Calamities & Casualties

Dead/dried Forsythia blossoms

"If you want different weather, just wait 15 minutes and it will change."   Every Midwestern American gardener knows some version of the prior statement, but I maintain that Kansas gardeners live and suffer this axiom daily.  For proof of my assertion, I offer this blog to prosperity, a historical, if not hysterical, example of the trials and tribulations in a Kansas garden.  Start, if you can stand the pain, with this photo of the dead and dried remnants of forsythia that remain today as testaments to the trials and despair of gardening in Kansas.

A promising display snuffed out

If you review the lovely early blooms and thoughts in my previous blog entry of  3/13/2026, and the scrumptious photos of daffodils from 3/01/2026, it will be obvious that this year I had high hopes for a rare, gradual transition to Spring weather, gentle winds, slowly-increasing daily high temperatures, and soaking periodic rains.  Today, I look wistfully back at those hopes and want to shake myself out of a nightmare, curious only to know who spiked my cereal with hallucinogens to create such fantasies, and what actual pharmaceuticals were used.  The photo at the left is the same Forsythia bush that is the second photo in my blog of 3/13/2026, without any of the just-starting-to open yellow buds of the latter.

These once were daffodils

On approximately 3/15/2026, the weather patterns took a sharp cold turn, record lows on several nights leaving me with the remnants of formerly jubilant plants that are pictured here, gasping and crying at tattered and dwindling dreams of  paradise denied.  Not only did the cold spell crush any nascent anticipation I had for the most vivid forsythia display in many years, it prevented any recovery from unflowered buds.  It also transformed growing sprouts of plants that normally are quite cold-resistant into shapeless and slimy piles of dead vegetation. These daffodils had only 2 days of bloom and no time at all to store energy for next year.  Can they survive?

These used to be irises

And worse, there has been no real moisture yet, no showers to quench the thirsty soil and replenish the ground stores stolen in our arid winters.  The earth around these plants is dry dust, no help for sparking any rebound in these poor perennials.  How can an Iris come back from this kind of damage?

Even the daylilies are in shock

I have yet to spend much time in the garden this season, weeks and nearly months delayed beyond normal chores, and I feel despair at every step into the outdoors.  I fear, presently, that the garden will lose an entire season, bypassing spring bulbs and blooms in all their pastel glories and moving on straight past lilacs to peonies or roses, if indeed, either of the latter survive to bloom.  I've never seen daylilies in this condition after a spring freeze and every clump looks like this.  Will this be the year without daylilies?  What spark remains for the gardener's soul when hope has fled?

Baker's Daylilies

'Old Barnyard Rooster'

I think, today on Garden Musings, we'll just let the photos of  these 13 beautiful daylilies speak for themselves, borrowing, without shame, the meme of a fellow blogger who does a "Wordless Wednesday."  I captured these images walking along the border bed in back of the house all in about 20 minutes on a single morning (7/12/2025) as the sun rose. Which is your favorite?

'Prairie Blue Eyes'

'Timbercreek Ace'

'Awfully Flashy'

'Beautiful Edging'

'Storm Shadows'

'Big Rex'

'Blackberry Sherbet'

'Cosmic Struggle'

'Cream Desire'

'Joan Derifield'

'Laura Harwood'

'McBeth'

 

Daylily Delirum

'Raspberry Eclipse'

Okay, ProfessorRoush tried to be cute here, but the blogging program just wouldn't allow me to format the text below with the pictures.  I couldn't even get the font of "Wisteria" to show up right.  Sometimes, the correct formatting just isn't worth the time it takes.  I gave up after spending hours of wasted effort.

But I was trying to let you know I just can't stop taking pictures of daylilies this year!   Click on any picture to enlarge!

'Rocket Man'

'Timbercreek Ace'

'Redmon SDLG 08-25'

'Storm Shelter'

'Wisteria'

Unknown

'Laura Harwood'

'Sonic Analogue'

'Swallow Tail Kite'

'Bestseller'

'Beautiful Edging'

'Alabama Jubilee'

'Awfully Flashy'

(Raspberry Eclipse is my newest daylily.  I purchased it ready to bloom this week and it was the most pot-bound plant I've ever seen.)

 ('Rocket Man' was a dazzling red surprise to me and quickly became a favorite.  It's not large, but it has a striking presence, orange-red to a burnt red eye.)

('Timbercreek Ace' is a consistent performer for me, full of flowers and a treasured gift from a client.)

('Redmon SDLG 08-25' is the designation I think goes to this one, from a local breeder.  I have a weakness for spider daylilies.)

('Storm Shelter' has a fabulous coloration with the petal edges matching the darker eye.)

(Isn't 'Wisteria' just subtly gorgeous?

(I don't know what this one is but it's planted next to 'Laura Harwood' and makes a striking contrast of form and complimentary color palette with her. A happy accident.)

(It's easy to stop and stare at 'Laura Harwood'; fetching lass, she is.)

('Sonic Analogue' is uniquely marked, right?) 

('Swallow Tail Kite' takes my breath away with her lavender eye.)

('Bestseller' is a daylily I lost after planting and then found again when it bloomed because of its unique coloring.)

