Sally Homely

I hesitate to take the contrarian view, but I have never been able to understand the high praise given Rosa 'Sally Holmes'.  Okay. Okay.  I'll admit it. Truth be told, I relish taking the contrarian view (I'm not a tenured University Professor for nothing), but in this case I believe my resistance to the Borg Collective is justified.  'Sally Holmes' just isn't a very good rose for the Kansas climate.

'Sally Holmes' is a cross of floribunda 'Ivory Fashion; and 'Ballerina', bred by Robert Holmes, and introduced in the United Kingdom in 1976.  Rarely, if ever, have I seen a review of this rose that didn't rave over it's hardiness, disease resistance, and prolific blooming.  And its fragrance, color, and ability to be trained to any form.  I'm surprised sometimes after reading the reviews that this rose doesn't dig its own hole and fertilize itself as well.  Bestgardening.com, for instance, says about 'Sally Holmes', "the lovely perfume and large, creamy blooms open wide from pink flushed buds make this a very desirable shrub rose. A wonderful rose in the border or as a specimen."  Peter Harkness listed it in his 150 favorite roses. The revered Dorothy Stemler described 'Sally Holmes' as “A show-stopper in our garden - visitors gasp and cross the garden to get a closer look at a rose that has bloom trusses of a size that are truly unbelievable!”   Just look at the list of awards this rose has won:  Royal National Rose Society Trial Ground Certificate 1975, Belfast Certificate Of Merit 1979, Baden Baden Gold Medal 1980, Glasgow Fragrance Award 1993, Portland Gold Medal 1993. 'Sally Holmes' has an ARS rating of 8.9, placing her in the top 1% of all rated roses.  Can all these people really be wrong?



'Sally Holmes' (left), and 'Lady Elsie May' (right)

I believe, however, that 'Sally Holmes' is a poster child for those who promote regional evaluation of roses and publication of those regional ratings. Roy Hennessey would have a conniption over her. I'll allow that she may be a great rose in the mild English climate or Northwest Pacific coast, but she is not worthy for these inland prairie seas. I will admit that the newly-opened apricot buds have a sumptuous color, but that's as far as I will go with this rose.  Just as the picture at upper left shows, once the apricot color bleaches out (and that happens within a day in the Kansas sun), she's just a white rose with temporarily gold stamens.  The white petals suffer from all the aesthetic deficiencies of every other white rose as they age, and the stamens turn dirty brown by the second day. Does anyone reading this really think that the picture at the top, with new blooms next to fading blooms, is characteristic of a great garden display?  I guess I just like to look too closely at the blooms.

Fragrance, at least in Kansas, is mild, perhaps even weak.  The bush itself is coarse and the foliage, while disease resistant, is far from being disease-free. And my first three attempts to overwinter this rose all failed, so I suspect the widely-quoted Zone 5B hardiness attributed to this rose is a stretch.  Look at it in the picture here next to' Lady Elsie May' (a 2005 AARS winner) the latter a shrub rose that I find infinitely better colored, whose blooms don't fade to be hideous, and who is just as disease resistant and has much better winter hardiness in Kansas. Lady Elsie May's ARS rating is 8.6, still respectable, but I believe the fix is in regarding the differences in the rating of  'Sally Holmes' and 'Lady Elsie May'.

I may be biased, but I'm not alone.  Rose breeder Paul Barden says of this rose "Sally Holmes is a bit tender in my climate and sadly succumbed to last winter's wrath but will be replanted in the same spot to repeat the display of so many seasons before."  And there is the key, I believe, to 'Sally Holmes' popularity;  none of us can admit that she really is a terrible rose in Zone 5B, so we keep trying.  As I said, I'm on my fourth 'Sally Holmes'.  I know a local nursery owner who planted a whole "corridor" of these roses as a centerpiece to an area of her garden.  Yes, some of the end ones are shaded, and yes, the rabbits love them, but I think she's getting close to admitting that despite these excuses, Sally hasn't lived up to her expectations.  I grow around 200 different roses, but won't be including 'Sally Holmes' on any list of my favorites nor recommending her to rose lovers here in the Flint Hills.

OMG, I Did NOT do that!

Well, I've gone and done it now.  Some of you out there probably know what the outcome from my most recent rash action will be, but those who do know what will happen haven't shared that knowledge publicly, at least that I can find.  So I forged ahead, bravely going where no gardener who is willing to admit it has gone before.


Miscanthus sinensis 'Variegata'

The problem:  I'm tired of ornamental grasses that grow too tall and then flop over the roses in an attempt to smother them.  Yes, it was probably bad placement in the first place, but how was I to know how floppy some, but not all of the grasses, get?  I grow a number of ornamental grasses in my mixed shrub and rose beds and for the most part, I enjoy the extra season of flowering and change they add to my garden in autumn, and enjoy them again in winter as they collect and brave the snows. The Calamagrostis sp, and most of the Panicums mind their manners with a few exceptions, bravely standing up tall and not bothering the next-door neighbors.  But many of the Miscanthus, and Panicums such as 'Dallas Blues', just get too darned big for their own good.

I attempted to move some established clumps of Miscanthus sp. this spring that were poorly placed and I was taught once again how difficult the root system of these grasses are to divide and conquer.  In fact, they conquered me and I gave up.  My second thought was to try cutting them back by half in mid-summer and seeing what effect that would have on their ultimate flowering and size, but I can't find any information about the likely result.  Well, to be honest, everything I've read says NOT to cut them back mid-season.  Since I know that grasses grow from the base, I am skeptical of that advice and I'm wondering what the real harm will be. 

