Cemetery Roses

The education of an Old Garden Rose fanatic is not complete until they've initiated or participated in a rose rustling event.  To my knowledge, rose rustling was initiated by the Texas Rose Rustlers group (http://www.texasroserustlers.com/), an honest-to-god group of people who are dedicated to preserving and propagating roses that have survived decades without help on old homesteads or in older cemeteries.  Think of rustling as allowing Mother Nature to select which roses we're going to grow and distribute through a brutal 100 year Darwinian exposure to a specific area climate.  Talk about your minimal care roses! 

I became aware of the Rose Rustlers through Thomas Christopher's excellent book, In Search of Lost Roses (yes, we used to actually learn things from hours of reading printed material instead of searching the Internet).  I'm convinced that all it takes to hook someone on OGR's is to provide them a copy and give them a few uninterrupted hours of reading time.  Soon, they'll be grabbing a pair of pruners and looking for the car keys to start their own rustle.  For new rustlers, the rules of etiquette are pretty firmly established;  1) don't do anything that risks damage to the original bush, 2) ask permission before you rustle someone else's rose. Those two simple rules are sufficient to preserve the bush for others to admire and to keep you from getting arrested for trespassing, or worse, shot.  Additionally, I always view it as good karma to give the original bush a little organic fertilizer or a deep watering after I've taken a cutting or two.

I have rustled a few roses myself over time. Old, unkempt local cemeteries always make a good source for possible roses and my 'Cardinal de Richelieu' is actually a cemetery cutting that I'm absolutely sure is correctly identified.  I also have two other roses from local cemeteries, one a perfect white non-remonant rose with light green foliage that I've been unable to identify, but which is heavenly-scented.  The other, found on an 1850's grave in the cemetery of the Beecher Bible and Rifle Church (google Henry Ward Beecher for the history) is a very double pink Alba that was being smothered in shade and that I'm pretty sure is 'Konigin von Danemark'.  The original rose has since succumbed to the shade, but it lives on in my garden.  What the 1826 German-bred Konigin was doing in Kansas by the 1850's, I'll never know, but I bet the rose could tell a great story of its travels.

For those attracted to both beauty and history, try a little rose rustling.  Or read Christopher's book.  I promise either one will give you an afternoon to remember.

Graceful Flame Grass

It is likely no surprise to anyone that ornamental grasses are an important part of gardening here in the Flint Hills. Hardiness and fall color are the two qualities prized above many for our grasses.

One of my two nominations for the best ornamental grass for the prairies would be the colorful and graceful Flame Grass, or Miscanthus sinensis 'Purpurascens'.  It doesn't seem to be sold much at the nurseries in my area, but I obtained a specimen early on in my garden and I wouldn't trade it for all the grasses I could grow.  'Purpurascens' is only a moderately tall grass for me, reaching about 4 feet in height, and it is not invasive in my garden.  It has the good manners to stand upright all year and not sprawl over every other plant in its vicinity as some grasses want to do. In fact, although reportedly hardy from Zones 3-9, it doesn't spread for me anywhere near the l0 feet listed in some descriptions, but stays as a nice 2 foot wide vaselike clump.  In the fall, though the picture at the left perhaps doesn't do it justice, it develops a brilliant orange-red coloring that can't be matched by any other hardy grass in my area and that coloring takes a full 2-3 months to fade to brown, even then often returning to a red shade when wet. What also can't be overlooked are the pure white inflorescence's of the bloom, which stand out above that red foliage. 

In one of the little tricks that botanists tend to play on us, this grass is also sometimes referred to as Miscanthus oligostachys. I can't tell you how aggravating it is to try to find out if renamed plants like this are still the same plant, or even which name is the current one in this case and the Internet has failed me in trying to look up this info. Regardless of what the experts have decided to call it this particular year, I haven't yet divided my 'Purpurascens', but I plan to spread its beauty several places in my garden next year.  Until then, my feet will return again and again over the winter to its bright spot in my garden.

Oh Canada!

I'm not a hockey fan and I don't remember recalling that "eh?" was on my high school English teacher's list of good grammer phrases, but I do thank God for the poor frostbitten Canadian gardener who initiated the AgCanada program for breeding hardy roses.

'Hope for Humanity'

Over the past couple of decades, the Canadians have introduced approximately 37 rose cultivars bred to survive the harsh winters alongside our Northern cousins. These roses were released in two named series. The Parkland Series roses, which tend to be small shrubs with modern coloring characteristics, were bred in Manitoba at the Morden experimental station. The Explorer Series, bred in Ottawa, Ontario and trialed there and at the l'Assomption, Quebec locations, were named after famous Canadian explorers and they tend to be larger shrubs and climbers. I'm currently growing 19 Canadian roses here in the Kansas Flint Hills. Look on the accompanying pictures of dark red 'Hope for Humanity', on the overwhelming first display of bright red 'Champlain', and on the delicate yellow-pink glow that is the beauty of 'Morden Sunrise'. Why wouldn't anyone want to grow these babies?

'Morden Sunrise'

Imagine, you zone 2, 3, 4, or 5 gardeners, not having to use any winter protection to ensure the survival of your roses. Imagine climbing roses in Zone 4 or below who can reach the top of an arbor and whose long canes survive to bloom in the spring. And imagine roses that have been bred to be blackspot resistent as well, because that was part of the goal of the Ag Canada roses program. They even produced a chart listing the number of weeks that each cultivar bloomed during the summer. 'Champlain' and 'John Franklin' are absolute continuous bloomers!

Over time, I'll focus a blog or two on more of these striking introductions. Unfortunately these government-sponsored breeding programs have been discontinued and won't be releasing new roses, but in the meantime, 'Hope for Humanity' can give us all a little hope that other varieties from other breeding programs will be coming down the pike to brighten our gardens.

'Champlain'

Strutting Plants

Gardeners, in general, are a diverse mass of good people, but even the soul-building activities of toiling in soil and caring for living plants does not make us immune to the cardinal sin of vainglory (better known to modern sinners as vanity). Most every gardener I know, without exception, craves that occasional rare plant that will make a visitor exclaim "What is that beautiful plant?!"

During the city garden tour a couple of years back, the plant in my garden that made almost everyone swoon, and ask about, was a surprise even for it's gardener. I don't know where I came across Centaurea macrocephala, but sometime in the past my usual inclination to collecting plants had caused me to purchase and plant it, and by the time the Garden Tour rolled around, it was quite the conversation piece. Centaurea macrocephala, also known as Giant Knotweed, Yellow HardHat, Armenian Basketflower, Globe Centaurea or Lemon Fluff Knapweed (where do they get those names?), is a clump-forming perennial of the Aster family that has essentially two sequential periods of beauty; one when the golden flower buds form, and another when they open to large, yellow, thistle-like flowers. It is attractive to bees and makes a great cut flower, but most importantly it is a standout in the early summer border. At 4 years old, it is a 2 foot diameter by 3 foot tall plant that causes me absolutely no extra care beyond cutting it back to the ground each spring. Rumored to self-seed, I haven't seen any evidence yet that it'll become a pest in my garden, although it has been labeled a Class A Noxious Weed in Oregon and Washington. According to the Internet, it is deer-resistant, drought-tolerant, hardy to zone 3, and thrives in my limey Flint Hills soil. It's a perfect plant except for now, in August, when it's drying up and is a little bit of an eyesore. Luckily for me and my vanity, garden visitors never venture out in the sweltering Kansas heat of August to see that phase.

You should try it in your own prairie garden, if you can find it, but until it's more readily available, I'm keeping my swagger over having this plant.