Never Go Away!

'Buckeye Belle'

....at least not when spring has arrived, a spring for which you've waited impatiently over the past 2.5 eons and change.  Trilobites have gone extinct since I first anticipated spring this year.  Then I was gone a mere 5 days and the plant friends that I missed are almost too numerous to count.  No, I at least didn't miss the luscious garnet-to-die-for Paeonia lactiflora ‘Buckeye Belle’ pictured at the upper left, but it was a very close thing.

'Prairie Moon'

Recall please, that I only left on the morning of May 9th, but on that morning, fickle peony 'Prairie Moon' was yet to bloom at all.  Five large buds were on the low-growing plant, just thinking about opening.  Yet, when I returned on May 13th, four out of the five flowers had opened in the 90ºF days and finished, with only one decrepit, ant-invaded, spider-guarded, ragged bloom to mark its passing.  I've waited three years for this immature plant to finally bloom with some mature size, and it was gone before I enjoyed it.

'Scarlett O'Hara'

And then there is 'Scarlett O'Hara', one of my most showy and favorite peonies.  No blooms when I left, but I returned to a fully-bloomed plant with all but three blooms faded from gaudy red-salmon into blush pink or white.  This peony normally takes a couple of weeks to open fully and fade.  What happened?  Spring was delayed by fickle fate and then time and the garden rushed headlong into summer, that's what happened. 

'Buckeye Belle' 05/13/2018

'Buckeye Belle' herself was a close one.  On the 13th, when I came home, she had three large blooms open, with several enormous buds in reserve.  Yesterday evening, the 14th, they had all opened, a soul-quickening sight to behold.  Today, these petals are falling, peak over, fading into another season.

'Buckeye Belle' 05/14/2018

A gardener should never go away during growing season.  In temperate climates the first two weeks of January might be safe, in a really cold year.  Might be safe.  But otherwise, forget it.  The other 50 weeks of the year there are things to be done, plants to check on, and beauty to behold.

Healing Time

(Sung to the tune of Closing Time by Semisonic)

Healing time,
I've shut the doors & I've stayed in from the cold hailed-on world.
Healing time,
Waiting for new leaves out for every boy plant and girl.
Healing time,
I need some alcohol so send me your whiskey or beer.
Healing time,
My garden's messed up, but I can't stay in here.

I wish there were buds to bloom right now.
Why aren't there some buds to bloom right now?

I need for some buds to bloom right now.

Bloom right now.


I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but one week after the hailstorm, my parade is certainly characterized by crushed hopes and trashed flowers.  Besides that storm, there have been several others.  Forget the drought in this area of Kansas.  I've had over 10 inches of rain in 6 days and the rose garden is back to swampland.  What is a simple gardener to do?

Wrecked are the irises and peonies.  Well, if I'm being truthful, they are only moderately wrecked.  Irises and peonies who were leeward of the house from the storm or were sheltered by large neighboring shrubs came through largely intact and are still contributing color to the garden, although the blooms are damaged from up close (see the several examples on this entry).  In many cases, the stems were broken but the irises are blooming, albeit closer to the ground. 

Peony 'Scarlett O'hara'

Some roses lost buds, and, as I've investigated the damage further than my brief outside survey last week, the strawberries and blackberries are toast for this year.  Not "jam for toast", they ARE toast.  Peony 'Scarlett O'Hara', normally so beautiful, looks a little beaten up this year, a soiled dove more befitting my personal nickname for her of Scarlett O'Harlot. 

It is actually interesting, setting aside my deep despair, to look around and see what plants did or didn't stand up to the hailstorm.  I should be making lists and writing down names.  Most native plants, of course, like this Asclepias at right, shrugged off the hail and seem completely undamaged.  There are some varieties of peonies who survived intact despite being right out in the open, while others beside them were either shredded or lost their fat buds.  Some roses lost leaves or buds, while others haven't paused. 'Morden Blush' for instance, shown below, went ahead this week to open blooms that were even more blushingly beautiful than normal.  

'Morden Blush'

On the opposite extreme are the alliums.  I had such high hopes for some new alliums I planted last year.  Many broke off entirely and never bloomed.  Others, like this decrepit specimen, survived to rue the day they poked their head above the ground.

Iris 'Roselene'

I must be patient now, patient to wait for nature's repair, patient to wait another year for the promise of some to return.  'Roselene', fair Roselene, how I miss your cheery face and exquisite form.

Bursting with Promise

No, this is not a photograph of a psychedelic alien landscape from a light-lifetime away, nor is it a scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I promise that neither Gene Wilder nor Johnny Depp is going to pop up from those hairy green pillows and sing to you.  And for those who were young adults in the 70's, you should not worry that this is a flashback from an old LSD trip.  This candy-colored scene is brought to us by way of a 1956 single-flowered peony introduction by Falk-Glassock, the aptly named 'Scarlet O'Hara'.

