Duplicitious Bulbs

I believe that I must be the last gardener on the planet to realize that John Scheepers and Van Engelen are sister companies, but I offer this information for others of my unbaptized and unknowing ilk.

They tipped their hand this year, bulb emperors without clothes, because I received both catalogs by mail on the same day, a seeming coincidence that initially elicited my amusement at the acute timing of the two companies.  That night, as I feverishly looked through the luscious, colored John Schleepers catalog for some desired lilies and alliums, and then through bland Van Engelen, I realized that both catalogs had the SAME OFFERINGS listed BY THE SAME EXACT ORDER!  Always slow, and one to easily be fooled, I looked at the information for ordering and found both companies had the same exact address and phone number.  Fool me for a decade, but never longer.  I was somewhat chagrined to search the internet and discover that such a treasonous bit of advertising sleight-of-hand was certainly not an unheralded secret.

I have ordered from both over the past few years, and I was initially a little angry that some devious advertising executives had taken me in, but further investigation revealed that the Van Engelen website freely discloses that both companies had the same owner and the same offerings and it tells me the reason why I (and you) want BOTH catalogs;  "John Scheepers offers flower bulbs in smaller units with significant volume price discounts while Van Engelen offers the flower bulb collection in larger, wholesale units with volume discount pricing."  John Scheepers and Van Engelen were, in fact, both owned by the late Jan S. Ohms, as is John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds.  Ohms acquired Van Engelen in the 1970's and John Scheepers in 1991.  



For my purposes, the well-illustrated John Scheepers catalog allows me to see and pick items by appearance, but after identifying my shopping list there, I turn to Van Engelen, which offers better pricing for both small (5 bulb) and large (>100 bulb) lots.  Oddly, Van Engelen doesn't offer lots of 10 bulbs and other intermediate sizes, so for some items, John Scheepers is the better source.  This year I've identified 14 items, 10 of which I'll purchase from Van Engelen, and the other four from John Scheepers.  I still don't understand why the companies publish and mail me two separate catalogs, a duplicate expense that surely must be reflected in the price of the bulbs, but I recognize that the answer may be entirely logical but beyond me, tied up in some Federal red tape of bulb importing and wholesale laws of which I'm happy to remain ignorant.  Or, it could be that the blue-blooded upper crust of bulb gardeners spurn the colored-flower pornography of John Scheepers and stick with the tasteful lists of Van Engelen.  And I suppose that Van Engelen sounds more Dutch and authentic for a bulb source than John Scheepers.   Regardless, if you've only been buying gluttonously large lots from Van Engelen, make sure you receive a John Scheepers catalog as well, if only to look at or drool on the photos of each item.

Note:  I am not associated with either Van Engelen or John Scheepers, nor do I receive any favors from either firm beyond the services they provide their average customer.

Alas, Sweet Marianne

With a heavy heart, ProfessorRoush feels that he must give a full accounting of 'Marianne', sweet wonderful 'Marianne', who fills me each Spring with such deep hope and yet year after year leaves me with bitter disappointment.  Soiled 'Marianne', too delicate and too beautiful for the harsh realities of gardening in the Flint Hills.

'Marianne', full view, 2015

I planted Paul Barden's 'Marianne' in 2010, and despite some early setbacks from the ravages of wind and animals, she reached her mature 6'X6' frame by 2013.  She remains at that size for me, without the need for pruning or protection of any kind.  This is a gorgeous, voluptuous untouched bush, and yet she manages not to sprawl over her neighbors and, with proper attention, a little nip and tuck here and there, I think she would make a perfect shrub rose.  She is completely disease resistant and cane hardy here in my garden.  She also never suckers, a most impressive feat considering that her 'Duchesse de Montebello' mother suckers everywhere.  A truly trouble-free rose.

Each Spring, she fills those hardy canes with buds, fantastically obese creamy buds, which occasionally open into the most beautiful apricot brushed flowers any rose nut could desire. As the buds form, my heart swells, ready to explode with the first flush of bloom from this rose.  But each May, her bloom coincides with our "rainy" season, the humid days and damp grounds of mid-Spring, and the delicate petals of those beautiful buds ball up and wither, or the petal edges turn brown and shrivel, or the deep copper tones fade away to sepia.  With the damage to the flowers, the spectacular scent also seems to wane, refusing to fill my nostrils with the nectars I need.  You can see what I mean here, at the right, the nearly perfect flower in the center, but the buds around it all beginning to show a little staining, a little bedraggling of the edges.

