Almost Anonymous Lilies

Wow, talk about your mental anguish!   You see, first of all, I recently lost the thumb drive that contains the list of my 2011 plant acquisitions and my recently updated garden maps.  I was sure I had backed it up, but have been unable find the backup anywhere.  Secondly, I can recall getting a bulb order in this spring from a mail order nursery and I know it contained some Naked Ladies and some other less common bulbs, but I could not remember exactly what else I ordered.

Oriental Lily 'Yellow Dream'

And then this beauty has popped up in my front landscaping and not only was I unable to put a name to it for several days, I couldn't remember planting it this year at all.  Actually there are two of them, very tall (3 1/2 to 4 1/2 feet tall) and floriferous, with about 8-10 buds on each one, just starting to bloom. They are too yellow for Madonna Lilies. They're too late and too large to be Asiatics. They're not strongly scented as near as I can tell right now and they're much more robust than I can usually get an Oriental lily to grow here in dry Kansas.  And they're big blooms, bigger than 'Stargazer'.  And so many blooms on each stem!  Gorgeous!  It is extremely frustrating to me, though, when I can't provide the proper name for a plant (except for the umpteen zillion orange daylilies).

So I searched and I searched my notes and scraps of packages.  I searched electronically through my plant lists for "lily" and "lilium".  I found nothing.  I finally vaguely remembered that I had planted a yellow Oriental lily in my Hydrangea Bed several years back.  And there, buried in my plant maps, comes this note from 2009:  "Oriental Lilly 'Yellow Dream', 8 scattered in Hydrangea Bed and in Front Bed."  The feeling of relief I had was as welcome as a July rain storm in Kansas, even though now I'm a bit chagrined that I can't spell "lily" correctly in my notes.

I do, however, know who is really to blame for my angst.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush particularly likes lilies; it doesn't matter if they are Asiatics or Orientals or daylilies.  And so I resolved last year to plant more of the Asiatics and Orientals to extend the lily bloom period in my garden.  And what do I get for my efforts to be a good gardening husband?  Mental angst and the self-doubt which comes along with aging, the inability to remember the name of something, and the anxiety over whether Alzheimer's disease has begun to set in.

You know what they say, though, about old gardeners and Alzheimer's disease: Forgetting the name of a plant is not a symptom of Alzheimer's disease, it is finding that you planted it in your neighbor's garden instead of your own that indicates you might have a problem.

Thistleocide

You know, and I know, that I've been working hard to preserve the native forbs by allowing vast areas of my prairie lawn to go unmown this summer.  Actually, my actions might be better described as "hardly working", since it takes more effort to mow than to let the prairie grow.  And I've been showing off my native wildflowers in various posts, like here, and here.

Regarding those native wildflowers, however, I draw the line at allowing the thistles to grow unchecked in the yard.  The spiky little gray-green creature at the  right is Wavy-Leaf Thistle (Cirsium undulatum), a less-than-lovable member of the Asteraceae (or Sunflower) family.   It is found throughout Kansas in dry prairies, disturbed areas, and over-grazed pastures.  Hmmm, "over-grazed pastures" is also a good description for a prairie mowed every two weeks or so for several years, isn't it?  Wavy-Leaf Thistle is not the only thistle I've found in the area; Bull Thistle or Cirsium vulgare is also found here, but the latter is not native and is listed as a noxious weed.  Wavy-Leaf Thistle is, however, the most prevalent thistle in my yard, and even if Native Americans did view it as a food source, I do not.

So, I'm dispatching them with a machete wherever they crop up.  Yes, I am a serial thistle killer.  There's just something so satisfying about swinging that big knife blade at my feet and managing to lop off a thistle at the base while avoiding my shins and toes.  It's almost a primeval satisfaction, born out of man's necessity to make his immediate environment more comfortable.  And I also know a secret about cutting thistles, a secret born of experience and farm lore, that I'll pass on to you.

Thistle-cutting, in my case, simply brings back memories of childhood.  I spent a fair portion of my youth on the seat of an old Massey-Ferguson 135 tractor with a "bush-hog" attached to the power takeoff.  Because controlling them caused me sunburn and sweat, thistles and ironweed were my childhood enemies, and I took great pleasure in chopping them down to size several times a summer.  I remember distinctly a five acre section of our cow pasture that had become overgrown with Bull Thistle to the point where neither people nor cows could walk it unscathed.  My paternal grandfather, a farmer from the time of horse-draw plows, related to my father that they should be cut down every year on June 21st, so for several years on the 21st of June, I'd be found mowing that pasture, rain or shine, usually in the boiling sun.  And lo and behold, the thistles declined over about five years until nary a one could be found.

Even back then, young but with an interest in science and nature, I recognized that the real secret was that on or around June 21st every year, the thistles were open in flower but none had yet gone to seed.  And there was not enough time left in the hot summer for a 3-4 foot tall thistle to grow back up and flower and seed again.  So the real trick was simply keeping these behemoths from procreating until they dwindled, an agricultural and military technique that has worked on many different native species time and again over the centuries.


