooled, I looked at the information for ordering and found both companies had the same exact address and phone number.  Fool me for a decade, but never longer.  I was somewhat chagrined to search the internet and discover that such a treasonous bit of advertising sleight-of-hand was certainly not an unheralded secret.

I have ordered from both over the past few years, and I was initially a little angry that some devious advertising executives had taken me in, but further investigation revealed that the Van Engelen website freely discloses that both companies had the same owner and the same offerings and it tells me the reason why I (and you) want BOTH catalogs;  "John Scheepers offers flower bulbs in smaller units with significant volume price discounts while Van Engelen offers the flower bulb collection in larger, wholesale units with volume discount pricing."  John Scheepers and Van Engelen were, in fact, both owned by the late Jan S. Ohms, as is John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds.  Ohms acquired Van Engelen in the 1970's and John Scheepers in 1991.  



For my purposes, the well-illustrated John Scheepers catalog allows me to see and pick items by appearance, but after identifying my shopping list there, I turn to Van Engelen, which offers better pricing for both small (5 bulb) and large (>100 bulb) lots.  Oddly, Van Engelen doesn't offer lots of 10 bulbs and other intermediate sizes, so for some items, John Scheepers is the better source.  This year I've identified 14 items, 10 of which I'll purchase from Van Engelen, and the other four from John Scheepers.  I still don't understand why the companies publish and mail me two separate catalogs, a duplicate expense that surely must be reflected in the price of the bulbs, but I recognize that the answer may be entirely logical but beyond me, tied up in some Federal red tape of bulb importing and wholesale laws of which I'm happy to remain ignorant.  Or, it could be that the blue-blooded upper crust of bulb gardeners spurn the colored-flower pornography of John Scheepers and stick with the tasteful lists of Van Engelen.  And I suppose that Van Engelen sounds more Dutch and authentic for a bulb source than John Scheepers.   Regardless, if you've only been buying gluttonously large lots from Van Engelen, make sure you receive a John Scheepers catalog as well, if only to look at or drool on the photos of each item.

Note:  I am not associated with either Van Engelen or John Scheepers, nor do I receive any favors from either firm beyond the services they provide their average customer.

Elegant and Eccentric

'Buckeye Belle'

The peony show is nearly over for this year, but due to sold out crowds, I have booked it for another showing next May.  In the meantime, I'd like to present Her Royal Highness, deep burgundy 'Buckeye Belle', and her two playful courtesans 'Bric a Brac' and 'Pink Spritzer', for your attention and pleasure.



 





'Buckeye Belle' is still rapidly expanding for me, and I don't feel she is anywhere near her full potential, but I'm completely obsessed by the rich color of those blooms.  An old peony, introduced in 1956,  I previously noted that she found new life as the 2011 Peony of the Year and 2010 Gold Medal Winner.  She put forth a total of 5 of those big sumptuous blossoms for me this year, a modest number, but the total display she put on is out of proportion to her floriferousness.

Sultry, seductive, bold, majestic, and opulent are all words that I would use to describe her.   Everyone who sees her wants to know who she is and where to buy a piece of her.  Honestly, look at that color.  The closeup to the left is true to the real color of the petals.  Doesn't it evoke a deep, full chord inside you, just begging you to sing of royalty and richness?

'Bric a Brac'

Her two weird distant Paeonia lactiflora cousins, 'Bric a Brac' at the left, and 'Pink Spritzer', below right, evoke a totally different set of adjectives.  Strange, oddball, kooky, peculiar, and even "eerie" come to mind.  Both peonies are both daughters of famous hybridizer Roy Klehm, 'Pink Spritzer' in 1999, and I couldn't find the birthdate of 'Bric a Brac'.  Whoever chose names for Klehm's peonies was inventive; 'Brac a Brac' referring to collections of curios, and 'Pink Spritzer' referring to the German spritzen, to "spatter, sprinkle, or spray."  I bought both peonies after seeing slides of them at a Roy Klehm lecture, because of my love of striped plants.  Neither are very vigorous peonies, in fact I worry about their health each spring, but they are certainly conversation starters.

'Pink Spritzer'

'Bric a Brac', particularly, requires a certain aesthetic set to appreciate.  A poster named "tehegemon" on GardenWeb.com wrote, "I definitely think Bric A Brac has its place, although as I previously mentioned, not in my garden."  The website "seedratings.com" states "There has never been such a frazzled, fringed, ferociously twisted Peony as Bric a Brac!"  I admire the alliteration, but I don't agree with the sentiment.  That creamy background, maroon-striped, green-tinged petals and contrasting bright yellow stigmas and styles just does something for me.  I don't know what, but it does something.

Writing about striped peonies is a dangerous activity for my garden and pocketbook.  In my search for information about these peonies, I found Klehm has another striped one, 'Circus Circus', for sale.  That one just made an order list for fall.  I'm weak, yes, but I'm at least I'm predictable.