('Beautiful Edging' is, to me, the most beautiful of all on the right day in the right lighting.)

('Alabama Jubilee' is quite a striking bit of orange, eh?)

(A fitting end picture,'Awfully Flashy' is just that, isn't it?)

Hubris, Weather, and Climate

ProfessorRoush and his lovely wife, Mrs. ProfessorRoush, were in a Topeka restaurant Saturday evening around 4:15 p.m. when the wind-caused whipping undulations of the umbrellas outside the nearby window captured my attention.  Something about their flapping pattern and my years of prairie-honed instincts said "storm", even though the sky out the window was light blue and cloudless.    

I did not recall any forecast chance of rain at all and a quick check of the Manhattan weather on our iPhones, 50 miles west of where we sat, showed no chances of precipitation for the evening, but I was still uneasy and a further look at the regional radar showed a thin squall line of strong storms west of Manhattan and bearing down.  Quickly estimating the speed of advance and distances involved, we paid our food bill and hastened to the Jeep, in which we proceeded, sometimes slightly above the speed limits, to head with all due haste for home.  

A nail-biting and knuckle-white drive commenced.  I glanced repeatedly from radar to road as the western sky darkened in the direction I was driving and the increasing winds rocked the Jeep.  And I'm happy to shorten your suspense and report that we beat the storm, pulling into our driveway just as large drops began to pummel the windshield.  The only one of us, Jeep, driver, or passenger, to suffer the storm was Mrs. ProfessorRoush, who got a quick drenching as she quickly took Bella out to potty before some light hail commenced.

That was it for the time being, 30 minutes of storm and then calmer winds and skies and clear radar from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.   During the night, though, a repeated series of storms formed directly to our west and periodic rain and thunderstorms crossed over us heading to the northeast throughout the night.  All that time, the weather apps forecast a lack of precipitation or else, while it was raining, the rain ending soon.  The last rain was still falling as I ate breakfast at 7 a.m.     

I relate all this not to gain any admiration for my prediction prowess and impressive weather intuition (I self-admired enough at the time), nor to rant again about the constant surprises of Kansas weather, but merely to point out, despite all the advances of modern science, that experts still can't accurately forecast weather an hour ahead, let alone a day, a week, or a hundred years into the future.  My head is not in the sand and I don't deny the possibility of climate change, but it's a much longer stretch for me to take on faith 100-year or even next-year forecasts when weather forecasters repeatedly fail on the next hour's weather.   

I understand satellite maps and El Niña and El Niño cycles and receding glaciers as well or better than the average educated person, but it takes only a season in Kansas to expose the audacity of anyone who thinks they have all the variables of climate accounted for, the solar cycles and the CO2 levels and the effects of increasing expanses of pavement and population bombs and pandemics.  Millions of predictions can be instantly dispatched by the next unpredicted volcanic eruption which can alternatively either throw up enough dust to shade the planet or expel enough CO2 to shame the entire output of the industrial revolution.  

I swear I am not prone to jumping onto every conspiracy.   In fact, I'm not quick to jump on any wagon at all until I'm certain the axles will hold.  Too many old, rickety, hay wagons have been under my butt in my past life as a farm boy to not remember the bruises.  My words today will not please some of my readers, but I'm bone-tired of experts who can't say "I don't know."   Whether it's COVID spacing or climate change or the dangers of avian influenza, human hubris holds us back from the real truth.  Those in authority should learn to say these important words and mean them; "I don't know, but we'll keep looking."  It's okay to admit uncertainty and we can all handle the truth better than adamant speculations that are ultimately wrong.   And even dangerous. 

 I believe in science, the real science where you can freely question anything and seek truth through experimentation and gain knowledge through experience.  But I'll believe the climate and weather predictions when they can beat the marrow-held instincts of the dirt- and wind-sniffing farm boy.

(Some may be asking, what does all this have to do with the daylilies pictured here?   And the answer is: "Nothing.  They are just pretty pictures to keep you calm and happy."  Which makes me just one more person who can't say "I don't know. but it seemed like a good explanation at the time.")  

Rant over....now back to your regular programming.  I hope, as someone just told me, you could hear the smile in my voice" while I ranted. 

What's Wrong With Dark?

'TimberCreek Ace'

ProfessorRoush is gravely disappointed in both mankind in general and in the thousands of electronic engineers who design our modern appliances and circuits and he has a question.   Why, oh why, does every thing that plugs into a wall need to shine at night?  I mean, quoting our aged President, "Cmon man!"  Is mankind, long established as the primary predator on the planet, still that afraid of the dark?   I know the light-emitting diode (LED) was a near-miraculous invention and it puts out a lot of light compared to its electricity use (9 times more efficient than an incandescent light source), but does everything have to have one?   Efficient or not, they still use electricity.   And they're plain irritating when they're just randomly stuck onto electronics.

