Catalogue Gardening

Like many of you, I am now deep into that annual January effort affectionately known as "catalogue gardening."  My mailbox is brimming over with so many collections of brightly-colored, bountiful images of perennials and produce that my mailperson may have to file suit against my homeowner's insurance to pay for their hernia.  Just a single day recently brought me the pictured catalogues below, some of which I've ordered from before, and some that I've never heard of.

I know that some of the companies behind these and other catalogues are likely run by evil capitalists who are preying on my current deficiency of green scenery in order to increase their sales.  I don't care.  I'm an addict in a poppy field.  Indeed, as I open the mailbox and leaf through the daily minutiae, I can feel myself begin to salivate and shake.  A mere glimpse of the perfect magnified beauties within the pages and my mind's-eye view of my garden begins to shimmer and change.  There are those plants that, upon a single glance, we know exactly where to place within our garden beds and budget.  There are others that make up our wish lists, contingent for their purchase upon pennies from heaven or other unexpected funds.  The choices are narrowed down or expanded again and again, as we examine lineage and breeding, learn about environmental preferences and zonal requirements, and simply choose by our heart's desire.  And then there are the shining iron tools, the irrigation controllers, the cloches, and the plant stimulants to be mulled over.  Will it never end?

It is particularly cruel that many of the catalogues have arrived within the last week, just as if their makers knew that I would have a few days off over the holidays to spend some quality time with them, but I am braced by the knowledge that Christmas bills were high and the sky is not the limit for anything but a trumpet vine. 

I'll look through them all, and some new enterprises will probably receive some of my coin along with my tithes to old stalwarts.  I've already submitted my order to Stark Bros., planning for renewing the strawberries and adding new blackberry varieties.  In fact, Stark Bros. got in line first because I was sampling the less common fruits of the local market and came across an Asian pear labeled as a "pear-apple."  Somewhere out there in a field or a storage cooler is my new Asian pear tree, scheduled to arrive in late March.  In my current state of rose-fever, I'll likely succumb to a few new roses from  Heirloom Roses and Rogue Valley Roses, and nary a year goes by when I don't order a bit from High Country Gardens  and Song Sparrow Farms.  And, of course, the local nurseries shouldn't fret because I always trust my senses of touch and smell to add some final purchases, introduced during the spring trips to the growing greenhouses as my winter discontents fade to April's optimism.

Happy Catalogue Gardening, One and All!

Turkey Trauma

I've long held that the Kansas Flint Hills provide the ultimate challenges for gardeners, whether it be from hail, high winds, ice storms, clay soil, summer drought, below zero temperatures, prairie fires, locust plagues, or just a vengeful Jehovah.  You name the catastrophe-maker in your own garden, and I bet I can match it here in Kansas.  

 One garden scourge that I hadn't counted on when I moved out onto the prairie, however, was the Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), an American native much more adapted to the prairie than I or most of my shrubs.  The picture at the right was taken early in June several years back and approximately 4 feet from my front door in the midst of my front garden bed.  The two vibrant males here were battling for an invisible female in the way of males of many species during early summer. Although they are normally cautious birds who run or fly at the first sign of danger, these two old boys were so oblivious to their environment that you could have hit them over the head with a club.  If you've been to a public pool anytime during early June, you can observe similar behavior in the teenagers of our own species. 

Unfortunately these particular turkeys were having their little tussle all over two variegated red twig dogwoods (Cornus alba variegata) that I had been nursing along for several years.  According to Wikipedia, the males heads turn red when ready to fight and blue when excited, the blood-engorged flopping wattles and snoods displaying their ardor. It is obvious we were in fight mode here as it has been some time since I've seen something so engorged and so red in my garden.  Seen in the background on the picture at left, neither dogwood survived being stomped on for several minutes by the 15-20 lb. skirmishers.   

I have since tried several other shrubs in those spots, including a couple of holly, but nothing quite perked my interest as much as the dogwoods. So this year and $100 later, I'm back with two more, this time with a more specific and I hope hardier cultivar,  Cornus alba ‘Ivory Halo’, pictured and circled at the left.  So far, one entire season into the repeat experiment, both survive and the turkeys are staying down in the prairie grass out of the cultivated landscape.

So, all those gardeners out there who gnash teeth and bemoan their bad luck;  anybody else had a shrub die by turkey attack?  Welcome to the Flint Hills and my gardening life. 

Gardening Resolutions

In the spirit of public service, I'm going to transmit, with some modification, some advice regarding New Year's resolutions that I heard on the radio last night while traveling back from a Christmas visit.

The radio topic was about how to improve your success rate on your New Year's resolutions (if you are foolish enough to make any). I'm sorry that I can't quote the station or the announcer for this info but I'll freely admit that it is purloined from such a source.  Anyway, the radio personality presented a four-part plan for making your resolutions stick which can be summed up in four "P's" (my modification):  Passion, Present tense, Put it in writing, and (have a) Plan.