I'm not intentionally trying to imitate Bob Guccione, but these are, in fact, the....ahem....sex parts...from one of my earliest and most favorite peonies.  And what a brazen display Ms. O'Hara is giving us!  She has erected bright red walls to enclose and protect the participants in today's drama.  Inside the scarlet petals, tall golden stamens loaded with pollen are crowded around the shockingly-pink stigmas atop each pistil, a beacon to beckon the bachelors forward.  The swollen pistils beneath the stigmas are already soiled, basking in the afterglow, their hairy buxom surfaces dusted with the golden packages of chromosomes.  I'm not even going to mention the presence of the white foam at the base of the pistils.   But can't you feel the excitement in this photo, the promise of new seed forming and new life beginning?

'Scarlet O'Hara' is a peony that should be in everyone's garden, She stands right now about 3 feet tall, and wide, a crimson beacon shining across my garden.  There is no other scarlet red flower blooming right now for me, and certainly nothing to match the size and vivacity of these 6 inch diameter blossoms.  The photo of the whole plant at the right displays the usual poor reproduction of red tones by a digital camera and it doesn't adequately communicate the true brilliance of color of this peony, but it does give you an idea of the impact of these flowers in a landscape otherwise filled only with green Spring foliage, the blues and golds of irises and the white clusters of a few remaining viburnum blossoms.

Perhaps a  recent wide-angle view of my "peony bed" will emphasize the importance of 'Scarlet O'Hara in the garden.  There she is, at the top of the photo, glowing ahead of the hundreds of bulging buds of other peonies, all aching to follow her lead and explode into 2015.  'Scarlett' O'Hara' exposes promise for us on a microscopic level; the promise that reproduction will always go on, au naturel and without shame for appearance or wantonness.  The other peonies of this bed show their own macroscopic promise of a massive display a year in the making, a spectacular future fireworks created from sunshine and rain and chlorophyll.  Over it all, a concrete cherub urges the peonies to turn their bacchanalia into a more quiet party, to turn a pretentious display into a coordinated and respectful celebration.  Behind the camera, ProfessorRoush, garden voyeur extraordinaire, breathlessly awaits the chorus to come.      

Promise within and promise without.  Of countless such moments, a garden made.

Fast Times on the Prairie

Things are happening incredibly fast in the garden right now.  The cool temperatures of the past few weeks followed by the 80's and 90's of the past 5 days seems to be condensing the spring blooming season, along with throwing off the timing I expect.  The peonies, irises, and roses all look like they are going to hit peak bloom at the same time and I may quite possibly float away on the essence of colorful paradise I'm going to have by next week.

Rosa 'Jeri Jennings'

But, today seems to be a day for first things and I wanted to show two prize new plants that are blooming for the first time in my garden.  The first of the Rogue Valley roses that I planted last fall has opened, if just barely, and I present, for your pleasure, 'Jeri Jennings', a beautiful Hybrid Musk rose bred by Paul Barden in 2007.  She survived an unusually harsh Zone 5 winter and looks healthy, if small.  I absolutely love the yellow-orange tones that are reminiscent to me of 'Alchymist'.  I haven't yet sampled her fabled scent, but I'll put nose to ground soon and check that out as well.

Peony 'Prairie Moon'

Last year, I spent months eyeing a herbaceous peony at a local nursery, and finally surrendered my yearnings to what I initially thought was a high price and purchased and planted it.  'Prairie Moon'. a 1959 cross of  P. ‘Laura Magnuson’ x P. ‘Archangel’ is not a new peony to commerce, but it is new to my garden.  This thing was blooming its head off last year when I first saw it and the creamy single blooms lit up the area of the garden center, standing out from the other peonies there.  Both because of the "prairie" in its name, the spectacular display, and the fact that it was introduced in 1959, the year of my birth, made it a no-brainer for my garden.  And here it is, blooming now for about 5 days, the first of the peonies (other than species P. tenuifolia) to show up in my garden.

Peony 'Scarlet O'Hara'

A final welcome visitor, however, is the large single peony 'Scarlet O'Hara', who opened for the first time this morning, although it is her second year blooming in my garden.  Gaze on that intricate yellow center for a moment, carpels and pink-tipped stigma, accented by the large scarlet petals, and I promise you, you can get lost in the bloom.  The picture at right doesn't do justice to the fact that the blooms are as big as your hand, and they're on a tall, 3-foot peony, so the garden display of this peony when it gets going is unequaled.

Fare well all, Bliss is soon to come.