'Black Stockings'

I woke up early and wandered on a still-pitch-dark night into my living room and kitchen this morning (the rooms are roughly contiguous) only to realize that I could quite clearly navigate by the indicator LED that turns on when the TV is off (of all the stupid ideas), by the two LEDs on the wifi extender, by LEDs on two kitchen safety sockets (if I wanted to know if they were powered, I COULD plug something into them), and by the clocks on the microwave, double oven, and an undercabinet radio.  Of yeah, and by the lighted panel on the refrigerator (lest I not know which button makes ice or water) and from the "Clean" notification on the dishwasher (Mrs. ProfessorRoush had run a load).  

'Night Embers'

A similar problem exists in our master bedroom, where each of three surge protectors have LEDs to assure me that everything is okay (one glows from both a switch and a blue light by the USB connections), the satellite cable system has a small red light to let me know it is OFF (it has both a white and blue one when it's ON), and a bedtable alarm clock glows orange.   This is in addition to the fact that opaque blinds are insufficient to block out the light pollution from town that floods the room and that the previously mentioned alarm clock projects on a ceiling so I can know the time without turning over.   I never use the alarm by the way, blessed with an internal clock that is always running, even away at conferences.  This year we at least eliminated one light source; a Vizio TV with an LED that turned on when the TV was off.

Unknown, but dark

It is no mystery to me that the number of sleep-deprived people is growing rapidly and why we are all ready, between our various tribes and political groups, to tear down civilization.   For goodness sake, I beg you, join me in the revolution to eliminate LED's on "off" electronics in the bedroom and to turn off street lights and other polluters outside.   Please engineers and politicians, give us back our dark nights, so we can sleep properly and deeply, albeit perhaps troubled still by dreams of saber-toothed cats and cave bears. I'm willing to chance it.

'Vatican City'

By now, Dear Reader, you've realized that I'm just on a rant and this blog entry has nothing to do with the somber dark daylilies pictured here.  In my defense, without the labels, I'm not sure anyone could tell the first four apart anyway.  I'm sorry for luring you into a rant with false pretenses of daylily pornography, but I had to get it off my chest.   Also, I need to correct a previous blog error in that this last daylily is 'Vatican City', not 'Popcorn Pete' as I said recently.   It's still pretty, even though it isn't perfectly dark, isn't it?   And now I'm really done because I just used 5 variations of "it" in the last sentence and I've obviously spent my anger and I'm fresh out of writing talent for the day.  Good Night!

Edged Wonders

'Storm Shadows'

It is quite definitely Daylily Season, and ProfessorRoush is both enjoying the show and lamenting his poor records.   As usual, my maps are only approximate, even though I thought them precise, or names were lost on planting or moving, so in this blog entry, I can be reasonably sure of about half of these daylilies.   Regardless, as I've noted before, the daylilies that I may have liked one year are not so appealing the next and I often have a set of similar favorites in a given year.   One year apricots, the next reds, the next light yellows, and so on.  This year, it's the edged daylilies that are drawing me in.

'Cosmic Struggle'

I'm reasonably sure of 'Storm Shadows' and 'Cosmic Struggle' and 'Bubblegum Delicious' here, but I'd be hard-pressed to tell one from another without the map.  'Storm Shadows' (Mitchell-K, 2004) has an incredibly thick ruffled cream-yellow edge and it holds up well in the heat. 'Cosmic Struggle' (Emmerich, 2009) opens early, but seems to be spotted easily by rain and it tears in high winds.  

'Bubblegum Delicious'

'Bubblegum Delicious' (Mitchell-K, 2009) was a solo purchase I made at a local nursery, so it was easier to keep track of (and more likely correctly labeled), than the inexpensive fans from the local annual Daylily Society sale.

'Popcorn Pete'?  Nope it's 'Vatican City'

I'm much less sure of 'Popcorn Pete' (later correction, it's 'Vatican City') and 'Bestseller' and 'Indian Giver', however.   My notes on 'Bestseller' are actually just an entry that I once held it in my hand and an "I don't remember where I planted it" statement.  Each is in the general vicinity of where I think I planted it, and each vaguely resembles the internet pictures of the flower, but I'm certainly not an expert at daylily identification.  Sometimes neither are the experts, because 'Bestseller' is of unknown providence to everyone.  I'd be more sure of 'Indian Giver' if one of its many descriptions would talk about the petals being "recurved."  I do wonder what's eating the petals of 'Popcorn Pete', however.   I haven't seen the Japanese Beetles bother my daylilies yet.

'Best Seller'?

'Indian Giver'?

'Mulberry Frosted Edges'

There are two unedged daylilies I'm going to show you just because they're especially beautiful right now.  'Mulberry Frosted Edges' (Hansen, 2000) is a nice, large, showy daylily with lots of character and, bonus, I'm reasonably certain of it's identity.   Her white edge is often understated in my garden, but I love the lilac halo around the golden throat.  

'Laura Harwood'

'Laura Harwood' is a treat that can't be mistaken for nearly anything else, so I'm quite sure of Laura.  She's a show piece, 5-9 blooms of 7" diameter coming each day on a nice compact healthy plant.  Hybridized by Harwood in 1997, 'Laura Harwood' is a keeper, one of those daylilies that I've already determined will eventually move with me to retirement.   I've got a list of plants for that, a special list kept in my head for a small garden to grow old with.   Provided that the Good Lord gives me that gift of growing old with a smaller garden, of course.