I'll illustrate the above concepts in terms of a gardening resolution for me for 2011.  The first P, "Passion," stands for making a resolution on something you are passionate about.  It wouldn't, for instance, do any good for me to make a resolution that I'm going to add some marigolds to my garden because I have little interest in placing marigolds in my garden, nor any other annuals for that matter.  One thing I am passionate about right now is that I need to improve the garden bed pictured above by moving the large ornamental grasses (circled in the picture) somewhere else, maybe at least to the back of the bed, so the plants behind them can be seen better.  So my 2011 resolution is to move the darned Miscanthus cultivars in this bed somewhere else.  And if you think that action is not worthy of needing a resolution, you've obviously never moved a full-grown Miscanthus sp. anchored in rocky, clayey soil.

The second P, "Present tense" means that you should always refer to your resolution in the present tense.  For example, you're not GOING to quit smoking, you HAVE quit smoking.  I'm not going to move the Miscanthus sometime this spring, I'm already "in the process of moving the Miscanthus" (dread and procrastination ARE surely part of the process, and so I really have started moving them).

The third P, "Put it in writing" is obviously accomplished for me by writing this blog.  The act of writing down your resolution reinforces the chances that you'll carry it out.  It is a simple contract with yourself that you'll see later and be reminded that you were doing something about it.  In the case of this blog, I also risk the embarrassment of not moving the grasses and then facing local friends who read the blog and who may see the clumps next summer, still unmoved, sprawling all over the neighboring roses.

Finally, the radio emphasized that you should "have a Plan" for how to accomplish your goal.  My plan for moving the Miscanthus is to waddle forth sometime when the frost leaves the ground in late March, and, armed with mattock, spade, chainsaw, and a colorful vocabulary, I will begin to pry the Miscanthus from their current sites.  After about 30 unfruitful minutes of that effort, during which I shall likely accomplish nothing aside from bruising my insoles by jumping repeatedly on the spade, I will then go into town to hire three young strapping men to accomplish the feat while I observe and direct them from the comfort of the gazebo swing. That method seems to work best for the landscaping gurus I see on the TV shows, and so I have high expectations that I will, in fact, accomplish my New Year's gardening resolution.

How about you?  What gardening resolutions will you make?

Bluebird Approved

I posted previously on my bluebird nest box design, so I wanted to update the blog to tell one and all that the "Roush" design is now NABS (North American Bluebird Society) approved. If you'd like to make one, my hideously self-drawn plans are here (page 1) and here (page 2).  Someday, I'll get someone involved with some drafting ability so they can make them a little easier to follow.  Right now, suffice it to say that I've aimed at making a design that uses standard cedar lumbar sizes for ease of construction.  It's front-opening, but could easily be made side-opening instead.  All I ask, in return for posting the plans, is that you help me save a few bluebirds...and support the North American Bluebird Society if you're able to.

Roush NABS-approved
 Bluebird Nest Box

For the unwashed, there is a whole sideshoot of science and pseudoscience involved in the creation of nest boxes that will attract bluebirds but will also be unattractive to sparrows and other winged rats.  They need to be a certain size and of exacting entrance hole diameters.  Ventilation is very important so that they don't overheat, particularly during the summer during the second nesting cycle.  They sometimes need various types of predator guards attached, depending on what roams in your area.  One of the things different in my design from the standard NABS box or Peterson box is the entrance hole is a little lower since it has been recently discovered that bluebirds will use shallower nest boxes and sparrows won't.  Every little advantage helps.

I got interested in the survival of bluebirds because they are a welcome bit of bright color in February against the brown Kansas prairie, and I don't want to see them go the way of the Carolina Parakeet. One of the best books I ever read, and a life-changing experience, was Hope Is The Thing With Feathers, about 10 or 15 years old now, by an English professor named Christopher Cokinos.   The book is a winner of several national awards and in it Cokinos tells of six birds that have gone extinct in North America within living history, chronicling the fall of each species and the heart-breaking attempts to save them.  Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, Heath Hen, etc, all have a place in this unique and engrossing text.  The extent of his research is amazing. For instance, from an old magazine article about the last wild Passenger Pigeon, he found the family of the young boy who shot it in 1910 and received from them a manuscript written by that now deceased individual that described every detail about that fateful day.  You'll find yourself rooting for the birds, and then grieving as the last Heath Hens are wiped out by a grass fire.  Don't miss this wonderful read.

And please take Cokinos' book to heart and help us with the bluebirds.  More information is always available at the North American Bluebird Society webpage, but the "Roush Eastern Bluebird Nest Box" is only found here.