Morning Serenity

At last, we're blessed here by a cool morning, a hint and promise that autumn will soon return.  The cool air tightly hugs the rolling contours of the Flint Hills, mist implying mystery, humid air dissolved to fog, dew droplets draped over the prairie.

The view above is to my west, a view that greeted Bella and I this morning as the sun rose and the clear blue sky broke into radiant pinks and yellows.  Just across the road, the prairie begins, seemingly endless to the horizon, evidence of man's touch only in the stripes of mown hay and the distant aquatic totem pole that supplies water to us and the hordes to the south.
 
If you're wondering about the stone in the foreground, prominently placed at the beginning of my neighbor's driveway, this closeup may satisfy your curiosity.  My neighbor has some deep connection with the old Lee Marvin movie, Paint Your Wagon, and the inscription is from the movie.  I like what he's done with this bed, the 'Tiger Eye' sumac, low sedums in the foreground and tall ornamental grasses behind, but I don't think he is yet aware of how tall the 'Tiger Eye' will get or how much they'll spread into the surrounding buffalo grass.   Mrs. ProfessorRoush believes that my neighbor spends more time working in this bed than I do on my entire garden, forty times this size.  He's changed the "perennial" planting almost every year in a search for the perfect combination.

The donkeys, Ding and Dong, were also out, begging for treats across the fence.  Bella and the donkeys are wary acquaintances, but prefer to maintain a nodding acknowledgement at limb's length, content to send unsubtle warnings that closer contact is unwelcome.  I'm torn about keeping the donkeys over another winter.  I adore their unique personalities, but I am fretful over their safety and comfort on the prairie in the lean, cold months.    












Bella loves these morning walks around the yard, patrolling the perimeter and searching for intruders, mammalian or insect, harmless or evil.  The heavy morning dew destroyed the stealth of this morning's scouting survey, our course conspicuous across the sopping wet grass.  But the tracks are telling, meandering Dog and lumbering Man, moving forward in the same direction and with the same purpose, checking the cave environs and beginning the new day ahead, together.

Sentimental Plant Names

Rosa 'Prairie Star'

As a plant-collecting gardener, I often run across and purchase plants whose name has some connection with people or places in my life.  For instance, years ago we participated, with our neighbors, in naming the newly-created road we now live on.  Since we live in the Kansas prairie where yearly burning of pasture is a way of life, there was some sentiment for naming the road "Prairie Fire," but ultimately none of us wanted to be on the phone to the fire department shouting "there's a prairie fire out of control on Prairie Fire!" and so we chose to name it Prairie Star Drive.  Come to find out, Dr. Griffith Buck of Iowa State had bred and introduced in 1975 a rose named 'Prairie Star', so I, of course, purchased and planted the rose at home and it's become one of my favorites.  'Prairie Star', a fully-double light pink rose, is perfectly cane-hardy without winter protection and disease-resistant without spraying here in Kansas and it blooms continually through the warm seasons. 

Phlox paniculata 'David'

Another happy accident has been the 'David' phlox (Phlox paniculata ‘David’) that I purchased only for the reason that I have a son of that name.  'David' is a pure white phlox with light green foliage that grows well and blooms spectacularly for about 6 weeks in my climate.  It has the added benefit of being a little rampant in my garden, self-seeding true to form in a number of places it has found to its liking, and it is quite pleasantly fragrant. Most of the white blobs that appear in my landscape in July and August are, on close examination, either a cloned 'David' or self-seeded version. It has only a single drawback, a tendency to mildew in moist years as this year has been, but I use it as a mildew indicator plant and spray when the lower leaves turn a bit grey and the mildew is thus easily controlled.    

Of course, not all sentimental experiments turn out nearly so well.  I've had a couple of attempts to grow a namesake for my wife, the white hybrid musk rose 'Kathleen', but alas, either the rose is not hardy enough in my Zone 5 climate or perhaps it detects that its namesake won't tolerate any competition for affection in my garden and it commits horticultural self-suicide.

Given human nature, I suspect that other gardeners also have a weakness for familarly-named plants.  So what's in your garden?