Magic Morning Musings

He almost didn't do it.   Yesterday was ProfessorRoush's 66th birthday, and it was packed so busy that, at first, he nearly didn't notice the world outside.   It was Commencement day at the College, and I had time for only a full day of work, graduation ceremony, receptions, and plans.  I woke early, too early, checked in online for the news and was heading for the shower when I realized that it was light outside and the sky through the skylights was PINK.  Already starting later than I planned, I hesitated and debated and shut down the Critic and the urgencies of the day and listened, for once, to the voices that I so often ignore.  

The voices I heeded were the Writer & the Photographer & the Philosopher, all in agreement and demanding that the call to go outside could not be ignored.  The Writer anticipates and collects and records special moments in the garden.  The Photographer understands the magic of diffused morning light and demands its capture. And the Philosopher always advocates for the feel of a fresh breeze on still-sleepy skin, and clean air filling the lungs and the waking sounds of life across the crisp, cool prairie.

Oh, what awaited!  As the sun barely broke the horizon, my senses were bombarded with life and all the promise of a new day.  The pink and oranges were quickly receding from the sky as the sun rose and I took these pictures all within a few brief minutes, catching the roses opening to the kiss of sunlight, before the low clouds could steal the magic and drain away the last of the colors.  

The act of garden photography, of itself, is an invitation to morning meditation and especially helpful to hyperactive and time-driven unfortunates like myself.  Hold perfectly still.  Calm your breathing and heartbeat. Frame the subject. Check the edges.  Focus.  Check the background.  Adjust depth of field. Look for distractions in the viewer.  Make sure vertical and horizontal lines in the photo are squared up.  Take the photo.   Assess and start again, breaths slowing, heartbeat dropping, soul quiet.  And the result?  Not a single photo here is cropped or enhanced or edited in any way, their natural beauty on full display.  There are rewards for a detail-oriented psyche.

I hesitated again, feeling the pull of the Critic, knowing I should be moving on, but I listened instead to the Artist insisting that I take just a few more seconds to capture the sunlight on the colorful irises. Had I not, I would never have experienced the moment and joy captured by this photograph and never felt the impertinence of the brave, brooding, deep purple bloom on the left or the cheerfulness of the yellow irises in the center.

Listen to the Voices my friends, not the voices of Schedule or Despair, not the misdirected urgings of Greed or Vice, but the wisdom of the Child, the passion of the Lover, and the vision of the Faithful.  Life gives us few enough gifts and we must cherish and recognize and grasp those we are given with our hands and hearts and minds and hold on to them in memory and gratitude.   

And I'm forever grateful for these captured moments, on this, my 66th birthday.

Morning Vistas

A "Vista" is defined as "a pleasing view, especially as seen through a long narrow opening."  This morning, ProfessorRoush was simply content to take Bella on a walk around her garden, and taking photos of the broad pleasing views of his garden through his narrow (phone) camera lens.  I'm not going to write a lot about these pictures today, I'll just note a few of the particular roses visible in them and leave them to speak for themselves.  Before you blow them up to look closer, you must promise not to feel smug about all the unpruned deadwood in the roses and the weeds at their feet.  A gardener only has so much time and Spring came at me fast this year.

Roses, from left to right, are tall 'John Cabot', crimson 'Hunter', pink 'Konigan von Danemark', and fading 'Marie Bugnet'

The irises are spectacular this year.  You can see Bella running ahead to the right, sniffing the ground.

Peony 'Buckeye Belle' sits maroon-ly at the feet of bountiful 'Blizzard' Mockorange

One view of a rose bed looking east as the sun rises.  The near border, left to right, is 'Leda', 'Rosalina', and 'Blush Hip'.  The nearly red rose just behind those is 'Duchess of Portland'.

Front to back, these roses are pink 'Duchess de Montebello', bright red 'Survivor' with 'George Vancouver' to it's left, and behind, tall, and pink 'Lillian Gibson'.

I have been hacking around and reviving this bed and 'Lillian Gibson' looks about as poorly as I've ever seen, but I still think she deserves a photo all to herself.

As does this second 'Survivor' specimen, with mauve 'Hanza' and single 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' following behind it.

