Utterly Ridiculous!

All right, who's responsible?  Snow?  On the 23rd of April?  Unheard of.  I have never seen snow this late in the year in the 24 years I've lived in Kansas.   The latest I can remember was the devastating late snow of April 5th, 2007, the year I now refer to as "the year without flowers."  It is 32°F here this morning, heading for a high of 43° and a low tonight of 25°.










I can only surmise that this is yet another predicted calamity resulting from The Sequester.  It's being blamed for everything else right now, why not this aberrant weather?  The Feds must have furloughed the guy responsible for Global Warming.  If not, then I want that guy fired immediately because he's not fulfilling his promises.  At this rate we're going to slip back from zone 6A to 5B.  According to the Midwest Regional Climate Center we are 13 days past our median last FREEZE of 28°F in Manhattan, 8 days past our median last FROST!  Our 95% frost free date here is May 9th.  Will we be extending that this year?  Will we break the freeze all time record of May 27th, set in 1907?  I'm starting to wonder.

The plants here knew what was coming.   Everything is late to bloom, and I've had little reason to blog.  Unlike 2007, not even my earliest lilac has yet bloomed, but it was only a couple of days away, as was my ornamental Red Peach tree.  But they're not delayed enough.  Tulips in the snow?  I've seen daffodils in the snow several times, but never tulips.  My peaches and apples were blooming this weekend, so I can kiss those crops goodbye.  The star magnolia and 'Ann' and 'Jane' magnolias are in full bloom right now.  Goodbye magnolias.  My 'Yellow Bird' magnolia is still in bud phase, but I don't know if those fuzzy buds are tight enough to stand tonight's freeze. 






I stand here in Kansas, rejected, dejected, and neglected, as the snow continues to fall.  The picture below was taken early this morning at first light.  It has since snowed another inch and it is still coming down.  The prairie grass is completely covered now.   I've got 11 new rose bands currently in transit, with delivery expected on Thursday.

There is a predicted high of 81°F this coming Sunday.  Just in time to roast the just transplanted roses.

Bist du verrückt?

...Which means, "Are you crazy?" in German, according to Babelfish.  That premier internet translator gives me the exact same phrase for "are you nuts?," which I thought would be slightly different, but I guess the English context affects the translation.  "Are you walnuts?" and "Are you pecans?" DO result in a different German phrase so I conclude that "Bist du verrückt?" is the correct question to ask of a befuddled plant.

Digressions aside, the question here is "Why is my 'Yellow Bird' Magnolia reblooming in the middle of Summer?"  The bloom pictured at upper left in a photo taken yesterday is a sunbleached and heat-burnt, but partially open bloom, one of two that I noticed forming a couple of days ago.  'Yellow Bird' bloomed at its usual time this year in my garden, in April, and it is not supposed to be a rebloomer by half. 

Poor thing, it must have been completely confused by the two decent rains we had around 10 days ago.  After a long Fall, Winter and Spring of drought, something in the plant said "Hey, I didn't bloom enough, and there's water to spare now, so therefore it must be Spring again."  A very odd thing, as plant hormones go, isn't it?  There are also seed pods forming on the plant at the same time.  And buds for next year.

We'll just have chalk it up to another strange weather phenomenon in Kansas. Or to alien invasion. Take your pick.  Both make about as much sense to me in a garden where my autumn asters, goldenrods, and Rose of Sharons are all now in bloom, at least a full month early.  What's next?  Witch Hazel in August?  Bring it on.

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.

Yellow Bird Magnolia

My "most awaited newcomer" has been teasing me for over a week now by performing a slow strip-tease, sepal by sepal, to expose her inner beauty.  And here it is, my much anticipated Magnolia acuminata 'Yellow Bird'.  Isn't she a beaut?  

Last year I attended a seminar at a locally-owned nursery, Blueville Nursery, which offered a 20% discount that night for EMG purchases and this small 3-foot specimen grabbed my eye.  Although a bit pricey, she screamed "but I'm 20% off!" at me and I took her home.  I've been stretching into the Magnolias over the past few years and I'd been looking for a yellow magnolia, perhaps Magnolia acuminata X M. denudata 'Butterflies', to become the third magnolia experiment in my garden.  I'd seen 'Butterflies' at another local nursery as a full-grown specimen and it is impressive when it wasn't frost damaged, but the yellow of 'Butterflies' is much paler than the single bloom that was present on 'Yellow Bird' when I bought it, so 'Yellow Bird' became my girl.

Now that she is blooming, I think 'Yellow Bird' is one of the most aptly-named plants I've ever seen.  Across the garden, even my small specimen looks like there are 8 or 10 canaries perched on the little tree, the 3 1/2 inch flowers exactly the right yellow to stand out from the surroundings.  'Yellow Bird' was bred in 1967 and is a 1981 Brooklyn Botanic Garden introduction that is hardy from zone 5-9.  She seems to have opened a week or two later than both my M. stellata and my 'Jane' magnolia, so I hope that she will give me a reliable bloom here in Zone 5b, unaccompanied by late frost damage in most years that we see on some magnolias here.  Certainly, she has survived her first year here, a dry winter, with "flying colors" (please pardon the pun, couldn't resist).  'Yellow Bird' has a substantial pedigree, descending from a cross between the American native Magnolia acuminata and the Chinese Magnolia lilliflora and then recrossed as an early Brooklynensis, Magnolia 'Evamaria' with M. I. subcordata.  In fact, some sources drop the Magnolia acuminata designation and simply list it as Magnolia x brooklynensis 'Yellow Bird'.  A mongrel she may be, but the intercontinental crosses have resulted in an exceptional and hardy beauty.  

I see that Monrovia has recommended 'Yellow Bird' paired with 'Blue Moon' Wisteria macrostachya.  As one of my wisterias is beginning blooming at another part of the garden, I can imagine how the blue-purple wisteria would climb up into 'Yellow Bird' and capture your soul.  I'm not about to chance this specimen to the choking vines of wisteria, though, so perhaps I'll have to justify another specimen in the garden somewhere.  Unlike the description on one website which stated that the flowers appear after the leaves and so can be lost amid them, , my 'Yellow Bird' has blooms only at this time, and the leaves are just beginning to open.  The same website also stated that it doesn't like dry conditions, that it likes acid soils, and that it might live only 8-10 years, so I hope that site is wrong on these latter counts as well.  Time will reveal the truth.

'Yellow Bird' is supposed to grow 35-40 feet fall and 25 feet wide at maturity, so I can't imagine what a specimen she is going to make in my garden when she reaches full growth.  She is labeled as a fast grower, so if I have some luck and practice good nutrition, and exercise, I might have a chance to live to see this tree fully grown someday, a little gem elevated into eye-popping maturity.