Garden Gone

Friends, ProfessorRoush apologizes that he has been gone from the garden and this blog for so very long.  There is no grandiose excuse, no mealy-mouthed explanation for it, so I'll spare you the diatribe.  The facts are that September came, the drought deepened, and my garden and I stopped interacting.  Until yesterday, I hadn't mowed the entire garden for at least 5 weeks since it wasn't growing at all, a long stretch broken only by occasional swipes around the driveway and roadsides where the ground gets extra runoff, and I'd been waiting for the first frost to finish things off.   Finally, last week, we got that first frost in spades as we hit 22º on our first night below freezing since...well, since I can't remember last spring.

Yesterday, as a result, was a massive day to catch up with my garden and I did it all;  mowing the occasional spikes of grass that disturbed the otherwise smooth lawn, bush-hogging the taller prairie grass that I allow to grow as "rain gardens" in the summer, trimming, draining hoses, and just generally making everything look "in ordnung."  I'll miss the reddish hues of the tall prairie grass if we ever get rain, but it was browning quickly this year and I don't like to give the pack rats and mice any more room to thrive near the house during the winter then I have to.   I just finished repairing 3 downspouts where pack-rats had chewed through the nonmetal drain pipes and I don't need any more.

I was intrigued yesterday by the contrast between the 9/11/2022 photos (above) that I took of a clump of native dotted gayfeather (Liatris punctata) in the back and its appearance yesterday (right and below left), now mature and ready to spread seed through the garden.  I would have mowed this whole area earlier, in fact, but I held off just to let this clump mature, because I want it all through the backyard grass.  Nothing attracts butterflies like gayfeather, so you can just consider this my gift to future generations with colorful wings.  I'm hoping the whirling blades of the bush-hog spread it over the entire area and covered it with grass mulch for best germination.

Dotted gayfeather, appropriately for Kansas, is a member of the Sunflower family.   Drought-tolerant, its tap root can reach down 15 feet for water, and it doesn't transplant well as a result.  You have to cultivate it where you find it, wherever God and the winds decide to plant it.  It is flavorful to cattle, so I don't see it bloom in my pastures, just in the protected areas fenced away and allowed to flourish.  And roadsides in areas that aren't mowed by the road crews.

Other than these ramblings, my fall has been a kaleidoscope of spectacular sunrises and sunsets.  I've taken a number of pictures of shining examples of both over the past month, always intending to share them on the blog but never quite sitting down to it.   So I'll leave you, today, with my back yard this morning at sunrise, yellows and tans and browns and russets all blending into the horizon, and all neat and clean from yesterday's mowing.  While several trees are already bare, you can see the yellow cottonwood stand out tall and, to its left, a shorter red oak beginning to brighten up the view.  Soon enough, it will all be white, so I'm going to covet the colors as long as I can.

Fine Firmament

 ProfessorRoush is going to make an unusual post this evening.   A post nearly without words.

On August 29th, I noticed the light change in the windows at sunset and sensed a special moment rushing into my life.   I'll let the firmament of my western and northern views speak entirely for itself through completely unedited pictures and time-lapse movies.  I took all these over a 10 minute span with my iPhone as the sun set in the west and the wind roiled the clouds.   Click on the movies (the last 4).   Make them full screen.  Don't forget to breath; I don't want anyone passing out from the sheer beauty.

My Blue Heaven

Gardening is, alas, a long series of regrets, hopes dashed, and dreams dimmed.   ProfessorRoush, for instance, remains Meconopsis-less, the Kansas climate rendering him completely unable to grow the Himalayan Blue Poppy (Meconopis betonicifolia) he has desired for so long.  My shriveled soul aching only for a blue flower to match the blue sky, of Kansas, I am forever blocked by 100ºF days and arid surroundings from Meconopsis.

There is, however, Morning Glory to partially fill the void, in this case what are possibly now-wild offspring of a 'Heavenly Blue' (Ipomoea tricolor) I once planted, or it may be the Kansas native Ipomoea hederacea who snuck in as a pretender among the seedlings. I kind of lean towards the native species as the actual imposter here, but perhaps solely because I've been watching too much 'Homeland' on Netflix and have spies on my brain.  It's a little garden intrigue that keeps my interest alive in the waning days of summer and I don't wish to spoil it by resorting to botanical identification.  And so I cultivate the mystery alongside the rest of the garden.