Seasonal Musings

'Bric-a-brac'

I don't know what your idle times are like, but ProfessorRoush has but a few minutes in his busy life to devote to random and usually nonsensical mental meanderings.   When he does, it is usually in his Jeep during the 10 minute drive to work, and that time is, fortunately or unfortunately, where the ideas for a moderate number of these posts originate (the equally long drive home is devoted to musing back over the events of the work day and transitioning back to home).

'Parfum de l'Hay'

Last Thursday morning, that thought process, just after a quick walk around the garden that morning with Bella, was "how boring  it must be to live in sub-tropical Florida"...or Hawaii, or the Caribbean islands.   Essentially anywhere without seasons.  With seasons come variety and with variety come all the real joys of the garden.  And joy in the garden is in the seasonal change (and, of course, in the floral pornography that graces this blog).

You people with your Birds of Paradise and massive everblooming pelargoniums and hibiscus and Live Oaks may think you live in paradise, but you'll never know the joys of a clump of blooming peonies, of a long line of flowering lilacs, of the seasonal transition from daffodil to peony to rose to daylily to aster.  True gardeners would trade the changes in their gardens due to the progression of seasons about as easily as a badger would give up its den.

'Buckeye Belle' 

All of the pictures from today's blog are from my own garden, Thursday morning.   The peonies and roses are about to come into full bloom and with them, the beating heart of my garden.  Iris are dotted around and accent the many green clumps of growing daylilies.   Tall Orienpet lilies wait in the wings, wait for the once-blooming roses to exit stage left, anxious to make their own debut.   

'Lambert Closse' (new rose to me)

Would I ever give up the onslaught of peonies, breathtaking in their bounty, new varieties ever expanding the color choices and contrasts and combinations with their neighbors?  Could I live without the anticipation and addition of new roses to my garden (like Canadian 'Lambert Closse' at right), roses that, admittedly, replace weaker roses lost to disease and cold, but even the latter are welcome experiments and witnesses to change?  

'Festiva Maxima'

Daylilies, with their fleeting bloom lives know not a minute's rest before their petals drop.  Roses and peonies see only a few weeks of the garden's cycle, but the gardener sees and rejoices in it all; seasons blending one into another, chill to pleasant to hot to frozen, drought to rain to snow, brown to green to color.

'Lillian Gibson'

And I, both master of and slave to this garden, wouldn't consider trading a single season for the comforts of paradise, of life in a place of never-ending moderation and temperate climate.  Wouldn't I?  Well, maybe in winter.

 

Front door view 05/08/2025.  Lots of columbines!

Yellow World Domination

This week is the peak bloom of Hybrid Rosa spinosissima 'Harison's Yellow' on my "rose berm", the latter a slightly-raised (domed to about 2 feet high) area of transplanted soil that was a birthday gift from my mother in the early days of my garden.  According to my notes, it was planted there in 2003 from a sucker of another earlier transplant from my first garden in town.  'Harison's Yellow' is easy to root from suckers, at least if you treat it right, although my early attempts to gain "wild" suckers of this rose were failures.  I'm trying not to wonder if those previous failures reflect on my talents as a gardener.

Honestly, who could want, or even dream, of a sunnier or more vibrant yellow rose, bright in the shadows and brilliant, nearly eye-searing, in full sunlight?  The blossoms are nearly perfect, never fading until the petals fall to the ground,  unblemished by rain earlier this week, and each with fragrance to rival the finest efforts of professional perfumers.  In case you're wondering, "perfumer" is the correct English term for such experts in fragrances, and it is so much more appealing than the French term, "Nez" (nose).  

If 'Harison's Yellow' has a flaw, a snag in its character, it is its quest for garden, or perhaps even world domination.   Although I found it difficult to transplant in my first few attempts, it suckers and spreads just fine if left to its own merits, crowding out less vigorous plants to form a vast impenetrable hedge if you allow it.  In this bed, it has, over time, smothered a 'Souvenir de Philémon Cochet' and, more recently, an 'Adelaide Hoodless', and currently it has a young 'Roseraie de l'Haÿ' surrounded and threatened.

This, a view from the other side of the berm, better shows its unchecked spread, the mass of the previous photo extending out of the picture to the right.  Four feet high, thorny and straggly and sparsely-leafed this early in the summer, at times it seems that only a true rose-aficionado could really love it.  The bush is crude and its manners are rude, but then it blooms and all is forgiven.

