Baffin Baffled

'William Baffin'

 In many ways, I have been both surprised and baffled by the popularity of the Canadian climbing rose 'William Baffin'.  'William Baffin' was an early (1983) introduction in the Explorer series from Ag Canada.  He is a monster of a hot-pink rose, growing from 7-9 feet tall in Canada and a little bit taller here.  Although Ag Canada describes the clusters of blooms as medium red, he is more hot pink to my eyes (byuck!), with random white streaks occasionally marring the base of the petals. I'm a "double" rose guy, and I'm not very excited by the semi-double average of 20 petals for William. There is nothing particularly unique about it to recommend the bloom, and the rose has no fragrance to speak of.  Left to its own devices, 'William Baffin' will make an impenetrable thicket of long thorny canes and it will punish any rosarian who tries to tie it up, not a surprising habit for a rose derived from the viscous R. kordesii on one side and a pollen parent derived from 'Red Dawn' X 'Suzanne'.     Oh yeah, and it suckers like there is no tomorrow.



'William Baffin' at KSU Rose Garden

But, on the other hand, hardy climbers are difficult to find for Midwestern and Northern locations and I also have to admit that 'William Baffin' blooms like a fiend.  Many "modern" roses sold locally as climbers are prone to dying back to the ground every winter in the Flint Hills, and there is frankly little reason to have a climber that doesn't cover its trellis until the end of the season.  Salmon-pink 'America' and dark red 'Don Juan' are much recommended here, are prone to winter dieback almost every year, and I never see them blooming as more than about  three-foot shrubs.  Popular 'Fourth of July' occasionally makes 5 feet at the KSU Rose Garden and blooms well, but it's also prone to blackspot there.  So, there is one reliable winter-hardy red climber in common use, 'Improved Blaze', and I have high hopes for the newer 'Crimson Sky', but as you can see in the picture at the left, taken last weekend, 'William Baffin' is a sure bet as a spectacular climber with absolutely no winter dieback at the KSU Garden.  I grow William at home as a shrub rose in the center of a group of other Old Garden and Hardy roses, and you can barely put a finger between the blooms of my specimen, as shown below:

'William Baffin' grown as a shrub rose

Disease resistance is good, and I never spray 'William Baffin', either at the KSU Rose Garden, or at home.

So, if you're wanting a display to be seen across a football field, I'm all for recommending 'William Baffin', but please don't expect much up close and personal with this rose.  He'll take a couple of years to get going, but when he comes out of that awkward adolescent phase, nothing will stand in his way towards providing a great spring show.

Statueholics Anonymous

I have a problem. I am a Garden Statueholic. I sometimes go to plant nurseries for the sole purpose of surveying their statues and at such times I never set foot in the plant sections. I covet large garden statues. I crave small garden animals. I lust after cement babes. I often ponder the proper garden placement for a large gargoyle. I aspire to find the perfect garden gnome.

Am I adding garden figures as accents for my plants or do the plants serve only as backdrops to the statues?  I worry that I'm overdoing my collection of small cement rabbit statues, but I will readily admit that the few times I've broken down and bought a really nice, expensive statue, I've never regretted the addition to my garden. Take the five foot tall Aga Marsala statue that sits in my rose garden. She's surrounded by white 'Madame Hardy', purple 'Cardinal de Richelieu', and is backed up by the tall pink Canadian roses 'William Baffin' and 'Prairie Dawn'.  Neither the roses nor Aga would look as good alone.  And Mrs. ProfessorRoush once made fun of my purchase of the Kon-Tiki head below, but facing east and surrounded by the yellow Kordes rose 'Rugelda', it just seems to be biding its time in luxury, patiently waiting for the 2012 apocalypse, doesn't it? 

I'm forming the GSA (Garden Statueholics Anonymous) and any afflicted gardener is welcome to join simply by adding a comment to this blog.  We're going to have to modify the traditional twelve-step program a bit, though. For one thing, no one has ever been successfully treated so finding sponsors will be difficult.  For another, none of the members will want to make amends.  Maybe we'll just make it a one-step program and we'll all just admit we can't control our addictions to stone or brass garden art and then we'll start a statue bazaar in a large Midwestern city.  We need to do something, though, for those poor gardeners who believe pink flamingos and painted plastic gnomes are the height of fashion.