So, I apologize to all the native plant purists, but my ingrained training will not allow me to let the thistles be thistles.  I'm also, of course, preempting Mrs. ProfessorRoush, who might have reluctantly consented to allow a little Echinacea and Black-Eyed Susans to proliferate, but who might become more adamant about removing the thistles.  To those of you who want to join the anti-thistle brigade, take my grandfather's advice and cut them to the ground in late June or early July (or exactly on June 21st to honor his memory with me).  Your pastures may not be purely native, but your bare legs will thank you for it, nonetheless.

Opposites Do Attract



'Slender Lady'

 I know I mentioned recently that I have lately taken a liking to spider-type daylilies.  It's main daylily season here now and my spiders are blooming like crazy;  big beautiful flippy blooms that really bring a smile to my face. I don't know why, I just like them.  Just take a gander at the recent spidery blooms on this page.  Who could ask for prettier daylilies?  Certainly we couldn't ask for bigger daylilies; 'Slender Lady' is almost 10 inches across. 





'Flycatcher'



I was reminded again a few nights ago, however, that there is no accounting for taste. I hadn't realized until recently that I was essentially alone in my household regarding my admiration of spider daylilies.  That realization came when I took a walk with Mrs. ProfessorRoush and we were discussing the many blooming daylilies in the yard and she mentioned that she didn't like the "long-flimsy looking ones." 

Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I have a long-term and wonderful marriage, but every day I thank my lucky stars that she doesn't interfere with, or try to join in, my gardening.  Because it turns out that the daylilies she really likes are the brassy orange ones, like 'Tuscawilla Tigress' (Hansen, 1988) for instance, pictured below.  This is the exact color of daylilies that I like the least (I prefer mostly pinks, light yellows, reds, and purples, except for 'Kwanzo'). The orange daylilies are the ones that give daylilies a bad name, in my opinion. In fact, all the orange daylilies I grow were accidents that happened when I didn't realize how much the pukey color of a particular new daylily would resemble 'Stella de Oro' in a bigger bloom.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush is lucky that I've been too lazy to eliminate the ones I have and believe me, I'm trying hard not to acquire any more.  I stay completely away from the "orange" table at the local Daylily Society sale.  What kind of a name is "Tuscawilla" anyway?  It's not even a valid Scrabble word.  Yuck, Yuck, and doubleYuck.

 

'Tuscawilla Tigress'

What can I say?  I prefer to view our differences as the spices of our marriage and as proof that opposites sometimes really do attract.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush does have her redeeming points, even if her choices of garden perennials would get her kicked out of any respectable local gardening venue.

Say, come to think of it, Mrs. ProfessorRoush and my daughter are both afraid of spiders (the arachnids) and they force me to keep an EPA-registered chemical-hazard zone inside of my house to repel the hairy little invaders.  You don't reckon, deep down, that I like spider daylilies because of the unsettling feeling they invoke to keep the female members of the family out of my garden do you?  Nah, couldn't be :)

Revenant Returnings

Our vocabulary word for the day is "revenant," a new word (at least to me) that is defined in the Free Online Dictionary as:  1) One that returns after a lengthy absence, and 2) One who returns after death.

Buddleia 'Black Knight'

I discovered the term in a search to describe what had occurred when my truant 'Black Knight' butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii 'Black Knight') suddenly popped up this year again after skipping out last year entirely.  I've seen a similar circumstance or two where a plant barely hangs on for a year or more and then seems to regather its energy and burst forth, but I've never seen one just disappear for a year and then regrow.  At least I think it was missing last year and believe me, I searched.  It is in a spot surrounded by early peonies and late goldenrods, and although I looked several times for it last summer, the last time I saw this bush was in 2009.  Given the drought at the end of last year, I had given up on this handsome little bush entirely, but a few days ago it bloomed again, confirming the strength and the vitality of the life force within.  I know that the Butterfly Bush can reseed and it is actually considered invasive in some regions, but I've never had one reseed before in Kansas and this plant is in the same exact spot as the original.

In Kansas, Buddleia seem to be hit-and-miss perennials.  They usually die back in winter nearly to the ground and regrow each summer.  I've grown a number of cultivars, but although some seem to hang around for a few years, eventually most of them have succumbed to the combination of my lack of special care and the Flint Hills environment.  I've grown the diminutive 'Petite Purple' twice in two different spots and both times it has not made it into the 4th year.  I was fond of light blue and very fragrant 'Lochinch' and had high hopes for it since it thrived for 6 years in one spot, but then it died during a seemingly mild winter.  The current 'Black Knight' is my second.   Pretty yellow 'Honeycomb' didn't even make it to her third year, nor did 'Nanho Blue' or 'Pink Delight'.  The only consistently hardy Buddleia that I have grown is 'White Profusion', a large-flowered pure white variety that reaches approximately 6 feet tall each season.  'White Profusion' has survived now 10 years in the same spot in my landscaping, so I think I can recommend this one for Flint Hills gardeners without reservation.  Butterflies flock around it in late July and August and I love the delicate perfume as I walk by it.

If you'd like to see a pseudo-miracle of resurrection in action, then come over and see my 'Black Knight'.  I'm hoping it decides to hang around a few years this time because I'm really not that fond of ghosts or guests who appear and disappear without warning.