But, I ask, why not (love it)?  It's extremely winter hardy, drought-resistant, and the hailstorm, just 6 days ago, pictured at left, didn't seem to damage it at all.   'Harison's Yellow' was first blooming on April 23rd this year and now, over 10 days later, it is the eye-catching focal point of my garden.  Really, who cares if it takes over the world and drapes the hills with yellow?  Not me, not at this moment.   There's no room in my world for any other rose than 'Harison's Yellow', at least for now, and it can grow anywhere it chooses.  I can move the 'Roseraie de l'Hay' if it isn't up to the fight!  

Lord Help Me, I Bought a Knock Out® Rose!

Long-time readers of this blog are doubtless aware that ProfessorRoush hates Knock Out® roses.  I blame the Knock Out® line for the collapse of many rose nurseries and the rapid decrease in rose varieties available at local nurseries.  I blame Knock Out®s for knocking the Queen of Flowers off her pedestal and coercing the public into treating roses as mere utilitarian shrubs.  I blame Knock Out®s for their lack of grace, lack of fragrance, and their easy susceptibility to rose rosette disease.  Heck, I'd blame them for global warming if I could reason out the slightest plausible logic chain that might link them together.  

And yet, while I was "saving big money" at Menards today (or so their advertising jingle tells me), I ran across 'Petite', the so-called "first miniature Knock Out® rose," and I fell for the hype, hooked and cleaned out, as it were, right there in the store.  What can I say?  I was weak at the moment, it was priced right ($17.95), it was healthy, the back of the plant tag said it was hardy to Zone 4, and I was disappointed at all Menard's other seasonal rose offerings at the store.  My hypocrisy on full display, I swooped it up and brought it home before my conscience kicked in.

Here at home, I transplanted it to a larger vacant pot and watered it in.   Despite its "fire-engine red" color I'm not confident it will be noticeable planted alongside the large shrubs and shrub roses of my greater garden, and besides, I can always move the pot and hide my moral failure and disgrace if any discerning gardeners are coming over.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush, of course, will love this potted rose wherever I place it, but her tastes, as always, are suspect in regards to plant aesthetics.  Thankfully, her discernment is better at choosing husbands, or so I'd like to believe. 

In my defense, 'Petite', otherwise known as Zepeti®, is not really a Knock Out® rose, at least not one bred by Bill Radler. Yes, it was introduced in the US by Star Roses, the parent company promoting all things Knock Out®, but the registered variety name is MEIbenbino, indicating it was a cross by the House of Meilland, in this case by Alain Meilland in 2011.   Alain is, by my count, the 5th generation of his family to be engaged in rose culture, but he was evidently turned by the Dark Side of the Force and used RADtko ('Double Knock Out') as the pollen parent of the cross resulting in 'Petite'.  

I did notice an unexplained oddity during my research around MEIbenbino.  Helpmefind\roses says that 'Petite' is the "first rose covered by a U.S. Utility Patent, which protects the introducer by restricting any party from hybridizing with it."  A utility patent restricts breeding, propagation, reproduction from or development of this variety as well as propagation.   And yet, helpmefind/roses also says that 'Petite' is a verified triploid.   Since triploid plants are usually sterile, I'm a little perplexed about the "superpatent" afforded this rose, since logically it should, as a triploid, be the end of its own genetic line.   Regardless, in the event that it ever develops hips and seeds, one should keep it to oneself and not notify the patent police.  Or, like Bella here, just avoid this rose altogether as a safety measure.  My conscience will thank you.

Dandy Standout

Any ideal hobby should have variety, and gardening seems to have it in spades (yes, pun intended).  Gardens provide variety of species, cultivar, and plant size.  Variety of color, variety in foliage (in fact, some foliage is "variegated"!), variety in season of bloom, and variety of leaf shape, petal shape, and plant form.  Gardeners induce variety (or chaos) themselves by how they site a plant, how they fertilize and care for it, and how they protect it from temperature extremes or insects.

And every season, it seems, some plants seem to decide all on their own to step up and stand out, to shine or sparkle.  This year the first plant to do so seems to be the lilac 'Yankee Doodle', a relatively recently introduced (1985) cultivar of S. vulgaris selected by the late Jesuit priest, Father John Fiala at his farm in Medina, Ohio, the acreage he called Falconskeape.

