An Old Story

In my garden, working there,
I came across a spry young Hare.
It didn't run, it knew no fear,
It's known the gardener all this year.

This gardener will not do it in,
The Rabbit knows he is a friend.
The Rabbit calmly sits and chews,
The gardener watches now amused.

Rabbits are the price one pays,
For hale and healthy garden sprays,
Of flowers borne on strong green stems,
Of green leaves dancing in the winds.

But in the garden, somewhere near,
Other things are there to fear.
The Rabbit plays on unaware,
That Snake might also slither there.

Sometime soon, the two will meet,
The Snake and Rabbit, one with feet,
The other moves with rippling hide.
The Snake and Rabbit must collide.

Little Rabbit does not know,
The hand the gardener doesn't show,
His Karma never needs to suffer,
Fate will do the deed, but rougher.

Almost every day for the past month, I've come across this little rabbit in my garden, moving here or there, hiding until I was almost upon it.  We've visited enough that this rabbit is now tame, allowing me to move within an arms length this weekend without darting away in frantic fear.  Two hours later I came across this fully grown, magnificent Western Rat Snake in the vegetable garden and I didn't dart away in frantic fear either.   In general, I think rabbits are cute, but I'm not very excited about resident rabbits in my garden.  They don't often cause enough damage to irritate me, but as long as they're around, it is always possible that I go out some morning to find a prize new rose nibbled down to kindling.  I'm not very excited about resident snakes, either, but at least they don't harm the plants, unlike the rabbits.  In the end however, I'm most worried about my kriyamana Karma.  The Hindus may or may not be right, but why chance bad Karma merely to gain a few more flowers?  ProfessorRoush is generally, therefore, a benevolent God over his garden and is quite willing to let nature make the choice.  I suspect this Western Rat Snake will come across this rabbit sooner or later and will be greet it with a nice tight hug.  After all, Kansas is not overrun with rabbits as Australia has been and it isn't because the rabbit's don't breed like, well, like rabbits.  I don't want to be there to see the messy end, but sooner or later, I'm sure I'll come across this large proud snake with a big bulge in its body.  And after that I won't worry about the roses for awhile.

Nature can be very hard.

Bench 2.0

ProfessorRoush places a high value on permanence when selecting garden ornaments or furniture.  I like concrete or iron rather than plastic or wooden.  I want unpainted statuary versus stained or painted figures that need to be refinished every few years.  Heavy pieces are chosen so that I don't need to travel to Missouri to find them after every thunderstorm. Tasteful pieces appear when I can find them, although my tastes are subject to debate and questionable in many instances.

Consequently, when my old iron and wooden garden bench to the right of the front walkway started to deteriorate beyond the point where staining the wood was curative, and to the degree where sitting on it was a chancy proposition, I knew it was time to find a new one, but I couldn't part easily with the ironwork.  This old bench had stuck with me through wind and rain, snow and heat. Who wouldn't have a little interior rot when you spend each of 10 winters outside under a blanket of ice or snow? This bench deserved a second chance and I was just sentimental enough to give it one.

Enter Bench 2.0, my amateur remake using the original iron sides and back.  I used composite/permanent redwood-colored deck material for the seat and back.  The decking material didn't come in the right widths, but I overcame and adapted with selective use of the pre-drilled iron holes and bolts with lock washers.  I tend, when building something, to build crudely but to over engineer everything, so I assure you that six weight-challenged individuals and a dog could sit safely on the new bench.  The curved back iron piece would have required too much work to make it fit, but I reversed it and screwed it back onto the back to increase the weight of this piece and keep the floral print visible.  At this point, nothing short of a tornado is going to move this bench, which I've relocated to my growing "redbud grove" near the shade of a Cottonwood.  Not as formal, but still classy, eh?  It won't need to be redone again for like the next 6 million years and only then to repaint the iron.  And the cost to redo?  Less than a new bench (in fact less than the metal bench that replaced it out front).

You're wondering about the light blue sides aren't you?  That happens to be my "color" for the garden.  I paint almost all the iron in my garden that hue of rust-inhibiting paint, known variously as "wildflower blue," "brilliant blue," or "periwinkle blue" depending on the brand.  I think it looks nice when placed among almost anything in a garden, and it stands out just enough to call attention to itself without screaming at visitors.  Please don't tell Mrs. ProfessorRoush that my garden has a "color" though.  She'll laugh at me and call me strange. There is no accounting for taste is there?

Chorale

In this year's young group of Griffith Buck roses, the award for the best performance by a newcomer goes to little-known 'Chorale'.  This rose has wowed me over and over with its color and its form.  In my "Central Buck" bed, it grows right next to 'Quietness', the latter a better-known and highly regarded Buck rose, yet 'Chorale' is out-performing it day after day.

'Chorale' is a light pink Shrub rose bred by Dr. Buck in 1978.  There is little information on the Internet regarding this rose beyond its parentage, listed on helpmefind.com as a tetraploid cross between a seedling of 'Ruth Hewitt' X 'Queen Elizabeth', with a seedling of 'Morning Stars' X 'Suzanne'.  'Suzanne' is a pink Spinosissima and gives 'Chorale' her presumed hardiness and perhaps the moderate thorniness, but I can see little other evidence of Spinosissima in her.  The other three ancestors are all Modern hybrids, with 'Queen Elizabeth' the only well-known rose of the group.

'Chorale' has nice, high-centered, fully double blooms of 50 petals and the color is a perfect pale pink that will blend well with almost any other rose or perennial.  The blooms are large, approximately 3 1/2 inches in diameter, and they fade to white as they age.  She has a strong apple fragrance that is particularly prominent on hot days, dark green, healthy leaves, and she blooms continually; since she was six inches high, I've never seen her without a bloom and already this summer she's on at least her 3rd flush in the photo at the left.  I can't ask for more from a baby rose. 

'Chorale' was chosen as a blackspot-susceptible control plant in one Earth-Kind study (Zlesak DC et al, HortScience 2010;45:1779-87), but the results of challenging the plant with 3 different "races" of blackspot did not show 'Chorale' as the worst of the test group.  In fact it had less blackspot than Belinda's Dream, a designated Earth-Kind rose for two of the three strains of blackspot.  Since rose cultivar resistance to blackspot is dependent on the blackspot strain or strains in a region and since resistance changes as the pathogen evolves, I can only state here that 'Chorale' is blackspot free in my garden at present (unsprayed), as you can see from the photo above.   

A "chorale" is a "hymn or psalm sung to a traditional or composed melody in church," or it refers to a "chorus or choir".  When Dr. Buck named this rose, I'm not sure if he was paying homage to the beauty of the blooms or if he was referencing the fact that this rose always seems to have a group of blooms on it, but I suppose he could be referring to both meanings of the name.  Regardless, this is a rose that I'm going to expect a lot out of in the future.