About one bloom in ten or perhaps twenty opens to full glory for me.  The bush always makes a fine conglomerated display from 20 feet away, but appears a hopeless mess up close.  Even the top photo of this blog shows some damage, almost perfect, but a little frazzled.  I'm disappointed again and again by her easily damaged nature.  She also forms no hips to otherwise save the display for another season.  Most often, the fully opened blooms look like the examples at the left, sometimes beautiful, but never quite good enough to show to highfaluting visitors.  Don't get me wrong, 'Marianne' is not a bad rose, she is just not right for a Flint Hills climate.  In another setting, where her bloom period would coincide with a hotter, drier season, I think she could bowl over a platoon of gardeners and leave them breathless in the grass.  Here, in rough and rowdy Kansas, she is just too delicate and refined.  I will never shovel-prune her, but I suspect I will remain ever disappointed, ever waiting for her perfect year.

2015 EMG Garden Tour

The 2015 Riley County Extension Master Gardener's Manhattan Garden Tour (27th Annual) came and passed last Sunday, and I believe it was the best ever.  Today, we learned that it was, in fact, the most attended ever.  For a small band of gardeners and a small city in the middle of the country, Manhattan gardeners did themselves proud.  ProfessorRoush could be slightly biased, however, because one of the gardens on the tour was that of a friend.  Of likely greater consequence in my bias, however, is my "status" as the tour day roving photographer for the Master Gardeners.

With a relatively new Nikon camera, I captured over 600 pictures in the six tour gardens in 3 hours, not including over 250  additional photos of the gardens last Thursday on the "pretour."   These, I have culled down to about 600 photos that were in reasonable focus, of decent composition, and pretty cool.  For instance, I hope the painted pine cones above captured your attention as surely as they did mine.  They were a table accent in one of the gardens and a fine accent at that.  The fabulous deep red lilies against the white fence in another garden provided another bright spot of color.  Make sure you click on the photos to see them a bit larger.

Due to various and sundry Federal regulations, the vast mass of which I'm completely unaware and likely violate to some degree or another on a daily basis, I can't show you any photographs of people on the tour or I'll violate HIPPA or FIRPA or one of the OTHER-PAs.   I can, however, show you these two ingenious "pot people", Clay, and Terra.  Near them; in timeout, the gardener had placed their daughter, Mary Jane.  Get it?  Timeout?  Mary Jane?  How's that for garden creativity?  I sense these homeowners may have some history within the 70's as former hippies.

The same gardeners with the pot people also had a wonderful butterfly garden, where I captured these two beauties feeding on the milkweed.  Here lives a gardener that truly practices what she preaches.

On the garden pretour, near the end as dusk was falling and a storm cloud was rolling in, the night lighting and landscaping around this pondless water feature turned the whole area into magic.  I could have spent hours taking photos from every angle at this garden.












As a gardening voyeur, ProfessorRoush is mad about plant combinations, and several of the gardeners could teach lessons in style.  One standout is the grouping around this angelic statue; blue spruce, Japanese Maple, variegated Fallopia japonica, and yellow-tipped arborvitae, an almost flowerless garden with lots of color, restful and serene.  The same gardener had the spot of various hostas accented by a green globe seen at the left, below.  A green paradise in a single photo!


















Another combination I appreciated was the soft gray foliageand pink daisy combination from a second garden:















ProfessorRoush does not get excited over heuchera as a general rule.  I've lost several varieties to sun-burn in my  own shadeless garden, but I could not ignore the beauty of the dappled sunlight on this specimen heuchera.  What a sight!






 I'd love to show you the whole photo set, all 600+ of them.  They might not appeal to your everyday crowd at a NASCAR race, but I suspect that many of you would enjoy seeing them.  I'll leave you, however, drooling at the prospect of another few hundred fabulous photos and contemplating this simple photo of a statue that left me determined to locate a copy of my very own.  This little reading child would look great in my reading-themed garden.  And if I  can't find a copy, well, do you think this gardener would notice its replacement by a cement pig with wings or a nice stone rabbit?