My 'Yankee Doodle' caught my eye today as I was engaged in my first spring mowing, mowing not so much grass as a crop of rampant henbit, chickweed, and other spring nuisances.  'Yankee Doodle' was planted in 2003 among a line of right lilacs along the west border of the garage pad, a line that perfumes the entire yard if provided the proper temperature and a gentle breezes comes out of the south or west.  My intention at the time of planting it was to both screen out the two-foot tall ugly concrete wall that constitutes the edge of the garage pad, and, to create just the sort of saturated fragrance showstopper that it has become.  My lilacs amply fill both roles.

Most years, 'Yankee Doodle' struggles, lanky, tall, and sparse, its stems prone to borers and breakage, as are the cultivars that flank it, 'Nazecker' to the right and 'Wonderblue' to the left.  I should complain less about them since this bed is labeled "Forsythia Bed" on my maps and contains not a single forsythia, all perished or shovel-pruned for their inconsistent bloom.  This year, somehow, 'Yankee Doodle' bloomed extra-prolifically and it is the most prominent lilac of its immediate group, indeed of the whole line.  It is at the end of its bloom cycle as pictured here, the deepest purple single flowers of lilac-dom faded just a bit here by age and a recent rain.  And yet, still it caught my eye as I mowed, a 'Yankee Doodle' all dandied up and showing off its best side in this, its seemingly random year to stand out.   So now, 'Yankee Doodle' fading, I'm left to wonder what species, what variety, what plain, regularly overlooked plant will step up to be the next Cinderella or Dandy.

And Where Did YOU Come From?

By the question in the title, ProfessorRoush is not trying to be nosy of you, the reader, but of this precocious Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) that suddenly appeared as I was puttering around outside, doing some trimming, some weeding, and a little planting.  I was shocked in the moment, first to see any butterflies at all this early in the season, and then shocked again to have it cooperate for these closeups.

You see, really I was out taking stock of things, because for the past few days, I've been in Washington DC, where I took the photo on the right during some moderate rain and wind at 6:41 p.m. (isn't it amazing that because of phone cameras, I will always know exactly where I was at 6:41 p.m. on Friday, April 11, 2025, because the data is forever embedded with the photo)?  If you're going to walk near the White House, I can now recommend doing it on a chilly, rainy Friday night because the streets were deserted at that hour, no protestors ranting and chanting and messing up my "chill", just a few tourists on the sidewalk and a half-dozen watchful Secret Service and Capital Police agents (that I could see at the time).  I was only sorry the landscaping lights weren't on yet, and, no, I didn't ask to knock on the door and see if President Trump was receiving visitors.

I was also fortunate on Saturday to have my return flight fly directly over near our home, and so, on April 12th at 2:40 p.m., I was able to capture this photo from the window of the plane.   Our home and gardens are in the white circle center left, surrounded by the darkened prairie ground exposed from our burn last week.  Click on the photo to enlarge it (hitting "escape" will then bring you back to the blog).  Mrs. ProfessorRoush was presumably not at home at the time and in route to pick me up.

But I digress.   The Swallowtail that prompted this blog entry (a male, easily gendered by its less colorful "eyes") seemed to be focused on the female holly plant sited on the northeast corner of the house, and the inconspicuous white blooms of the holly.  I didn't read anything about holly being a host plant, but both roses and magnolias are larval hosts for the species and there are plenty of those about.  Other host plants include lilacs and Cottonwood trees and those species are each in my yard as well. 

I was saddened that this specimen seems to have a damaged or missing left "tail", and I hope that won't hinder its search for a mate or its long-term survival.   For what little I know of Swallowtails, this male might also be just out of its chrysalis and maybe it just needs to unfold the left tail, temporarily rather than permanently deformed.  Either way, I wish the little guy luck and happy mate-hunting.  As there are either two or three generations of Tiger Swallowtails in a season, depending on the latitude, the Swallowtails I see in September could be his grandchildren.

The White House, from Lafayette Park, 04/11/2025, 6:41 p.m.

