Wish Granted

ProfessorRoush got his wish today.  At the close of my last blog entry, I said that I only hoped that the 'Ann' Magnolia would stop being shy and would bloom with the forsythia.  Two very warm days later, here it is, dark magenta and screaming yellow, together at last.

'Ann' 4/10/2019

Both 'Ann' (a luscious and inviting bloom pictured at left), and 'Jane' (pictured below on the right) are Magnolia stellata x M. liliflora hybrids in the "Little Girls" series that were released by the U.S. National Arboretum.   Dr. Francis de Vos began the program and it was followed up by Dr. William Kosar, with a total of 8 hybrids ultimately released. I've written about 'Jane' here before, but not 'Ann.'

'Jane'

'Jane' 4/10/2019

 'Ann' is the younger of the two siblings in my garden, beginning her 6th season, and she should eventually reach 8 feet tall and wide if I can keep the deer off of her.  'Jane' is the more mature and taller specimen, already 11 years old and closing in on 10 feet tall.  She is opening her more demure pink and cream blooms a little later this year than her sister, with about 1/6th of her blossoms beginning to open at present while over half of 'Ann' is already showing.  Since both are blooming well this year in the garden, along with Magnolia stellata 'Royal Star', I had the welcome opportunity to compare their fragrance. 'Royal Star' is clearly the winner there, very musky and damp, throwing a hint of Cretaceous jungle into the Kansas winds that I can smell for tens of yards downwind.  'Jane' is no slouch however, with a more refined light and almost lemony scent that also carries in the breeze.  'Ann' however, is a disappointment in that regard, only the very lightest fragrance detectable occasionally when my nose is buried right next to her....deepest parts.

There's a cold front coming here soon, though, with 30ºF predicted two nights away, so I hope it doesn't damage the rest of these life-brightening blooms.  In other news, I was able to put about 4 good hours into garden yesterday evening. in short sleeves and 75ºF weather, and I cleaned off my entire front landscaping bed, cleared, readied, weeded and fertilized for the season to come.  I'd have gotten the back bed done tonight, but I chose instead to go morel hunting.  No joy on that end for this gardener, however.

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.

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!

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.