Plant Pets and Plant Zoos

'Hope for Humanity'

I was stunned speechless, stopped instantly in my tracks last week, by a random statement in a GardenRant.com column by Ann Wareham.  In the column, Ann, a British garden writer, was pushing back against the societal pressure to change our gardens into more ecologically-sound, "pollinator friendly," "sustainable," "drought resistant" or "rain" gardens.   Ann threw the following statement in an early paragraph as one of the many reasons why it is difficult to start a new garden:  "Given that most people treat plants like pets and are reluctant to kill any apart from those rather arbitrarily defined as ‘weeds’, it is truly hard to imagine how any of these clean slate, ethically sound gardens are supposed to emerge."

People treat plants like pets!  Of course!  ProfessorRoush treats plants like pets!   I nurture them, I feed them, and I water them; I'm thrilled when they grow and perform well and I'm disappointed when they crap in their beds.  An epiphany, like so many others, right before my eyes the entire time.   Here I am, veterinarian and gardener for a lifetime, and I've never realized that so, so many of my plants are pets.  The rose, 'Hope for Humanity', pictured above and at left, blooming so perfectly red and bountiful, is a favorite of my treasured plant pets.   So is the 'Blizzard' mockorange below, covered in white and perfuming the garden.  And the fringed and crazy 'Pink Spritzer' peony, a wild Klehm creation, seen at the feet of the mockorange and in the closeup at the bottom of this blog.  Inside the house, a collection of different Schlumbergera and a few pet orchids make up the indoor garden.

'Blizzard' Mockorange

In fact, as I take my new pet-colored vision further, I now realize that I don't have a garden, I have a zoo.  ProfessorRoush's garden isn't about having just a few treasured and well-cared for companions, it's about collecting the uncommon or unusually beautiful, a thousand individual specimens to draw my attention and time.  There are few repeating plants in my garden; repeating families or genus's perhaps, but few cultivars that I divide and spread in repeating waves.   A few daylilies perhaps, particularly vigorous and worthy, and the rampantly suckering 'Dwarf Pavement' rose have multiple locations in my garden, but where some have a single viburnum, I have 6 or 8, all different species and versions.   How many different peonies or daylilies or roses do I really have?   I've lost count. 

'Pink Spritzer'

ProfessorRoush's Garden Menagerie.   Come take a horticultural safari with me, my friends, as we stroll in the evening around the garden.  Knautia macedonia has made the front bed a burgundy pincushion, soon ready to pass the torch on to Orientpet (notice the group name?) lilies.   Roses are fading from their first flush of flowers and peonies are dropping petals everywhere in the back garden, while the daylily buds stretch towards the sky, soon to dominate the scene.  Three different Mockorange's are in bloom now, in three different beds, and the Russian sage and the Persicaria polymorpha are demanding attention from viewers.  Grasses and sedges aim for fall, biding time and withholding flowers until the heat of August forces them out.

Plants as pets.   Gardens as menageries.  Maybe not so socially-conscious, but satisfying and educational at every turn.   That's my style.

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.

Peony Prospects

This year, I wonder, which of my peonies will put forth unexpected and extra effort and serve to delight me? There always seems to be one special player, sometimes anticipated, sometimes almost forgotten, who will make this a memorable peony spring. No matter how harsh the Winter has been, no matter how cold the Spring, how dry the Fall, or how destructive the dogs, one of them, I trust, will come shining through.  Which will it be in 2011?

'Buckeye Belle'

 Will it be 'Buckeye Belle', purchased just last year and planted in full, deep dark red flower?  'Buckeye Belle' is an old peony, introduced by Mains in 1956, but it recently found new life as the 2011 Peony of the Year, the 2010 Gold Medal Winner, and 2009 American Peony Society Award of Landscape Merit Winner.  I have high hopes for this variety and placed it in the front tip of my peony bed.

 



'Immaculee'

 Or will 'Immaculee' get the nod this year for best peony of my garden?  This white anemone bred by Van der Valk in 1953 has the most consistently perfect and delicate blossums of any peony I grow.  Closeups of the center of this flower are like the surface of another world.  