Redbud Respect

ProfessorRoush, is appreciating the multiple Eastern Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) that are this year, if ever-so-briefly, the shining jewels of my world, focal spots of happiness who seldom get the recognition they deserve in the landscape or in print.  In fact, I am taking special notice of redbuds popping, intentionally planted and wild, all over town, bright pink-red blooms beating the crabapples and Bradford pears into bloom and stealing the spotlight from the sparse lime-green Spring foliage of other trees.  Soon, they will fade into the background, underappreciated understory trees lost among their distant lignacious cousins.  

A prominent specimen in my yard, pictured at the left, was a volunteer in my back landscape bed which I have allowed to remain in its self-chosen spot and nurtured to adolescence.  In fact, "nursed" might be a more accurate term than "nurtured", as this tree split into two during a violent windstorm several years back and I braced and bandaged and pruned and healed it to its current form.  Among the many storied uses of Duct Tape, I can add "tree bandage" to the list from personal experience.

Of the 7 or 8 redbuds in my yard, only one was intentionally planted, the aging specimen pictured here at the right, the favorite tree of Mrs. ProfessorRoush and planted just outside the laundry room window. Viewed from the road in front of the house, it frames the right side of the driveway and decorates and anchors the house.  Seen "down the hill" and into the garden, it serves as a complimentary backdrop to the floriferous 'Annabelle' lilac terraced below it, the latter the first of my lilacs to bloom.

 

I have noticed the redbuds especially this year because the fickle Kansas weather preempted and eliminated last year's bloom with a miserably-timed freeze, a not-so-uncommon occurrence that happens here, according to my notes, about one year in five.   A redbud-less Spring is, I can confirm, intensely discouraging, and similarly disheartening in spirit as other dysfunctions of daily life.  Such a depressing interruption of our annual cycle drowns our spirits in disappointment (some choose drowning their disappointment in spirits) while we attempt to sustain some minor hope for the best for next year.  Sine qua non, while the late night television lineup seems packed with commercials of remedies for erectile dysfunction (which it demurely refers to as "ED"), there is no known cure for gardeners who suffer from RD (redbud dysfunction). 

My notes also tell me that the redbuds are blooming early this year, a full 10 days ahead of their average peak.  I originally thought it was a late Spring, but while some species are blooming later than normal (Scilla, daffodils), others seem to be early.  Perhaps the long cold Winter and sudden, extended, warm period in mid-March has compressed the season. Some species and accurate dates, sadly, are often respectively missing or suspect as I am prone to only note early blooming species and choose those notations by whim. And consistently, by late April I fade away and stop recording.  So some years I mention the first blooms of some species and other years I don't record them but have notes of other flowers.   A better system might be to take notes of blooming plants on specific days; the 1st, 5th, 10th, etc. of each month, for example, which might improve accuracy and consistency.

The last two photos here reflect the remaining redbuds in my garden.   On the annual Manhattan Area Garden Tour a decade back, I noted that one homeowner had created a "grove" of redbuds.   Intrigued by the idea, I have collected, over several years, a half-dozen of volunteer redbud seedlings from their birth sites and replanted them beneath a Cottonwood tree at the back of the yard.   Here around the solid garden bench and protected by the Cottonwood, some have grown enough to be noticeable at bloom, and in 5-10 years, I expect this to be a wondrous focal point, full of mystery and life and Spring fairies each year.

Magnificent Magnolification

'Ann' Magnolia

 As nice as it is when my Magnolia stellata recovers from disaster, it's nicer still when my other magnolias burst into bloom with a bountiful floriferous display.   Oh, I know you southern gardeners are quietly laughing behind your masks, sitting there with your Sweet Bay Magnolias and Live Oaks in full display now out your windows, the former casually doling out dinner-plate sized blossoms and filling the air with fragrance, but one takes what one can get.  Particularly, we poor middle Plains dwellers are happy at any "magnolification" of our lives. 

'Ann' Magnolia

My life, or at least my garden, is measurably richer since I discovered the "Little Girl" series of magnolias, eight Zone-4-hardy cultivars released in 1968 by the National Arboretum. Crosses of one of two Magnolia liliiflora cultivars (‘Nigra’ and ‘Reflorescens’) and one of two Magnolia stellata cultivars (‘Rosea’ and ‘Waterlily’), these bloom "approximately two weeks later" than Magnolia stellata.  I, and I presume other Zone 5-6 gardeners, are forever grateful to William F. Kosar and Dr. Francis de Vos, who made these sterile F1 hybrids at the U.S. National Arboretum in 1955 and 1956. 