Nice & Naughty Knautia

Knautia macedonia

Occasionally, one has a nice plant that does well in your garden but is overlooked by many gardeners.  Such plants often serve the triple purposes of a conversation piece, an educational opportunity, and a bragging item.  Such is the place occupied by Knautia macedonia in my garden.  I've grown it for years in my front landscape, or rather, it has grown itself; self-seeding, carefree, drought-resistant, and pest-free.  I planted it, it grew, it spread, and I simply enjoy it and remove the dead stems each Spring.  It has survived years of neglect, drought, and, this year, an almost record amount of rain.  Frankly, although sometimes I have to point it out to visitors, I wouldn't attempt a garden in the Midwest without it, even though the common name of the genus, "widow's flower" gives me a bit of pause.

I learned of Knautia macedonia years ago from Lauren Springer Ogden's first book, The Undaunted Garden.  Mrs. Ogden had a section at the end of the book highlighting, if memory serves, about 50 plants that were well adapted to her arid eastern border of the Rockies.  Knautia macedonia was one of those and I remembered her description when I saw it for sale at a local nursery.  The photos here, I believe, represent the original species, although I think it used to be more scarlet than it seems to be now.  Or perhaps I was just younger and the colors were correspondingly brighter.   At one time, I also grew K. macedonia 'Mars Midget' in the same area.  'Mars Midget' is a shorter cultivar with this overall color, but with whiter stamens.  I don't know if it survived, or perhaps interbred with the species to give me a bit of a darker red hue.  There is another commercial selection available, 'Thunder and Lightning', but it doesn't appeal to me because it is one of those modern monstrosities of plant selection with variegated leaves combined with a more puke-purple flower.  Yuck.

Knautia grows on the northeast side of my front border, at the feet of bright red Rugosa hybrid 'Hunter' as you can see above, and it blooms for most of the summer before dying back to a reliable perennial base.   The smaller flowers in the photo above are all K. macedonia, the brighter red larger flowers are 'Hunter', and the mauve-red blobs at the left of the photo are 'Kansas' peonies that are past their prime.  A closer photo of the Knautia macedonia mishmash is shown here at the left.  The plants are relatively short, but the flower stems rise high above the border and sprawl carefree around all their neighbors.  Gardeners' who like Knautia must be willing to tolerate a moderately disheveled but predominately pretty lass who is a little loose with her limbs and who is prone to procreate at random places throughout the garden.  ProfessorRoush most definitely falls into that class of gardener.  Also self-seeding and equally flirtatious, but not yet blooming in the same area, is my bright red, square-stemmed  'Jacob Cline' Monarda that will later add more bright red to this scene sometime during the second flush of 'Hunter'.   Red without end, amen.
 

Strong Survivor

Let us talk now of courage and survival in the face of adversity.  No, I am not even remotely referring to the trials faced by reality tv stars, nor to that of politicians who are in constant need of help to remove their feet from their mouths or other orifices despite their coincidental fortunes donated by special interests.  Let us talk now of 'Survivor', a rose that has earned a place in my garden by sheer tenacity and determination.

'Survivor', also known as 75659-5015, is a gangly, tough, thorny shrub rose of a fabulous, deep red, cluster-flowered semi-double once-blooming form.  If I haven't given you enough adjectives to describe her, let me add she is scentless, resistant to blackspot, has dark-green semi-glossy foliage, forms hips, and occasionally suckers,  She grows to about 4 feet tall with supple canes that sprawl randomly about.  She is also completely cane-hardy here and is said to survive in Zone 3b and lower.  Although I noted she suckers, she will not massively invade a bed like a Gallica rose will, and she is easy to keep under control.

'Survivor' is, without a doubt, the most aptly named rose that I grow.  I grew her first in a garden in town, then moved her via a sucker to my prairie before there was a home on the land.  I later moved a sucker to the second rose bed that I created where she survived for a decade shaded on one side by taller 'Seven Sisters', and another by 'Maidens Blush', with towering 'William Baffin' at her back.  Finally, two years ago, I took pity on her and moved the majority of the bush onto a more sunny spot next to 'Madame Hardy' (recent photo at right) and also placed two suckers into another bed.  Every single one of those roses are still growing, including the lonely cane of shining red flowers placed amidst the prairie grasses where it gets burned almost every year, and, as I noticed last week, a resprout of the rose beneath 'Seven Sisters' (below left).  

