Mowing Day

It is hot as Hades here in Kansas and ProfessorRoush chose to mow early today before the sun could sear my socks off my feet.   Mowing always brings forth mixed feelings for me.  I hate to mow, to know that I must aimlessly drive in short circles all over my landscape on a weekly basis, but at the same time, I love the neat clean appearance of the house and yard after mowing, and it gives me a chance to assess the health of the garden and it's floral population.

Take my hollyhocks, for instance.  I primarily notice these as I mow, since they're right near the edge where I start in.  This group, on a southeast corner of the back patio, is completely self-seeded, now several generations removed from a Alcea rosea 'Nigra' that I planted in the area over a decade back.  They have reverted to a palate ranging from pinks (as pictured above) to blood reds (as illustrated below), but they're dependable bridges from the first bloom of the roses into daylily season.  

Hollyhocks in Kansas need only a little disturbed soil or mulch to self-seed, and they seldom need care.   Some develop a little rust from time to time, but not normally enough that I need to spray them.   And those clumps pictured above withstood the EF2 tornado, or at least the 100 mph straight line winds, that came through Manhattan on June 11th, 2022.   I can assure you, as I was looking out the basement window at the time, that these were bent to the ground for some time as the storm passed.   The tornado actually touched down on the east side of town, damaging a few houses there, but the path of the worst storm damage to trees and electric lines seemed to go right through our house in a straight line to the area of damage.   Thankfully there was no loss of life, and I, for once, didn't even lose a shingle.

I saw today, as well, that the Knautia macedonia is out of control in my front boarder.   Pretty up close, but too small and dark-red to be impactful from a distance, they are so successful here that they tend to choke out smaller plants if I don't watch and remove them.   As a no-maintenance plant, however, I have no complaints regarding Knautia.

Mowing also forces me towards  some new vistas of my yard, making me see from angles that I wouldn't normally walk or chose to photograph.  This last photograph doesn't do justice to just how deep the shades of green were across the back yard today.   I don't know whether it is the i-Phone not picking up the depths of the green tones, or if it was the photographer not choosing the correct exposure, but I apologize for not helping you to live in the moment with me.

I guess you'll just have to take my word for how good this looked today.   However, for those who can't, I am taking names, first-come, first-served, for those who wish to experience mowing here on the Flint Hills.   Just let me know what Saturday or Sunday you want to be here between now and October.   I'll be happy to accommodate you.

Thistle Excite You

'Kaveri'

ProfessorRoush would have a more witty and winsome post this morning, but the evening stroll last night with Bella left him speechless at the beauty.  We had a brief rain this morning and, little as it was, the flowers were all the happier because of it.   We needed the rain; even the buffalograss was about ready to call it quits.  Besides, I'm tired from swinging steel (I'll explain at the bottom).  Now I'll shut up and let you enjoy:









This 'Kaveri' lily, an Oriental-Asiatic cross I've had in the garden for 5 years.  She's tough, about 3 foot tall, and blooms her head off.   I've got several clumps and comes back year after year.  She just started to bloom, a little later than the Asiatics, a little earlier than the Oriental and Orientpet lilies. 

'Spider Man' daylily

And here, the first bloom of a new daylily for me, Hemerocallis 'Spider Man'.  This Award of Merit winner has 7 inch blooms of the brightest, most soul-quenching red you would ever want in your garden.  I'm pleased this spider-type daylily has joined mine.













These perennial sweet peas have never climbed and covered this makeshift trellis as I envisioned for them, but they bloom a nice happy shade of pink in the down season between the first bloom of the roses and the blitzkrieg of the daylilies.












I didn't plan this combination of daylily and 'Tiger Eye's sumac, but the momma sumac seven feet away suckered over next to the daylily and embraced it.  This is one of those fortuitous moments in a gardener's life that won't ever repeat, because next year this baby sumac will be too big to allow it to stay here.











Another great combination provided by the wiles of fate, this grouping of orange Asclepias tuberosa, yellow-orange Black-Eyed Susan, and the young blood-red Hollyhock all self-seeded themselves to this spot; two natives and a cultivated garden escapee.  The only thing I planted in this picture was the low-growing yellow barberry, 'Gold Nugget' which has been there for years.

