Stealthy Garden Ninjas

Recently in my garden, I've noticed occasional evidence left by large furry rats with white tails.  These incursions into sacred territory seem to have increased during the recent dry spells.  Although I have seen no more footprints, I have noticed an increasing frequency of tender rose buds nipped off just before they bloom, and always from the same bushes.   I am also aware, as an enlightened modern man, that special cameras, called "game cameras," exist for the sole purpose of identifying the nighttime marauders and improving, for hunters, the rate of harvesting them.  I put all these facts together a couple of weeks ago and decided that it would be nice to know exactly the who, what and when of the perpetrators visiting my garden at night.  Sort of like having a night watchman without all the overtime pay.

Alongside installing such a camera comes a little trepidation.  What if I find that some hitherto unknown creature is drawn by the beauty of my roses?  Perhaps female Sasquatch are harvesting the roses to brighten up the cave or brush pile they live in?  Such pictures could make me rich at the same time as scaring the bejeesus out of me.  What if I find evidence of a mountain lion, rumored and occasionally spotted within Kansas and Nebraska, prowling in my backyard?  Such knowledge would completely spoil my plans for a nighttime-highlighted "white" garden bed. 

All such fantasies aside, it seems that I've been punked by whatever devious creatures exist on the prairie.  If I am to believe the evidence, the only creature visiting my garden in the past two weeks is me.  Well, me and maybe the neighbor's dog.  I've got 169 motion-activated pictures taken over a span of 2 weeks and from two different locations in my garden, and I appear in almost all of them.  There are also a number that are absent of mammalian life, likely initiated by wind moving the plants, or cloud movement or, in one case, a nighttime lightning flash.  It is either that or I'd have to conclude that the deer can sneak around my garden in ninja suits, performing snatch and grab operations before the camera can activate. 


I'm going to keep moving the camera until I locate the secret path of invasion.  Until then, for those who also think this sounds like a good idea, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.  These game cameras are relatively inexpensive now and take good quality pictures, both daytime and nighttime, without flash.  They have the added benefit of adding automatic information to the picture;  date, time, temperature, and phase of the moon. There's an intense feeling of anticipation every time I remove the flash memory to view the pictures, a hope of surprise and discovery.  It might be really neat to focus this on a bird house or nest or something more dependably interesting than a random garden path.  And it would be useful to identify which garden tour visitor is taking cuttings from your treasures, or which neighborhood child is using your back yard as a shortcut from school to home.  Depending on your garden activities, you'll at least get some nice candid shots of yourself working in the garden, because you quickly forget it is there.  The latter lapse of memory could also, if you think about it, be the danger of having it around, again depending on what nongardening activities you enjoy in your garden.       

Morning Blush Bomb?

I've got a beautiful rose blooming for the first time, and these long-awaited blooms meet their promises, but I'm going to leave the jury out for deliberation on this rose: It's just too early to tell about 'Morning Blush'.

Now mind you, I've got no complaints about those blooms. The three-inch blooms, three of which are shown here, are just gorgeous. The white centers vary in diameter, but at least in my climate, there is a lot of blush pink on the ruffled petal edges, making this "New Alba" rose superior to the old bicolored Alba 'Leda' in that regard. 'Morning Blush' (or SIEmorn) was bred by Rolf Sievers in 1974.  She may, according to at least one source, have a scattered later bloom and she will grow to around six feet tall at maturity. 

 The rose is very hardy here and shows no blackspot worth noting at the present time.  I found the Internet to be a bit confusing regarding the fragrance of this rose, with one source claiming it has strong fragrance and another (the nursery where I obtained my band) saying that there was no fragrance at all.  I am straddling the fence in between those extremes, but right now I would say it has only a  moderate fragrance . A cross of 'Maiden's Blush' and 'Hamburger Phoenix' (the latter a red, climbing, remonant R. kordesii hybrid), 'Morning Blush' has very few thorns and very arching foliage. 

In fact, it is the arching foliage, and the blooming habit, that makes me question the garden worthiness of this rose.  The canes are indeed arching, and in fact are spread about in a very haphazard fashion, making it appear less like a bush than a large leafy thorny spider.  On my two season-old plant, about three feet tall presently, the blooms are only appearing on the first year's canes, so there are sporadic blooms held near the ground, but seemingly no blooms or buds on the canes that rose up higher at the end of last summer.  If that pattern holds, then I won't be keeping this bush because the low blooms are barely visible, despite their beauty.  Surely, this rose, described as a prolific bloomer, will not hold its blooms so closely to its bosom next year and will reward me for patience.