'Survivor's parentage is a partial mystery.  I obtained her in the 90's from Robert Osborne's Corn Hill Nursery, where she was originally introduced in 1987. Osborne obtained her labeled as 75659-5015, believed her to be bred by Dr. Svejda and part of, but not introduced with, the Explorer program.  He described the parentage as 'Old Blush' x 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup'.   That origin has been called into question and denied by Dr. Svejda.  'Survivor' is still listed in Modern Roses 12 as bred by Dr. Svejda, but on helpmefind.com/rose as bred by Henry Marshall in 1975.  It is likely that she was a sister of Morden #71659501, a cross of 'Adelaide Hoodless' and a seedling descended from 'Crimson Glory', 'Donald Prior', and R. arkansana.  Looking at her, I expect that the latter parentage is correct, because she has many characteristics in common with 'Adelaide Hoodless', although 'Survivor' is much more resistant to blackspot in my garden than Adelaide Hoodless, and she is of less dense form.

Regardless of how she is considered, as an orphan, a cast-off, or an unintended release, 'Survivor' has earned her name and her place on my Kansas prairie.

Bird Feeder Raids

I woke up yesterday a little early, the sun still under the horizon, and as I peered through the blinds, I received a shock as I sleepily assessed the quantity of remaining feed in the bird feeder.  This brazen boy, the beginnings of some velvet nubs on his head, was picking through the sunflower hulls cast down by the birds, presumably in search of some left behind proteinaceous morsels.  I can't imagine what compulsion drove him to bypass prairie and garden to pick at the shells merely 20 feet from the house, but whether desperation or bravery, there he was.

I grabbed the camera and took a few shaky photos, hampered by the dim light and the telephoto lens, my pounding heart and my still sleeping hands.  Each click of the mirror and shutter on the SLR seemed to stretch out the seconds as I prayed for him to stand still and my hands to steady.  A few pictures, a few precious seconds, and he began to amble down through the grass to the greater garden.  Now, suddenly, there were two, a plump doe magically appearing in my visual periphery.

As I followed them, now outside and accompanied by my trusty sidekick, Bella finally noticed my attention to the silent intruders and she shifted immediately to guard behavior, ready to fend off the invader at the slightest sign from me.  A few warning barks, and the moment passed, Hart and Hind turning tail and tearing off towards the nearest horizon.  Even in my disappointment, I couldn't scold a dog who has such a graceful natural stance as this.  If I put any training into her, she would make a mockery of the best dogs at Westminster, don't you think?   For a genetically-confused cross between a Beagle and a Border Collie, she certainly a lot of Pointer in her, doesn't she?

Why, oh why, surrounded by the bounty of the still tender grasses of late spring, are this pair of furry rats drawn into my garden?  Are they jealous of the extra time and money I'm spending to keep a single scarlet cardinal around for the pleasure of Mrs. ProfessorRoush?  Do they come for the rosebuds, to gather them while they may, and then stay for the party?  Are they merely another tool of Mother Nature, a warm-blooded stealth fighter designed to raze the unnatural garden back to Babylon?  Run, you cowards, run!  Bella is on guard.

Wall's Owita

Among other activities this Spring, I spent my reading time rambling between several books.  I often find myself with several books open, picking up each one as my mood directs me, reading one of them tonight and another tomorrow, only to come back to the first a week later.   It drives Mrs. ProfessorRoush slightly more nuts, dusting around 3-5 books that are open or bookmarked at any given time.  Would anyone else like to admit here a similar reading habit?

This weekend, I finally managed to finish Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening, written by Mrs. Carol Wall and published early in 2014.  Mrs. Wall was a high School English teacher in Tennessee and Virginia who previously wrote features in Southern Living Magazine and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and she writes as beautifully as you would expect.  I picked up the book with the expectation that it would be a nice essay about gardening and friendships, but if you are looking to learn much about Mister Owita's green thumb from it, you will be sorely disappointed.

Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening is, in fact, two related tales, one of a friendship and a mentor-student relationship developed between two gardeners, and the other a very human tale of hope, longing and loss.  Mr. Owita, the declared subject of the story is a local immigrant who becomes Mrs. Wall's gardening advisor, and later her confidant and friend.  The story is not really about the garden they create, but about their support for each other during the trials of each life.

Spoiler alert;  Mrs. Wall was a breast cancer survivor, who relapses during the book.  Part of the story  focuses on her worries and thoughts as she faces more illness and treatments.  Early in the story, Mister Owita is concerned about a daughter left behind in an unstable country.  Later on his own terminal illness is revealed.  Mister Owita dies near the end of the book.  In fact, I learned while writing this that Mrs. Wall also passed on December 14, 2014, 9 months after the book was published.  I'm sorry for the lost to both families, but I think you understand what I mean if I say that I didn't feel very uplifted after reading this book.

If you're wanting a profoundly moving book, and if you can stand a bit of a downer of an ending, Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening is a good, easy read.    If you're looking for garden or plant information, or if you need or expect an uplifting story about survival in the face of cancer or HIV, then don't make this book one of the many you may already be reading.

Elegant and Eccentric

'Buckeye Belle'

The peony show is nearly over for this year, but due to sold out crowds, I have booked it for another showing next May.  In the meantime, I'd like to present Her Royal Highness, deep burgundy 'Buckeye Belle', and her two playful courtesans 'Bric a Brac' and 'Pink Spritzer', for your attention and pleasure.



 





'Buckeye Belle' is still rapidly expanding for me, and I don't feel she is anywhere near her full potential, but I'm completely obsessed by the rich color of those blooms.  An old peony, introduced in 1956,  I previously noted that she found new life as the 2011 Peony of the Year and 2010 Gold Medal Winner.  She put forth a total of 5 of those big sumptuous blossoms for me this year, a modest number, but the total display she put on is out of proportion to her floriferousness.

Sultry, seductive, bold, majestic, and opulent are all words that I would use to describe her.   Everyone who sees her wants to know who she is and where to buy a piece of her.  Honestly, look at that color.  The closeup to the left is true to the real color of the petals.  Doesn't it evoke a deep, full chord inside you, just begging you to sing of royalty and richness?

'Bric a Brac'

Her two weird distant Paeonia lactiflora cousins, 'Bric a Brac' at the left, and 'Pink Spritzer', below right, evoke a totally different set of adjectives.  Strange, oddball, kooky, peculiar, and even "eerie" come to mind.  Both peonies are both daughters of famous hybridizer Roy Klehm, 'Pink Spritzer' in 1999, and I couldn't find the birthdate of 'Bric a Brac'.  Whoever chose names for Klehm's peonies was inventive; 'Brac a Brac' referring to collections of curios, and 'Pink Spritzer' referring to the German spritzen, to "spatter, sprinkle, or spray."  I bought both peonies after seeing slides of them at a Roy Klehm lecture, because of my love of striped plants.  Neither are very vigorous peonies, in fact I worry about their health each spring, but they are certainly conversation starters.

'Pink Spritzer'

'Bric a Brac', particularly, requires a certain aesthetic set to appreciate.  A poster named "tehegemon" on GardenWeb.com wrote, "I definitely think Bric A Brac has its place, although as I previously mentioned, not in my garden."  The website "seedratings.com" states "There has never been such a frazzled, fringed, ferociously twisted Peony as Bric a Brac!"  I admire the alliteration, but I don't agree with the sentiment.  That creamy background, maroon-striped, green-tinged petals and contrasting bright yellow stigmas and styles just does something for me.  I don't know what, but it does something.

Writing about striped peonies is a dangerous activity for my garden and pocketbook.  In my search for information about these peonies, I found Klehm has another striped one, 'Circus Circus', for sale.  That one just made an order list for fall.  I'm weak, yes, but I'm at least I'm predictable.