'Jane' Magnolia

I have only light pink 'Jane' and more deeply red-wine-colored 'Ann' of the series, although I briefly grew 'Susan'  in 2007 and never got her established.  My 'Jane' is a 2008 planting for me, and she grows taller than 'Ann', forming a 10 foot tall by 8 foot wide specimen at maturity.   I planted 'Ann' in 2013 and she's grown into a striking lass of 7 foot tall and 5 feet wide now.  'Ann' is Mrs. ProfessorRoush's favorite among my magnolias, doubtless for the richer color, and she's a little ahead of the forsythia beside her this year.  I have not made a concerted effort to search out the other National Arboretum releases, buying what I find locally when I come across it.

'Jane' Magnolia

All of these 'Little Girl' cultivars grow as clumps rather than trees, although for me, that just means more flowers whenever these escape late freezes.   I'm sure a few mad gardeners out there are trying to train one of them into unnatural single-stemmed forms, but there are twisted gardeners out there among all the other twisted human beings.   My maternal grandmother used to wisely proclaim "there's a fool for every fool," referring usually to couples, but I'd stretch that sentiment to "there's a warped gardener for every unnatural plant."

'Ann' Magnolia

I'm thrilled these two little beauties show only the faintest damage from our cold spell last week, and the near future forecasts show, for once, that they're likely to give me a full season before they fade back into the greenery with all the other foliage.  Both, so far, are hardy and completely trouble-free for me requiring only a bit of trimming of low buds or fencing to keep the deer from nibbling all the tender buds before they open.

Meanwhile, somewhere out there, my 'Yellow Bird' Magnolia is budding up, preparing to take the baton from my "Little Girls" in the massive relay race of deciduous life.  I'm sure another annual 'Yellow Bird' admiration post is just around the bend!

Resilent and Resolute

03/18/2025

As a not-so-fortunate example of the highs and lows of gardening in Kansas, ProfessorRoush will live up to his blogging pseudonym and use the visual effects of this week's weather weirdness on his mature and long-suffering Magnolia stellata as an apt illustration for the enlightment of others.  The reader, likely safely within their own cocoon of warmth and shelter, can receive this blog entry as a message of hope, a cry for help, a non-silent protest of suffering, or as a combination of all three. 

Let's recap, shall we?   The photo above, taken on the evening of 3/18/2025, showed my beautiful Star Magnolia on its first day of full display in 2025, resplendent after a 76ºF day and several previous warm days.  The temperature that evening began to drop around 5 p.m., was still 68º at 10 p.m., and the drop continued overnight and through the next day, supplemented by a cold wind and snow flurries.   By 5:30 p.m. on 3/19/2025, it was 36ºF and my back yard looked like this (the Magnolia is behind the prominent tree on the left):

03/20/2025

By the evening of 3/20/2025, my lovely M. stellata had, indeed and as predicted, turned to brown mush, a muted tableau in the grand view, and a disastrous display of ruined blossoms in the closer view.  Oh, the despair!  Oh, the horror!

Stunning, isn't it, how quickly the fickle fingers of weather can crush the vision and hopes of a gardener, literally freezing out any designs and dreams of a glorious future?  One, indeed, could not blame a gardener who, after such a disappointment, hangs down their head and hangs up their shears.  Nor condemn one who chooses the extreme alternative of a graveled lawn and plastic plants for its low maintenance and absence of heartache.   It would be so easy to withdraw indoors away from such devastation and choose to gluttonously eat an entire chocolate cake or to drink oneself into an uncaring stupor in the aftermath.

The experienced Kansas gardener, and, lo, nearly all Midwestern gardeners, however, are made of sterner stuff, battle-worn and weary, tested but yet undefeated.  Even among the browned petals of lost flowers, one can find hope in the still-closed buds and demure cream-pink hints of beauty-to-come.

03/22/2025

And here it is, two days later, after a sunny day of a 62ºF high and in the midst of a 2nd sunny day at 66ºF, back to blooming like there was no yesterday and because it knows there may be, in fact, no tomorrow.  But there is, at the end of even the worst day, always hope that if a tomorrow comes, it will be filled with warmth and sunshine and calm, heaven descended to ground and peace on Earth for all creatures verdant or vital.