Pleasing Profusion

'Alchymist'

I blogged yesterday that my garden had exploded with roses and I thought that everyone deserved at least a little peek at the bounty therein.   There were 170 rose bushes blooming when I counted yesterday.   'Alchymist', with a rainbow of colors in one bloom, leads the way into my scenery and provides the hook for my readers to take a peek.  'One of my two 'Alchymist' is blooming the best and healthiest I've ever seen it, so I'm reaping the rewards from deciding to trim this stiff-armed climber into a bush form.

My front bed (below) is alive right now with color all over from the roses, irises, peonies, and a weigela.  I took this picture as I was taking prom pictures of my daughter yesterday evening.   The roses seen are (left to right), cheerful tricolored 'Betty Boop', scarlet 'Hunter', yellow-orange 'Morden Sunrise', and cardinal 'Champaign' in the shade at back.

My back patio bed is a string of shrub roses.  Just barely blooming, at the top, are white 'Madame Hardy' and pink 'Fantin Latour', with the more profuse pink flowers of (back to front), 'David Thompson', 'Carefree Beauty', 'Prairie JOY', (not Prairie Sunrise'), 'Zephirine Drouhin', and 'Jeanne Lavoie' stealing the show.  Oh, and a deep red 'Dark Lady' at the bottom by the pot.

'Variegata di Bologna'

My main formal rose bed (below), which contains almost 50 roses, simply boasts roses too numerous to name, but it is a wave of color.  Front and center in the foreground is towering 'Earth Song', with a shaded bright yellow 'Sunsprite' beneath its feet and a 'Garden Party' to the side.  However, every year I await one special rose from this bed, the scrumptious 'Variegata di Bologna', pictured from yesterday at the right.

I can't show everything today, there are just too many roses out there in the garden proper, but I'll leave you with a taste of the bed I call my "rose berm".  This was my first shrub rose planting, and the west end of the bed, seen here, has a number including (roughly left to right) 'Linda Campbell', 'Iceberg', 'Double Red Knockout', 'Harison's Yellow', 'Souvenir de Philemon Cochet', 'Hawkeye Belle', and (in the foreground), 'Rose de Rescht'.  Yes, you didn't read it wrong, I have a 'Double Red Knockout' front and center despite my ranting about them.  Nobody's perfect.

  I hope all your rose days to come are as happy and contented as mine are right now!

Marvelous Marianne

'Marianne'

My roses exploded yesterday.  Completely exploded.  Rose bushes that had not opened a single bud the day before were covered with blooms.  And along with that profusion of blooms, the first of my long-awaited Paul Barden Hybrid Gallicas, 'Marianne', made her opening debut, the belle of  yesterday's ball.

'Marianne' (ARDgoldeneyes) has had a tough life out here on the prairie, as you can guess from the pictures of these blooms that each show a little wind-storm damage.  She was planted in the fall of 2010, so the rose bush that you're seeing has really had only a single summer's growing season, and a hot, dry one at that.  Early on during the spring of 2011, some marauding animal or the relentless prairie wind broke off the single cane of her band and I thought I'd lost her, but back she came from the roots, fighting for her life.  She's about 2 1/2 feet tall right now, and a little wind-beaten from recent weather, but demure and beautiful nonetheless.  At mature height she is supposed to be a 5 to 7 foot tall rose.

'Marianne'

These blooms on the young 'Marianne' are approximately 3 inches across on the first day, and I expect as the bush matures, the blooms will stretch a little larger.  They are very double (advertised as 40+ petals, although I haven't counted) and as delightfully fragrant as their Old Garden forefathers.  The blooms, as you see, range from a blush white to the more expected peach tones and it will be interesting to see what the Kansas sun does to their coloration.  'Marianne' is not a very thorny bush, polite to my bluejean legs as I pass by, and she shows no sign of blackspot or petal loss at present.

'Marianne' bush, 2nd year

'Marianne' was bred by Paul Barden in 2001 and introduced in 2005.   She seems fully hardy here in Zone 6A (the former 5B), having survived one rough snowy winter as a band and also last winter's dry but mild temperatures.   If you are looking for more information about her, the best source is undoubtedly Barden's own website entry about 'Marianne'.  There, he writes "This Hybrid Gallica is a robust rose, as one might guess from a glance at its parentage. It has, in my opinion, inherited many of the best traits of each parent; the wonderful vigor and coloring of 'Abraham Darby' and the bloom form and disease resistance of 'Duchesse de Montebello'."   It is rare and delightful in rosedom to get so much good information straight from the breeder.

Myself, I would only add that 'Duchesse de Montebello' is one of my favorite OGR's for Kansas and I had high hopes for 'Marianne'.  Hopes that were fulfilled with my first sniff of the first blossom.