Squatting Dark Lady

'The Dark Lady'

I suppose that ProfessorRoush could be faulted for ignoring many popular roses with my primary focus on Griffith Buck, Ag Canada Roses, Old Garden Roses and Hybrid Rugosas, but I do grow a few roses that are perhaps more widely known and viewed as "modern."  Among those are a few of the David Austin roses, but just a mere few because I find they don't always do well in my climate and I tire of wasting money on them.  Devoted readers know that I really like 'Heritage', and that I persist with 'Golden Celebration', and you may remember that I thought 'Benjamin Britten' was a nice rose until I lost it last year to Rose Rosette.  You may not know that I've failed with about 6 or 8 others.



I also grow an early Austin rose, 'The Dark Lady', on her own roots and she has survived a number of years to produce these big, very-double fragrant blooms for me.  In fact, I once moved her and she came back from a forsaken root, so I have two growing in my garden and both are passable representatives of their clan.  She does not need any preventative maintenance for blackspot in my climate, but I wouldn't call her a vigorous rose, and you can see from the photo at the left that our recent rains have left her a bit bedraggled.  According to one anonymous post at a website, "feeding her bananas" will take care of the weak necks, but I'm a bit skeptical of such an easy fix.

'The Dark Lady', otherwise known as 'AUSbloom', is a shrub rose bred by Austin prior to 1991, and she throws dark magenta-blue flowers of 100 to 140 petals for me, although Austin describes the color as "dark crimson."  Helpmefind.com lists her as having a bloom diameter of 3.25 inches, but many of the flowers in the photo above are around 4 inches in diameter.   She does repeat with several flushes over a season, but I wouldn't call her a continuous bloomer.  The poor woman is described as being 4'X 5', a little wider than she is tall, and I would agree with that unflattering shape description with the exception that she seldom gets more than about 2.5' X 3' for me in a season.  She is moderately cane hardy here, with some dieback each year but usually not to the ground.   Her heritage is a little perplexing;  helpmefind.com/rose lists here as a cross between 'Mary Rose' and 'Prospero', but Austin's website says she has a R. Rugosa parentage.  The latter, if true, would help explain the hardiness and the somewhat rough matte foliage.  And perhaps the color.

According to the David Austin Roses website,  Austin named 'The Dark Lady' after "the mysterious Dark Lady" of  Shakespeare's sonnets.  In those somewhat heated sonnets, we learn that Shakespeare's mistress had black hair, dun-colored skin, and raven black eyes. In several places, Shakespeare suggests that she wasn't that pretty ("In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, for they in thee a thousand errors note"), and that she also had bad breath ("And in some perfumes is there more delight, than in the breath that from my mistress reeks").  Always the contrary, cynical professor, I think Austin misnamed this rose because she is a very beautiful rose and her fragrance is strong and sweet.  At least, in my opinion.

Magic Mornings

There is no morning more pleasing for me than to wake up early and find the house silent and cloaked in fog, harsh rays of the rising sun diffused into gentle radiance.  Combine that with the clean air and glistening landscape from a previous evening's rain, and I'm in heaven, or at least as near as I can get with my feet still on soggy ground.

These are magic mornings for me. Magical moments that I steal to watch the world stir and wake, to wait without worry and simply to be.  On most other mornings, I'm fully awake as my feet touch the floor, leaping into my life with jobs to finish and errands to run, lists to complete and chores to get done.   On these mornings, however, I pause, knowing that rain has dampened the urgency of outside work, and wanting to preserve the quiet and peace of a still-resting household.   While Mrs. ProfessorRoush sleeps soundly in the silence, Bella and I slip outside to capture the scenes, small or vast, that wait just a wall away.

On such mystical mornings, if you wait and watch, seek and search, you can pierce the veil and glimpse, if only briefly, the canvas of life beneath the colors.  Hues of blooms and leaves and grass seem brighter, stems and stalks stand surer, and birds sing sweeter as the sun slowly dawns.  On this morning, I found the cheerful buds of 'Betty Boop' bound together by industry, support stays for a small spider's larder.  Raindrops glistened on perfect new leaves, each drop a jewel of a sequined cover, each leaf a dark green factory of life itself.  The tightly woven petals, scarlet and yellow patterned into perfection, pushed back the darkness and reflect the warming sun.  The whole drama, a merry microcosm greeting the greater world in grace and glory.

