Organic Agnosticism

I'm going to take this opportunity to confess that while I do try to practice some organic gardening techniques, I also spend some time looking at the whole organic gardening tidal-wave with a bit of a hairy eyeball. 

I try to follow most organic techniques recommended to improve soil fertility and conditions, right up to the point where it becomes manual labor. I'm happy with deep mulching of organic sustainable materials and letting the worms move the carbon into the soil, but I don't double-dig.  If you'll observe carefully, most of the gardening "authorities" who propose that double-digging and deep soil amendment are the solutions to all evil are either a) standing next to and employing the young guy who actually does the digging work, or b) gardening in a soil that has the tilth and mass of sifted flour and where a shovel actually penetrates the soil without jumping on it repeatedly with both feet. Neither of those conditions exist in my garden. The laborer here is me and the Flint Hills soil resembles the consistency of pound-cake with imbedded boulders. I'm a big proponent of mulches to prevent weeds instead of herbicide use, whether the herbicides be synthetic or corn gluten meal. And I'm good with the important idea of selecting plants adapted for your climate and conditions, rather than trying to grow an orange grove here in Zone 5.

I believe we should decrease our use of pesticides and herbicides, but I'd push further for decreasing the use of all garden chemicals, whether natural or synthetic. We've learned over the past few decades that while DDT was perhaps not the best choice to release into the environment by the millions of tons, it's also true that so-called natural substitutes aren't always safe either, as seen with the recent EPA banning of a number of the pyrethrin derivatives. Nature, at its heart, is really nasty, folks, and there are some really nasty chemicals being produced outside your window by the most benign-looking of plants. Still, even while proclaiming that I support the decreased use of chemicals in my garden, I will use them in limited quantities and where necessary for efficiency. I don't mind spots on my apple skins (I peel them), but I don't like finding worms inside. I don't like using pesticides, but on the other hand, I don't know anyone in Kansas who can grow squash consistently without them. I'm not the guy who prefers to spend hours hand-picking bagworms off my Mugo Pine instead of 20 seconds of spraying with an approved pesticide. In truth, I'm the guy who got rid of his Mugo Pine because I didn't want to do either.

The organic gardening movement has many thoughtful and useful aspects, including the concepts of decreased use of pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers, decreased overall water usage, increased and deep mulching, and local food production and consumption.  I'm with the WEE* people on all of those and I try my best to be a good locavore.  But, you see, where I fall out from the Kool-Ade drinkers (look it up) is when reason, knowledge and logic give way to zealotry and fighting over issues of faith. Show me that increased mulching moderates soil temperatures and decreases watering needs and I'm your huckleberry.  Go off on a rant about how the wearing of sack cloth and the double-digging of beds halfway to China will decrease Global Warming and you're going to lose me within minutes.

In most instances, it's because I don't agree that "natural" necessarily means "good", any more than "modern" necessarily means "bad."  I don't really want to go back to "natural" if it means forsaking steel tools, automobiles, and computers in favor of stone tools, caves, and starvation. There's a reason that life-expectancy and personal productivity increases go hand-in-hand in developed countries and there's a reason that modern pharmaceutical's are more effective than bat-wing and newt's eye stews in treating disease.

In short, the true road to gardening Shangri-La is by applying organic methods in moderation. Zealotry without Reason is the Devil's tool.

*WEE = wild-eyed environmentalists, the natural constituency of idiot ex-Vice-Presidents who fly around in private planes, live in energy-burning mansions, and doesn't have the slightest idea of what constitutes scientific inquiry.

Burn the Prairie!

A recent post on the Flint Hills of Kansas Blog refocused my attention on the geology and ecology of the Flint Hills and reminded me again just how unique the environment really is in which I put forth my sad attempts at a garden. The post linked to a National Park Service pamphlet located at   (http://www.nps.gov/tapr/upload/Geology%20brochureFinal.pdf%20) that focuses on the Tall Grass Prairie National Preserve and describes in simple terms how my thin prairie soils evolved and why any plant that I place into the soil has to find a way to grow roots around and through the layer of loose flint that underlays the black soil between the one and three foot deep levels.  The topography and barely-covered sedimentary limestones and shales of the hillsides make the whole region practically impossible to crop farm and it barely allows an attempt to garden as my occasional despondent weeping will testify.  Often, my only consolation at the end of a long, hot day is the sunset, when the blue sky turns to glorious color and far-off clouds on the horizon look like the buildings of a city beyond this world.

We grow only grasses well here on the prairie, both the crop farmers and I, and we grow them because our plough eventually breaks on this unforgiving ground.  Trees fight to gain a hold and to obtain enough water on the exposed terraces and then they grow short and thick under assaults from the constant prairie winds.  Shrubs hasten to put on growth with the abundant spring moisture but the colors of Fall are often blunted with the loss of summer's leaves and energy during the July and August droughts.  Herbaceous perennials suffer in the hot summer sun and pull reserves back into their roots for another try next year.  Deep roots are needed to preserve and protect life from the sub-zero January days. 

The native prairie is dependent on all these things; sun, heat, moisture, drought, cold, wind and crappy soil.  Yet, it's also dependent on one other unique feature under attack from the greater world; Fire.  Sweeping Fire is the creator  and the destroyer of the prairie ecosystem, clearing the land of the ubiquitious junipers and foreign invaders that seek to transform the prairie into ecogarbage, and preserving the unobstructed beauty for the deeply-rooted survivors that have adapted here.  Fire is cleansing for the prairie and also sometimes cleansing for the time-worn souls of the people who live here, particularly as the lines of controlled fires sweep across the prairie nightscape. 

