Sleep, Creep, Leaping Huskers

As fate would have it, when author Benjamin Vogt offered two free copies of his new book, Sleep, Creep, Leap through the GardenRant blogsite, I was one of the lucky winners.  Evidently, God doesn't deem me worthy of a big PowerBall Lottery pot, but He does follow my gardening interests and decided to help me out a little in that regard.  My providence perhaps wasn't as lucky for Dr. Vogt, since I have been aware of his marvelous blog  for some time and knew that publication was imminent, and so he lost at least one sure purchaser of  his book since I would have eventually purchased a copy on my own.  However it happened, I'm ecstatic to have received an autographed copy direct from the Benjamin.

Sleep, Creep, Leap, subtitled "The First Three Years of a Nebraska Garden," is an enchanting and very readable collection by Benjamin Vogt, who, as previously noted, also writes the blog "The Deep Middle", which includes his thoughts on gardening, poetry, and nonfiction.  Although Dr.Vogt (a PhD-type Dr.) appears to be a Cornhusker, living and working as he does in the enemy territory of Lincoln, Nebraska, and although my blog today is titled Sleep, Creep, Leaping Huskers, this is not intended to be a commentary on Nebraska jumping from the Big Twelve to the Big Ten, nor is it about past K-State vs. Nebraska rivalry.  The bonds between two gardening bloggers are far above such petty issues.

I finished Sleep, Creep, Leap, exactly 100 pages long, in a couple of nights.  Obviously, it was an engaging read and an enjoyable one from an experienced author, because my usual pattern of night-reading results in me falling asleep after approximately six pages on any given night.  The book is full of short essays and thoughts on different aspects of gardening in the Great Plains, and of course, I was interested in what he has to say because I garden with many of the similar plants and philosophies as Benjamin.  In that regard, it sure beats reading about somebody growing bananas and camellias in Florida.  But I particularly enjoyed his stories about exposing his new wife to the gardening world, and about his neighbor, Mr. Mows All The Time, and about transporting trees in his hatchback.

Some quotes from Sleep, Creep, Leap that tickled my fancy:

"For what seemed the first time, I was discovering what it meant to spend eight hours a day in a place without knowing I had."

"Sometimes, I come home feeling guilty.  I didn't really need to buy so many plants or even any plants at all.....And when I return home I hide them behind a shrub, and sometimes plant them when I know my wife's in the shower or away at work."

"I want to say, gee, Ryan, Jim, Steve, whatever your name is, all the synthetic fertilizer you spread four times each summer is a waste....You're just giving money to corporate drug dealers."

"The next day, after much deliberation, fighting my instincts and loathsome attitude tpward most annuals, I headed out with pot and spade and dug up the cosmo.  I put it in the back of the garage hoping it might survive winter, that we both might."

So to my readers I say, pick this one up on a coming cold Winter day when reading about a ruby-throated hummingbird or Helianthus 'Lemon Sky' will be the closest you're able to get to either one.  And to Benjamin, I say, Well Done, your wife was right about you scissoring grasshoppers, it is okay to be a plant snob, I sneak plants from my wife also, and, you really should make love in your garden (perhaps under cover of the roar from Mr. Mows All The Time).  It's obvious that you want to buddy. 

Reminiscences

I'm musing far from the garden today, prompted by random recollections that refuse to be ignored.  Although I made a quick trip into my garden today in the chilling temperatures and dim light of early morning, Memory Lane beckoned later and took my thoughts on a detour.

It's Mrs. ProfessorRoush's birthday, and one of my presents to her, (yes, I'll take credit for anything I can) was to relieve her of dropping her smaller clone off at school.  The smaller clone normally could drive herself but temporarily has lost her keys for the umpteenth time.  Later, sitting in the line of cars at the High School, it suddenly struck me that the gaggles of giggling girls, even the older ones, just seem so...teenagerish.  

It was not that way in my far ago youth.  The female Seniors of my High School were sophisticated and cool and so...unreachable.  Ingrained into my soul is the time that I spent in typing class as a 9th grader, the first 9th grader in my school to be allowed into the class (and yes, it was a TYPING class, pre-computers and computer keyboards).  I was placed into the back row of typewriters, seated between the polished and refined Prom Queen (a senior) and the voluptuous senior Pom-Pom Captain (who actually, at that tender age, had Breasts and occasionally displayed glimpses of them even back in those pre-Madonna-influenced times!).  To communicate the experience to another gardener or rosarian, I can only compare it to being the spiky Echinops planted as a companion between the damask 'Madame Hardy' and the extra-large-bloomed Hybrid Tea 'Dolly Parton'. The entire atmosphere in that vicinity was charged, as I recall, with electricity, feminine perfume, and the essence of hyperstimulated nerd.  In hindsight, it is probably easy to understand how I, a 9th grader and the lone male, won the typing award that semester amidst a class of Senior girls.  The practice of touch-typing is immeasurably enhanced when the attention of the typist is everywhere but on the keyboard.