Soon, I know, the sun will burn back the damp and break the fog's embrace.  Sound and action will pour in with the sunlight and send the silence slinking back to the shadows.  I'll start coffee for Mrs. ProfessorRoush and butter her toast to better our marriage.  But I've had my rest and quiet, my moments of wonder and awe to revitalize my energies and soul.  Another day beckons with jobs and errands and lists and chores.

(P.S.  I was so pleased with the photo of Betty Boop that I'm entering it into the Gardening Gone Wild 'Picture This' photo contest.  See the contest at http://gardeninggonewild.com/?p=28687)

I Was So Wrong

'Morning Blush'

Some variation of  the title of this post should probably be the title of every other that I write, amateur gardener that I am, but in this case it pertains to my 5/1/12 posting regarding the beautiful rose 'Morning Blush'.  I was unexcited about this rose during its juvenile growing phases, but it has both figuratively and literally grown on me.

Perhaps this is an unusual and stellar year for this rose, given the wet and cold conditions of this spring, but I'm convinced it was one of the stars of my garden this year.  Sandwiched between Barden roses 'Gallicandy' and 'Allegra', my 'Morning Blush' has reached its 6 foot tall promise at maturity, and the canes that I formerly regarded as "floppy" are at least leaning nicely against the neighbors.  I wouldn't call this rose overly floriferous, but it is putting on a decent display as you can see from the photo of the full bush below.

'Morning Blush', mature bush

The blooms make this rose a keeper. The petals are quick thick and seem to be resistant to the ills of the weather.  Even in the damp 10 days proceeding the photo above, the blooms of  Morning Blush are not stained brown by water or botrytis, while 2 doors down, the blossoms of 'Marianne' are a mess.  'Morning Blush', in contrast, looks as fresh as if just from the shower, which, literally, I guess it was. The blooms also stay on the bush for a long time, and the pink fades slightly but never completely disappears.  I am going to stick to my previous assessment of the fragrance as "moderate."

It goes without saying that 'Morning Blush' is fully cane hardy in my climate and she is one of the healthiest roses I've ever seen.  No blackspot, no mildew, and no cane dieback at any time of year.  I don't think I've ever touched her with a pruner.  Those long thick canes are both an asset and her only drawback;  they are stiff and ungainly like a Hybrid Tea, and they tend to sprawl if not supported by neighbors.  At least they aren't thorny.

ProfessorRoush was raised and trained to step up and admit when his is wrong, and, while I admit that I don't think I'm wrong very often, I was wrong about 'Morning Blush'.  This offspring of 'Maiden's Blush' is a beautiful rose and I'm sorry that I doubted her.

Jumpin' Jackpot!

I don't want to interrupt the "every other day" flow of blog posts that I have going, but I also couldn't let my good luck go unheralded, so I'm interjecting this particular post for a short time and then we will go back to the flowers tomorrow.

Aside from gardening and my three or four other hobbies, I am most certainly a bibliophile and I have a modest collection of gardening books, 557 at last count by the Home Library app that keeps track of them and keeps me from purchasing duplicates.  Before you start calculating what 557 garden books must have cost, you should know that most were purchased used or discounted, primarily at my favorite home-away-from-home, Half-Price Books.  Once I've parted with the cash, the value doesn't matter anyway since I have little worry about any one other than a peculiarly nerdish burglar breaking in for my gardening book collection.

I was completely thrilled, on a trip yesterday and knowing that Half-Price had a 20% off sale this weekend, to find this like-new copy of Modern Roses 12 at the store, and marked, as you can see on the cover, at $9.99.  Rose-nut that I am, I didn't own a copy until now.  Additionally, as you can see from the receipt at the left, I got it at 20% off, so with Overland Park, Kansas taxes, my final outlay was $8.67.  A rose gardener can't beat that deal with a stick!.

The real shock, after turning the book to its back cover, was finding out that the original price was $99.95!  Half-Price Books was more like 90% Off Books for me this week!

I have no luck winning the Powerball, but I am quite willing to take advantage of a book bargain when I see one, and almost, well nearly almost, as happy.