So, I did it anyway.  In the upper left, Miscanthus sinensis 'Variegata'  has been sheared off so that the Rose de Rescht at its feet can get some more sun.  Before, as you can see in the middle picture here, its full size even before flowering is an imposing figure next to the roses around it.  And in the picture at the lower right, you can see that I've hacked away at Panicum virginatum 'Dallas Blues' so that it doesn't shade my hard-found new rose 'Lillian Gibson' (the story about that, later).  In fact, a total of 5 other Miscanthus along with these two bad boys got a haircut.

Panicum virginatum 'Dallas Blues'with baby rose
 'Lillian Gibson' at its feet.

So go ahead, those of you who know what is going to happen, feel free to comment and say what an idiot I am and how you would have told me not to do it.  I found that cutting them off was easy to do, about 20 minutes for 7 grass clumps in the evening sun, and I'll do it again in a heartbeat if it isn't too detrimental to the fall display.  I'm hoping they mature shorter and more upright and I don't hurt flowering too much.  Time, as always, will provide me the ultimate answer.  I'll keep you apprised of how the experiment is going.

KSU's Tillotson Native Plant Garden

To finish off my native wildflower weeks on
Garden Musings, I'll move to one blog subject that I'm planning to return to more frequently as this year goes on.  I feel I should do a better job at alerting readers to the learning opportunities available at the K-State Gardens and the various sub-gardens in the project.  I work only a block away from this fantastic gardening resource, and I have the honor of being allowed to provide some volunteer labor time in the KSU Rose Garden.  So please allow me a small advertisement for a very deserving garden.

The Kansas State University Gardens project is a privately-funded display garden on the campus of KSU that serves as an educational resource and as a learning laboratory for KSU students and the visiting public.  When completed, a 19-acre garden is planned that will show off hardscape and tested ornamental plant material in different aesthetic settings in the Flint Hills environment.

One of the already-existing specialty gardens in the project is the Adaptive/Native Plant Garden which was sponsored by the late John E. Tillotson.  It was redesigned in the past two years by a KSU student under supervision of the Gardens Director and it is a marvelous display of plant material that is found growing in natural areas throughout Kansas and the Great Plains Region.  As you can see from the pictures on this page, native prairie plants can make both a floriferous and cohesive display with a little pre-planning.  Last year, I was stunned when the milkweed bloomed and as you can see from the clump of milkweed around the commemorative garden sign above, those large leaves and big flower heads make a standout display if properly placed.   Amateurs and professionals alike can learn new approaches for commercial or residential landscape design from this garden.  Visit it online at the KSUGardens site or in person on the KSU campus.  And please consider becoming a Friend of the KSU Gardens to support the continued development of the garden.

June Not-Wildflowers

I hope you've been enjoying the series of prairie wildflowers I've added to the blog in the past week or so.  However, I would be remiss if I didn't also illustrate that the wildflowers aren't the only blooms or color on the prairie right now.  Some of the prairie grasses also bloom at this time and there are always forbs with some nice foliage contrast:

These long spires are the flowers of the appropriately-named "June Grass" (Koeleria macrantha).  June Grass is a perennial in the Poas family and grows 18-24 inches tall, pushing these green-white heads above the surrounding Bluestem and Indian Grass during this month, but then they'll be overshadowed later by those taller grasses. Named for a German botanist of the 18th century, Ludwig Koeler, June Grass grows in sporadic tufts over the native prairie grass and blends in with the airy white inflorescence's of PrairieYarrow and Philadelphia Fleabane. 

Another brownly-blooming denizen of the prairie right now is Texas Bluegrass (Poa arachnifera).  This dioecious grass chooses whatever sex of flower it wants to display and gets right down to it in the early summer.  The species name refers to the long white hairs of the spikelets which are said to resemble a spider web.  I don't see the resemblance, myself.

Unfortunately or fortunately, my surrounding prairie is blessed with a nice silvery-foliaged sage that I could also argue should be viewed as a prolific weed.  White Sage (Artemsia ludoviciana) is everywhere, both over the prairie and in my mown prairie lawn, where it stands out with a definite weedy look. I once cultivated a clump in my front landscaping where I thought it would make a nice 2-3 foot foliage contrast plant, only to realize that it spreads quickly by rhizomes and is fairly invasive. The flowers are also not very noticeable in the border, so my advice is to just keep this one on the prairie.  I'm still pulling it up from among the Monarda and roses.  It is also known as sagewort or wormwood, both alternative common names that are closer to the true nature of the plant.  Native Americans used the aromatic leaves of this plant for everything from toilet paper to underarm deodorant to mosquito repellent, so maybe the best use of the plant is to keep pulling it up anyway.

But enough of prairie plants without flowers.  I know that some of you must have been wondering why I hadn't posted pictures of the native prairie echinaceas, but the truth is that they hadn't bloomed until just the past couple of days.  If I have identified the species correctly, this is Black-Sampson Echinacea (Echinacea angustifolia).  I'm not a botanist but the other Echinacea in the area, Echinacea pallida, has longer petals and is a little paler-pink to my eyes.  Everyone knows about the pain-reducing compounds in Echinacea,  including the Native Americans who used the plant to treat toothaches, burns and sore throats, but what you may not know is that Echinacea is the Greek word for "hedgehog", transferred to the genus here because of the spiny bracts of the flowers.   The taproot of this drought-resistant plant can grow down 5 to 8 feet, so you can forget about transplanting this one from the prairie into your garden.

For the time being, that's about the end of the June-blooming wildflowers here on the prairie, although I noticed that the prairie thistles are just starting to open up.  When they get rolling, I'll come back with their stickery display.  But tomorrow, a special treat for all you native wildflower lovers before Garden Musings moves back on Sunday to my cultivated garden for blogging material!  For one thing, I think it's high time that I told the truth about Sally Holmes so I'm dying to get to that already-conceived post.