Gas-astrophe

I was suspicious before, but am now convinced, that the biggest impediment to successful gardening is not drought, or wind, or weeds, or blazing sun.  It is surely the gardener's family and other unnecessary hangers-on.

Allow me to provide a timely pertinent example.  Last night, when my daughter was returned by a shaggy-haired but amiable creature she refers to as her boyfriend, they had driven around so much that she was afraid that he wouldn't have sufficient fuel to make it to a gas station.  Since my daughter's curfew is long after her gardening father is soundly nestled in dreams of formal rose gardens, my wife wisely chose not to awaken me for such a dire need, but she then proceeded to move from the merely inadvisable to the completely unthinkable.  She entered my domain of tools and associated man-stuff and gave my beloved 5-gallon gas can, which contained a couple of errant gallons of gas, to the boyfriend and my daughter to add to his car.

This morning, as we were waking, She Who Steals Gas Cans (Mrs. ProfessorRoush) mentioned to me that she wasn't sure they had put the "lid" back on right.  Sure enough, I went out to find that the first (lower) cap containing the spout was in place, but the upper cap, the one that actually seals the can, was missing.  I located it in the driveway, destroyed from being driven over, as pictured at the right above.

God evidently thinks that it is not enough of a trial that the other inhabitants of my household destroyed a critical part to an heirloom gas can that I have successfully used and cared for over 20 years. It is now evident to me, after an exhaustive search around town, that all gas cans are now sold with a #(*@&$ CARB-complaint nozzle that helps you spill gas all over creation.  "CARB," if you're not aware, stands for "California Air Resources Board," a group who has evidently conspired to create self-venting and self-sealing standards for gas cans that make it impossible to actually get the gas out of the can. So, once again, thank you, California, for taking the lead to screw up and regulate another simple process because of a minor percentage of idiots on the planet.  I had to purchase one of these spouts recently on a kerosene container so I could douse and burn a few cedar stumps.  The "non-spillable" spout leaked so much kerosene everywhere that every time I lit the match to burn a stump, I was unsure if just the stump or also my pants and shoes were going to go up in flames.  It makes for some interesting dance steps for fire-starting, I'll guarantee you.

 So, having already searched the local hardware and big-box stores for a non-CARB-compliant gas can, I spent the morning wandering nomad-like among garage sales, a modern Diogenes searching not for an honest man, but for a gardener-friendly gas can.  I finally gave up and found them for sale on the Internet (GOING FAST!) for $30.00, approximately 5 times the cost of the CARB cans found locally, but worth every penny. I briefly considered sinking my entire retirement fund into hoarding the remaining planetary supply of these essential pieces of plastic, but ultimately I planned to buy three; one to use and two to keep hidden and locked away in the attic.  I figured that, given that I'm 52 years old, at an average 20 years use, if the final can got destroyed after I'm 90 it would be somebody else's turn to fill the lawn mower anyway.  Alas, when I hit the "purchase button" they were "out of stock."  Evidently they did GO FAST!  In the meantime, I can't think of a decent garden use for my old friend, so I've given it an honest burial in the garden, singing "In the Sweet By and By" to it so as to complete a heart-rending ritual known only to modern, middle-aged, gardening fathers.

Charming Combinations

I've long been convinced that the best reason for anyone to take photographs of their own gardens is that it allows each gardener to look at the garden through the eyes of another.  My grumbling over weeds and overgrown edging and thrips and blackspot often go away under the camera's lens.  And I'm left occasionally believing I've accidentally done something right.

Last night, the plant combinations were I noticed the most through my viewfinder, some of which were planned and others that were happenstance from squeezing in one new plant next to another.  As a planned combination, I've always liked the juxtaposition of the 'Red Prince' Weigela, the white 'Sir Thomas Lipton' rose, and the yellow-foliaged 'Golden Spirit' smoke tree (Cotinus coggygria ‘Ancot’) at the end of this bed:

And I think I did okay with the 'Globemaster' Allium in front of shrub rose 'Carefree Sunshine':

I also like both of my accidental combinations of the dark iris in front of orange, red and white rose 'Betty Boop' (right) or next to bright red Papaver bracteatum (below).  Either, at peak bloom, are to die for, don't you think? 

Not everything always works.  The Salix integra ‘Hakuro Nishiki' to the right doesn't really contrast off the 'Emerald Gaiety' Euonymus in front if it (it was a replacement for a failed coralberry).  It will look better, I promise, in a week when the light pink English rose 'Heritage' blooms to the left of it.  The gardener keeps trying.....

Digital Wind

I've been a mite perturbed lately with the quality of some of my posted pictures, worrying that I was having a hard time picking from pictures who all seemed to be a little blurry.  I was beginning to wonder, in fact,  if my autofocus settings had gone out of whack. 

But, taking about 80 pictures last night, the culprit was not my camera, but was all around me, spitting and thrusting, zigging and zagging my subjects.  No matter how fast I tried to force the shutter speed by opening the aperture, the wind was foiling my efforts. You want motion as part of your garden ambiance?  You want to capture motion in your photographs?  Come move next to me on the Flint Hills and try a few photos of your garden.

Look closely at the picture above, taken of the bright red rugosa-floribunda cross 'Hunter' in my front landscape bed.  Some branches, especially the stiffer variegated euonymus just behind the rose and a few of the flowers in the center, are perfectly still, while others are being thrown from side to side, just a blur on the photo.  And below, starting to bloom is the miniature climber 'Jeanne Lavoie',  the tied-up canes in the center in focus, while one of the new canes in the foreground is whipping side to side.  

There has been so much wind this Spring that I'm developing a persecution complex.  Several days, driving home from a day of work, I notice that the wind seems calm.  The first thing I do on those days, even before supper, is to grab a camera and rush to the garden, only there to find the wind seems to gust every time I aim the camera in anticipation of a shot. Even when there aren't random gusts, there is a constant steadier wind that has been interfering with my closeups day after day.  What evil lies in the hills and grass, that it can detect my presence in the garden and summon up a breeze to frustrate my photography?

Please, God, give me just a few calm days here in the Springtime during the rose bloom.  I know that August will come inevitably with 100F temperatures and a complete lack of breeze for weeks, but the pictures taken then will often still show motion as the flowers open and quickly dehydrate and shrivel.  I'm just asking for a windless day, say Saturday, when the roses are in peak bloom and the sun is perfect and the wind is still.  Please?