Strawberry Fields Forever

By posting these photos, I stand in minor danger of turning this blog from a gardening blog into a dog blog, but I couldn't resist sharing these new pictures of Bella.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush took them with her iPad after she returned from helping me pick these strawberries, and slightly blurry as they may be, I thought they were adorable.   Look at those beagle-hungry eyes.  I think Bella would like a strawberry, don't you?

To deflect any criticism about yet another post reflecting the intense love between a gardener and his faithful companion, we will feebly pretend instead that this blog entry is about my triumph over the fickle scarlet-skinned god of the strawberry patch.  Because, really, that's what it is, a bragging post unmitigated by any trace of self-restraint, even while I know deep down that I'm depleting my gardening karma account and probably will soon be punished by a June freeze for my impudence.

NEWS FLASH:  I HAVE HARVESTED HOME-GROWN STRAWBERRIES IN KANSAS!

Devoted readers of this blog know of my deep, life-long love for strawberries.  You've endured my epic, all-out campaign to get a strawberry patch through the August heat and drought, the bitter winters, and the late spring freezes that define Kansas gardening.  You have suffered through my purchase and erection of a shade house and my defensive measures and counterattacks against marauding deer.  You have bravely endured the whimpers and the whining and the woeful wailing against the cruelties of nature and the Kansas Flint Hills.  I have successfully spared you (till now) my agony during the past 3 weeks of cold, March-like temperatures and rains that have conspired to prolong ripening and increase rotting.

ProfessorRoush can publicly declare now that it has all been worth it, every drop of sweat, every aching muscle, every curse muttered in the general direction of the unsympathetic earth.   Mrs. ProfessorRoush, Bella, and I harvested 2 or 3 quarts of sweet strawberries over the last week or so, and last night we filled this bowl with another 4 or 5 quarts.  I'm sure there will be a few more quarts to come over the next week.  Not a grand harvest, but they exist and they made it to the reddened finish line.  And I accomplished it all through perseverance, labor, and sheer determination, not to mention the wad of cash I bestowed on the shade house manufacturer.   I refuse to calculate what a $1000 or so total divided by 10-15 quarts of strawberries works out to be on a per quart basis.  Not including, of course, my time and emotional trauma.

Whatever.  These are my strawberries, and, as Bella's twitching nose confirms, they are sweet and they are ripe and mouth-watering.   For one season, for one year, I have grown strawberries!

Despondent Dog

Woeful, she waits.
Outside, her love, ceaselessly puttering.
A glimpse she sees, then gone again,
A wisp, a phantom, endlessly muttering.
Moving through chores as hours march on.
Spraying his poisons into the air,
Pumping and misting with no time to spare.
Fretful, she waits.

Sadly, she waits.
Outside, blue sky and green grass beckon.
Scents, they abound, echos of sound,
Roll across hills and over horizon.
Breezes carry the fury of life.
Sunlight blesses the restless soil,
Earthworms squiggle in endless toil.
Fitful, she waits.

Doleful, she waits.
Outside, out there, is her friend and her love.
Lost to the world, intent and tired,
Her father, her playmate, her gardening other.
Inside she barks as her patience wears thin.
A world to explore, a garden to smell,
A drama to track and a story to tell.
Forlorn, she waits.

At last the door opens.
So joyful is she.
A wag of the tail,
And a few licks for me.
Then out she bounds to the world that awaits.
So happy, she laughs as she dances and shivers,
Short legs are pumping, whiskers aquiver.
Bella, my dog.

Mrs. ProfessorRoush took this photo last Sunday while I was spraying to keep the bagworms out of the evergreens and the worms out of the cherries.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush hates worms in the cherries, and as much as I hate insecticides, I surrendered my garden ethics quickly in the face of spousal demand and potential withdrawal of affections.  Meanwhile Bella has become my steadfast garden companion over the past month of warmer weather and has become extremely attached to me when I'm home.  She's headstrong (I'm referring to Bella right now) and I was afraid she would run away after the first bird or car that appeared, but I slowly trained her to stay within my sight and she is now allowed off leash in the garden while I work.   Bella didn't understand why she couldn't join me within the haze of poison spray this weekend, however.  Nothing looks more dismayed than a beagle separated from the outdoors and her love.

p.s.: and, yes, "aquiver" is a real word.