Whatever it's true identity, however, these blue blossoms are otherworldly in the early morning, shining from the shade (here at right) and much less audacious in the bright sunlight (below left).   The sky-blue color does match the Kansas sky and it evokes the calm id, the quiet soul of the poet.  All the while draping itself over every other living thing in sight.  At times, it seems tempting to stand still for a moment, and the gardener himself may disappear, finally part of the garden rather than its master.  Watching the hummingbirds visit these flowers, I wonder if I, just once, could become the visited, if only a prop for the interplay of bird and bloom.  

 I know I shouldn't let this vining villain proliferate freely among the daylilies and roses, but here and there, I stay my weeding, allowing small seedlings to become smothering carpets, to smooth the garden structure into an untextured vista of green and blue. The daylilies don't seem to mind, exhausted as they are from their July rush to bloom, and the roses regardless return each spring.  Morning Glory needs no water, it demands no care, it asks only to be allowed to grow wantonly without interference or intervention.   And each August I indulge that request, letting sun and earth bring forth blue, and harvest pleasure in the process.

Waiting for the Grass to Dry

Hemerocallis 'Blue Racer'

This morning, as often happens during the seasons of warm days and cool nights, I'm waiting for the dew to dry from the grass so that I can poorly attempt mowing.  Poorly attempt, I say, because the lawn has barely grown, only a few aggressive weeds sticking their heads above the carpet, and the border edges of the lawn forming seed heads, encouraged by the greater runoff of waste water from the driveway.  I intend only to swing the mower around the edges, leaving the weeds alone until the cooler and wetter days of fall reawakens more general growth. 

Hemerocallis 'Cosmic Struggle'

This day, a beautiful day is promised, coming from a low of 61ºF last night to a temperate high of 85º forecast.  I certainly find no fault with that, beckoned outside by sunlight and calm winds, chased from the indoor shadows by duty and commitment.  Lawn work for ProfessorRoush is a self-imposed obligation to be civil, to join in the continental-wide community of mown yards and tasteful homes.  My lawn is reluctantly mown, its owner a slave to convention and sometimes resentful of it.  The haphazard and naturally-grown flower beds of my garden are for me, a better representation of the inner self, the solitary and less-restrained id.

Hemerocallis 'Rocket Blast'

This week, the colors of the hills and grasses are changing fast; drier, yellower, heading towards their autumn tones and hinting of cooler days to come.   Vegetative growth slows while the frantic formation of fruits feverishly continues and accelerates.  The imperative to complete procreation, to ensure the passage of genes is upon every living thing, the products of sunlight and rain passed to the next generation as darkness falls.

This season, I enjoyed the days of daylilies, the hot colors of summer exploding into view, but as I've often found before, the season's favorites were defined by a certain hue, a new appreciation for some daylily palettes that I've overlooked before.   It seemed this year to be the "wines", the purple-reds, who replaced my previous fascinations with the oranges of last year, or the yellows of the year before, or the reds of three years past.   With some exceptions made, of course, for the occasional fiery orange or pastel perfect bloom whose beauty can't be so easily overlooked in any year.

This year, my garden and I have been easy friends, neither too demanding of the other, the garden accepting the little care I chose to provide and I happy with its parade of beauty, the sequence and progression of growth and species.  A balance and agreement made, I hope, for the future, of societal expectations ignored, and personal wishes granted.   My garden is not Eden, and far from perfect, but it returns the time I give it and I appreciate the gifts it gives me. 

This life, I'm content with, happy each morning and grateful each night for the day and daylilies that have graced me.  It's enough to welcome the rains as they come, to feel the warm sunlight on my skin, to accept love from outside, and to provide care in return. It's enough to see life flourish, from me, around me and within me, as the years go past.   It's enough to be part of it all, a cog in the wheel or a puppeteer of the play, it matters not, it's enough just to be here, present in the day.