Wavy-Leaf thistle

So, why am I tired?  Well, that's the fault of Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  No stop it, that's not what I mean.  Yesterday, she photographed this Wavy-Leaf Thistle, Cirsium undulatum (at least that's what I think it is), and she posted it on Facebook.  I'd been eyeing the thistles in the surrounding pasture, knowing that they were close but hoping they would wait a week to start blooming.  But no, this one had to start early, and Mrs. ProfessorRoush had to post it on Facebook right away, thus providing photographic evidence for the county authorities that I was allowing a noxious weed to populate the prairie.  I discovered late in the day that she had literally forced my hand and so I spent an hour last night swinging a machete and chopping off thistles, in the wet grass no less.  Thistles are one flower I just can't tolerate proliferating in my prairie, any more than I can abide a wife serving as an unwitting spy for the county.

Last Blooms

'Morden Sunrise'

Puttering around yesterday, enjoying working outside on a perfect sunny fall day in a short-sleeve shirt, it suddenly dawned on ProfessorRoush that he was in the company of the last blooms of 2019, considering the cold front coming and 24ºF lows predicted in two days.  He felt it best to spare a few moments from cleaning the garage and covering the strawberries so that he could share these last few blossoms with you.  And fortunate it was, since the first bloom he could find was beautiful 'Morden Sunrise', awash in the golds and pinks of her fall colors.


More overtly bright and cheerful, this last Hollyhock greeted me as I turned the corner of the house.  Normally, this hollyhock is a bright pink, but fall seems to bring out her red tones, back-lit by the sun as she was.  I don't know what a Hollyhock was doing blooming this late in fall, but I was happy to see her waiting for my adoration.  She is completely filled out, too, not as beaten down by fickle weather as many other blooms.

'Comte de Chambord'

I was overjoyed to see this 'Comte de Chambord', a dependable repeating Portland that hasn't yet succumbed to Rose Rosette disease, but I was less happy, looking up how to spell her name, that all the internet sources show her as bright pink.  I've had her in the garden over 15 years, even blogged about her, and she does occasionally blush pink, but she never turns anywhere near the pink of her internet portraits.  Now, as I see her bleached completely white in the fall, have I been growing a mis-named rose all this time?  Rats. 

'Applejack'

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the garden was to find 'AppleJack' with a single, scented bloom holding on for dear life.  This early Griffith Buck rose usually blooms only for 6 weeks or so during the main season, with seldom rebloom, but the wet year must have it working overtime to compete with the hollyhocks.  Regardless, both this beetle and I are happy to see it.





'David' phlox, or whatever my spreading white phlox is now, still blooms in several places but best here in a very protected spot between other shrubs.  Clean, pure, and white, it still is attracting pollinators even as it stares the coming winter right in the face.  Since snow is predicted tomorrow, I'll have to remember to revisit it to see if it blooms for a few moments in the snow as well.

'David Thompson'

It is my undesired, and unappreciated 'David Thompson' who is bringing home the prize.  As I've written previously, I've never really liked this rose, nor the prominent place I've given it, but I have to admit to its tenacity in the face of disapproval.  This Explorer series rose survives, and almost thrives, among neglect and disdain in my back border.  I've learned to keep if from suckering out of control by withholding fertilizer and water and love.   Today, however, those blooms are perfect and deeply colored, laughing at my lack of care and showing me who really deserves to be a part of this garden.

'George Vancouver'

Not last, but last pictured, Canadian rose 'George Vancouver' is attempting to keep a little bright red color alive to compete with the browning grasses and leaves.  I haven't grown 'George Vancouver' long or mentioned him on this blog, and he is still a small shrub, but he is going into its second winter for me and continues to show promise here on the prairie. 

Last, and not pictured, are a bunch of also-rans and almosts.  English rose 'Heritage' has a few bedraggled blossoms to sniff as you pass, and I've seen a really beaten lilac bloom here or there over the past couple of weeks.  I had some really nice reblooming irises show up last week, but I cut them all for the house before a recent frost could take them.   And the grasses, prairie and ornamental, blooming grasses everywhere I look.  I don't think grass blooms count, however, and those are a subject for another day.

 

Hollyhock Hunger

Friends, I really miss my many hollyhocks.  Yes, I pine for peonies and rave on roses, but today I'm thinking only of light, cheery, woolly hollyhocks.  They bloom at the end of the roses for me, staring down the barrel at the coming heat of summer, but they've never failed to brighten up the borders as the early garden wanes. 