All this, though, is under threat from the bureaucratic slugs who work for the Eastern cities beyond our horizon.  There are recent suggestions and discussions seeking to place bans on the annual spring prairie burns because they temporarily raise the ozone levels of the populated scars on the earth downwind of us.  Burning the prairie is bad, they say, because you push our already polluted cities over the brink; it's your fault, prairie-dwellers, that we're in such bad shape!  These same thoughtless dweebs that push us towards an economy based on carbon credits and whale preservation forget that cessation of burning on the prairie would cause a final loss of the sweeping vistas, the Western Prairie Fringed Orchid, the Prairie Chicken, and an ancient way of life.  How deficient, the vision of Man!

Let the wind turbines populate the prairies, if you must, to help decrease the impact of the human blight on the planet, but leave the prairie burning alone, I say.  The prairie will survive beneath the artifical towers, but it won't survive our ignorance of the natural processes of fire and season.  

I Dream of New Gallicas

I've always been a trifle partial to Gallica Roses, which, tough and drought-tolerant as they are, generally survive the weather and soil extremes quite well on the Kansas prairie.  I grow several of these ancient roses, including the beautifully striped 'Rosa Mundi' (pictured at left) and the species, Rosa gallica officinalis, also known as the Apothecary Rose.  Both of these low-growing, cold-hardy roses are so old their origins predate the Medieval monasteries. Ah, as they say, the history those roses could tell us. And despite my personal dislike of magenta as a color, I grow a number of the "mad" Gallicas, including 'Cardinal de Richelieu', 'Belle de Crecy', and the most well-known of all the muddy Gallicas; 'Charles de Mills'.  

Recently however, on the GardenWeb antique rose forum, I learned of an exciting new possibility to add to my rose garden.  It seems that a rose breeder, Paul Barden, has picked up the gauntlet left behind in the 1800's after the China roses became all the rage and Mr. Barden has began a breeding program to introduce new Gallica's (among others) to commerce.  Rogue Valley Roses, of Ashland Oregon, is the commercial source for the Paul Barden roses and away I went to the website (http://roguevalleyroses.com/) to see what I was missing.

Imagine, for a moment, you're a rosarian in the year 1750.  You have absolutely no knowledge of genetics, pollen, or hybridization.  Gregor Mendel and Darwin won't draw their first breath for decades yet, let alone change the world with their discoveries.  All you know is that occasionally, if you plant enough rose seeds, one will result in a plant that looks a little different from the parent.  If it's different enough, you pass it on to friends and perhaps provide samples for the Royal Garden of your area. 

'Marianne'; picture from
http://roguevalleyroses.com/ 

Up till now, that is what has been available in the Gallica line; those chance, mostly dark magenta seedlings that Mother Nature provided us.  But now we're being offered Gallicas with all the colors of the sun.  Despite the fact that it's late in the growing season and many of the roses were sold out, I immediately ordered the peach-toned Barden rose 'Marianne', which is colored like one of my favorite roses, 'Alchymist'.  I planted it already, a few days ago, in my garden. If it survives the August heat and the Kansas winter, when it blooms in the spring, if it blooms in its first spring, I'll post a picture, but for now, all I've got to offer you is the breathtaking picture of 'Marianne' from the Rogue Valley Roses website.  

I don't know about you, but several more Barden roses will be joining my garden next spring.  'Marianne' will be beautiful, but 'Jeri Jennings', 'Golden Buddha', 'Gallicandy', and 'Allegra' are also going on my list and soon.

Rethinking Iris

Early on, I was of the opinion that Iris sp., particularly the German Iris (Iris germanica) would be the perfect plant for Kansas.  They're drought tolerant, they react to full sun like a cheering squad to a quarterback (think about it!), and they do well in poor soil.  I have two beds of various Iris cultivars mixed in alternating fashion with daylilies and I enjoy the bloom seasons of both.

Struggling iris in wet clay

But the truth is, the Iris in those mixed beds have been both tough to establish and tough to keep going over a period of years.  Both beds are placed in as level an area as I've got, they get well-mulched with prairie hay, and both are based in solid Kansas clay soil.  Translation;  when it rains enough, both beds are a swamp and the Iris drown out while the daylilies love it.  Such a situation occurred this past year when we had an unusually wet spring and early summer.  The iris in these beds and those spotted around some other mixed shrub-perennial beds on the same level are all suffering with small fans adjacent to lots of rotted rhizomes.  Add to that the loss of many of my Iris three years ago during a very late spring, mid-April deep freeze, and the survivors are about 30% of the Iris that I've ever planted.  That's getting expensive on any level.

Happy iris in a raised bed

But in a raised bed on the west side of the house, where the Iris sit near rock landscaping that barely contains the soil of a lilac bed, the Iris are thriving; most were planted only last year when I got a bug for trying some reblooming Iris cultivars, yet they're big and healthy and all are free of rot.  The soil is unamended orange subsoil clay moved there from the house excavation, but the Iris love it all the same.

So, Mother Nature, I assure you that I am listening.  I, just yesterday, selected a sloped area and sprayed an area with glyphosate to kill off the prairie grass for a new bed.  Next week, after the predicted rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, I'll move the wee surviving rhizomes and starts from my other Iris there in hopes of finding them a home more to their liking and I've resolved not to amend the soil for the Iris.   I'll fill in the spots in the old bed with divisions of the daylilies that I like the most.   

Lesson learned: even a seemingly perfect plant for an area needs some consideration of its specific needs and a little labor to get things right.  As someone's website signature recently stated, "the sign of a good gardener is not a green thumb, it's brown knees."