'Paeonia tenuifolia'

I was extremely lucky several years ago, to have a friend who gave me starts of the very early-blooming species, 'Paeonia tenuifolia'.  First to bloom, first to disappear for the year, this bright red peony can be a real showstopper when a large clump gets established.  And the tiny fern-like foliage is always perfect!



'Pink Spritzer'

 Recent variety 'Pink Spritzer' is always good for a striking new bloom and probably the most asked about peony that I grow.  I obtained it about 2 years ago directly from the hybridizer, Roy Klehm, after hearing a lecture he gave at the National Arboretum.  My weakness for stripes got the better of me.

'Festiva Maxima'

The old standbys like 'Festiva Maxima' can usually be counted on to provide a good show.  Heirloom P. lactiflora  variety 'Festiva Maxima' is a French variety introduced in 1851 and if I were betting, I'd put money on this being the most widely grown herbaceous peony across the planet.  I had a little trouble starting mine, either from the purchase of small roots or a little weakness in the variety, but I finally succeeded.  I didn't admit my troubles, though, to my father, who has a specimen that was probably planted in the late 1940's and receives no care except a yearly mowing.  




'Bowl of Beauty'

  And, of course, the Japanese anemone named 'Bowl of Beauty' can usually be counted on for a beautiful show.  I've grown this peony for about 8 years and this one always draws a few extra glances from visitors. The great contrast of 'Bowl of Beauty' between the ivory center and rich pink, cupped outer guard petals draws the eye. 

My best hope however, for an exciting show this year is from a peony I just planted last year.  Browsing a nursery in May last year, I came across 'Prairie Moon', a creamy white peony with yellow centers that has enormous blooms that vary from single forms to almost double in some years.  Even so, I thought that the cost of a potted clump was a bit expensive to purchase the first time I saw it, but it kept wearing at my conscience all summer, and when it didn't go on sale, I purchased it in the Fall.  I couldn't resist either the prairie reference of the name, nor the fact that this peony was introduced by Fay in 1959, which happens to be the year of my birth.  I don't have pictures for you yet, but this is a peony that I hope will light up that area of the garden from a long distance away for years to come.   

Sucker for Stripes

At any given garden store, there are two plant characteristics that will nearly always guarantee a sale to me.  The first is any flower that approaches the sky blue pigment characteristic of the Blue Himalayan Poppy (Meconopsis betonicifolia).  The second is nearly any red and white striped flower.  I'm a complete sucker for all of them, particularly roses, whether it's 'Fourth of July', 'Rosa Mundi', 'Scentimental', or one of a hundred others.  Modern breeders have caught on and increased the numbers of these beauties recently so other gardeners must be bitten by the bug as well.

One of my favorite roses has long been the well-known Bourbon 'Variegata di Bologna'.  A consistent performer here in my Zone 5B garden, 'Variegata di Bologna' often reblooms in the Fall, but I really don't care because the Spring bloom alone is enough to carry me through a year.  Probably the most scented rose in my garden, this beauty has a nice consistent vase-like shape. It grows to about 6 feet during a season and has a little winter tip-kill back to about 4 feet, but it doesn't need special winter protection here in Kansas.

Last year I added a particularly beautiful striped herbaceous peony, 'Pink Spritzer' to my garden. I saw the famous Roy Klehm give a lecture at the National Arboretum during a trip to Washington D.C. two years ago and I had picked out 'Pink Spritzer' as one of the "must-have" additions during the lecture.  Subsequently, I ordered it straight from Klehm's own nursery, Song Sparrow Farm (http://www.songsparrow.com/), and planted it during the Fall as suggested.  This year, it gave me the first blooms, an unusual and beautiful single peony of red and white and a little green that makes a splash in the front of my peony bed.  Song Sparrow Farm doesn't offer it online right now, so if you can find one and plant it, guard it carefully.  Gardeners are gentle folk but they aren't above the sin of envy and a little pilferage in the pursuit of beauty.