Stubborn and unknowing gardeners lump hollyhocks with other heirloom plants and disdain their contributions to today's gardens, but our grandmothers, as always, were sound and wise with the few ornamentals they chose to trouble with. 

Alcea 'Black Beauty'

We garden today with a multitude of companion plants for roses; of the value of clematis for complementing the bloom of a rose, of the tidiness of phlox and verbena and bulbs to extend the flowering season of a rose border, of the solid background of an ornamental grass.  But many have forgotten the lowly and coarse hollyhock in their rush to modern garden design.  Forgotten the height and structure and texture contrasts that hollyhocks provide against the shiny new rose leaves.  Forgotten the bright blooms that open wide each sunny morning and then fall cleanly to the ground a few mornings later.   








I sing today of the wonders of my hollyhocks.  I sing of the ethereal beauty of those cupped blossoms, translucent against their backgrounds but colorful and substantial in the border.  I sing of the large light green leaves, fuzzy and rough, hardened against drought and wind.  I sing of their rapid reach skyward, to tower for a brief time in the sunlight, to fade into the fall background of foliage and seed.  I sing of their carefree nature, self-seeding themselves into the perfect niche to complement a rose, requiring neither deadhead nor cultivation for procreation or survival.

Witness the delicate membrane of petal, fragile as glass.  Notice the feathery stamens and glistening pistil, aching to join forces. See the play of form and color between rose ('American Pillar') and hollyhock as pictured to the left.  Hail the vibrant crimson of 'Charter's Double Red' to the right.  Alcea all, rosea some, tough and proud faces turned to scorching sunshine, defiant and strong to wind.

I choose and covet my hollyhocks by their survival and their deep color.  I have long friendships with  'Charter's Double Red' and 'Black Beauty' and a beautiful pink variety whose name I've lost to the depths of time.  I've been briefly acquainted with more fickle visitors such as 'Charter's Double Yellow' and 'Queeny Purple', who have disdained my hospitality and faded on.  But if they live, they stay, and if they stay, they serve.  What more can I ask of a plant that can outshine a rose?

Honoring Hollyhocks

I went to bed last night to the sight and sound of lightning and thunder from a storm 30 miles to the west.  We didn't get any rain from it. I awoke this morning at 5:45 a.m. to the same western lightning and thunder and hurried outside to put some inorganic fertilizer (I know...so sue me) on a few new pet roses. And then I ran into town to fertilize the K-State Rose Garden.  All the time wondering when the lightning, now easily within my horizon, was going to stop me in my tracks.  I had to worry about the lightning, but I needn't have worried about getting rain.  We didn't get rain. The radar showed it raining on us but nothing was reaching the ground;  I guess it was boiling off  in the early morning heat.  The storms just fizzled out in the face of the  104F temp predicted today.  It is going to be a long week of  plus-100 temperatures in the garden.

While I was at the KSU garden this morning, in between dodging the lightning, I had to admire the wisdom of a real gardener, one with a degree in horticulture to add to his experience, who planted the small island bed in the center of the parking lot.  It is filled with hollyhocks and flanked by low airy grasses on the edges. There is no water to this bed (pictured at right) other than the meager July rains and what can be hand-carried to it, but here it is, happy and healthy and the hollyhocks beginning to bloom.  The bloom above is a closeup of one of those single hollyhock blooms, beautiful in its simplicity, intricate in its color shading.  And the grasses around the bed are framing it well, transitioning to the taller hollyhocks.

A variation on that theme was a corner bed in the same parking area, pictured at left, daylilies planted at the feet of the hollyhocks and taller grasses to the fenceline, but no less water-wise or harder to maintain then the island bed pictured above.  I believe there are a number of lessons to take to heart here;  1) Choose the plant for the site.  2) The plants our grandmothers grew still have a lot going for them.  3) Step outside normal landscaping plants and practices when you can. 4) Visit your local botanical garden or University garden or the garden of a professional as often as you can because they are full of ideas.  5) Get a degree in horticulture if you really want to garden...because I'm quite impressed at the brilliance of this hollyhock plan and I would probably have never thought about it, amateur that I am.