Columbine Collage

I do not recall ever blogging about my columbines, my beautiful beloved columbines, but I won't miss the opportunity now as they bloom out their season.  Some of you who are familiar with their favored habitat may even be surprised that they survive here in the annual Kansas drought and heat, but what they lack in fortitude, they seem to make up with proliferation.  In fact, I think they self-seed better on bare dry ground then they do in mulched and shady areas.  Wherever they seed, I smile and think about blue skies and happy children.

I assume my columbines are some form of Aquilegia vulgaris, but I've had a number of cultivars in my garden over the years and the entire Aquilegia clan is notoriously self-fertilizing.  The dark blue columbines at left, for instance, might have had some genetic influence from a named double-flowered cultivar, 'Black Barrow', that I once had.  Columbines are no trouble at all, however.  They cheerfully self-seed around my northern exposure, in the partially shaded beds on the north side of the house, and I simply weed out the colors that I don't like and root out the clumps that spring up in the wrong locations.  I'm partial to whites and blues, as you can see, and the occasional wine-purple flower is also allowed to grow uninhibited.  But it is the blues, the rare bright-sky-blue flowers, that I favor the most.

I do have an occasional maintenance issue with "Granny's Bonnet", as these are sometimes called.  Here on the prairie, they often become infested with "columbine leafminers" (Phytomyza sp.), a fly larvae that lives and lays eggs in the leaves, leaving unsightly trails behind as they migrate and feed.  The  Internet provides scant useful advice regarding control of these pests, with one prominent page suggesting only to ignore them or to pick off diseased leaves.  If I followed the latter advice, I'd only be left with a bunch of completely defoliated columbines by early June.  Similarly, I ignore written suggestions to cut them to the ground and start over.  Older sources suggest the use of DDT, a chemical that likely would do the job, but which I suspect is a bit difficult to obtain these days.   Occasionally, I've resorted to spraying with less lethal insecticides or even to tossing down some of the commercial fertilizer which contains systemic insecticide, all in an effort to keep the leaves unblemished and healthy.  Other years, as some of these photos this year demonstrate, I let the leafminers alone to do what leafminers must do.

Columbine folklore is rife with tales of love, attraction, and betrayal.  Columbines were held to be sacred to Venus, but were often associated with folly and cuckoldry.  At one time, giving a woman a bouquet of columbines was an insult since they were only presented to women suspected of loose morals.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush, however, thinks they are fabulous little flowers and takes no umbrage to my growing them near our main entrance,






Aquilegia belongs to the Ranunculus family and many sources say the entire plant is poisonous, including the seeds.  Of course, the skeptical gardening professor scoffs at the warnings about its toxicity, warnings that seem to mirror those of many, many other plants, and I wonder if it actually toxic at all, particularly when Wikipedia tells me that a dose of 3000 mg/kg is not fatal in mice.  

While skeptical, however, I'm not an idiot and I most assuredly won't use myself as a test subject.  It is said that Native American men crushed the seeds and rubbed them into their hands because the scent was so pleasing it was thought to attract a mate.  Perhaps Mrs. ProfessorRoush would appreciate the gift of a new fragrant soap if she believed it would rekindle the marital fires?

Sweet Smelling Surprise

I was mowing in the lower garden on Labor Day (a fitting activity for the day, but hardly a "holiday" from work for me), and as I rounded a corner I received a momentary sensation of being immersed in honey.  I didn't stop immediately, but on the second round, when I was struck again at the same corner with a sweet scent, I hit the brakes and looked around.   There, draping over ‘Double Red’ Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus), were these little white flowers that were not supposed to be there.  

These are, of course, a Sweet Autumn Clematis (Clematis paniculata or C. ternifolia, whatever it is now), which self-seeded itself somewhere next to this trellis and grew unnoticed until now.  This trellis is flanked on either end by two Wisteria vines, which provide both color and a great fragrance each Spring, but in September they're a bit less noticeable, merely serving as a green window to view farther parts of my garden.  The growth of the Wisteria on that end is so thick that I couldn't easily find the Clematis vine source.

The dilemma now, of course, is whether to leave the Clematis there or to move or destroy it.  C. paniculata seems to grow very well here in this climate, and if I leave it here, it may eventually strangle the Wisteria ('Amethyst Falls’) on that end, and the adjacent Rose of Sharon.  I have two other C. paniculata, so one could argue that I've got plenty of it in my garden, but on the other hand, I'm not sure you can ever have too much of that vanilla-scented vine in an otherwise dreary August garden.  'Amethyst Falls' is not nearly as scented in the Spring as the Wisteria sinensis on the other end of the trellis, but it does rebloom for me and it is more dependable in late freezes than the W. sinensis.   

Decisions, decisions.  Are there ever any end to them in the garden? Can I hope that the Wisteria will keep the Clematis in check, allowing each year only these few delightful sprigs of scent to pull me into the shade on a hot day?