This all brings up a question I don't want to face, though.  Is it the eighteen-year-old females, and our society, who have changed so radically since the 1970's, or is it the ancient and wise gardening (former) nerd?  I cannot provide a defensible answer in fear that the passage of time has colored my view on the matter.  I will only say "Thank You" to 'Madame Hardy' formerly on my right, and 'Dolly Parton' on my left, for providing in my life the beauty and wonder so otherwise lacking in my pre-gardening years.  And, since it's her birthday, I will also hold up and celebrate the even more beautiful Mrs. ProfessorRoush for turning a hopeless nerd into a puttering and partially-useful husband with a modicum of socially acceptable behaviors.  It was a hard road you chose, Honey.

Bright Melody of Red

Among my Spring-planted Griffith Buck roses, I've alluded to my addition of  'Bright Melody' before, but the most recent, cooler Fall-induced bloom was so beautiful that I just had to share this rose with you.

'Bright Melody' is a 1984 shrub rose introduction by Dr. Buck that is lately singing out her presence in my garden.  These beautiful, double red blooms (RHSCC 61B) start out as high-centered, Hybrid Tea style blooms and open to large (4 inch) cupped blooms that turn lighter as they age.  The brilliance of the rose is set off against a very dark green, blackspot-free foliage.  Blooms come in clusters, despite the example beauty of the single rose pictured.  She has a light scent, but your Important Other won't care about looking past the perfect form of this rose.   No blackspot or other disease here in Kansas either!  Look at the leaves beyond the bloom; perfect still as the cooler weather moves in.  Unlike some roses, I haven't had to fight spider mites or grasshoppers on this rose either.  This one is a fitting offspring of her breeding of 'Carefree Beauty' X ('Herz As' X 'Cuthbert Grant').   

It is always interesting to me that at times one particular rose in my garden grabs the attention and then later it's another.  'Bright Melody' didn't provide me with much in the way of blooms earlier in the Summer and there was a time when I thought the profusely-blooming, heat-loving 'Queen Bee' was the better rose.  But now, in the early Fall, 'Queen Bee' has stopped blooming and it is 'Bright Melody' that is shouting "Me! Look at Me!" across my garden.  Even the faded blooms, as shown at left, are garden-worthy and difficult to choose for dead-heading.  Luckily, I don't deadhead anyway, so perhaps someday I'll get a 'Bright Melody' seedling of my own to further pass on that bright red gene from 'Cuthbert Grant'. 

(Don't) Get the Drift

Since no one has yet posted to the now monthly blog party titled "Garden Grumblings", I can only assume that either everyone is scared to be first, or else you're all giving me the opportunity to embarrass myself before you jump in.  Okay, okay, I'll start us off and use this opportunity to display my worst purchase of this summer: my 'Red Drift' rose.
 

'Red Drift'

Everyone fell into the hype of the Drift®roses this year, right?  The slogans were perfectly designed to sell them:  "From the introducers of the Knock Out family," and, "The Next Big Thing for Small Gardens."  Well, I might be alone out here on this limb, but if so, I'll be the first to say that I'm underwhelmed.  Was I biased from the start?  In the interest of full disclosure, maybe a little bit, since I know that while Conard Pyle HAD introduced the Knock Out roses to commerce, Bill Radler is not the breeder of the Drift® roses; they came from the lines of French hybridizer, Meilland International.

I attended a seminar last spring on the new Drift® roses and was told by the speaker that his personal favorite was 'Peach Drift'.  Despite being a Shrub and Old Garden Rose fanatic, I was encouraged enough by the hype to decide that I'd try one or two out this year, particularly if I could find 'Peach Drift', although one-foot tall roses are really not to the scale of my garden.  Perhaps, I thought, in a container on the patio would be a nice spot, since they are marketed as excellent choices for containers?

Fortunately or unfortunately it took me a week to start looking and by then the local nurseries had all sold out except for 'Pink Drift' and 'Red Drift'.  And they were priced at $30.00 each!  Given the price at 50% higher than the local nurseries sell potted Hybrid Teas, and because 'Red Drift' is more double-petaled than 'Pink Drift', I chose the latter and only purchased one.  And I put it into a very large container in full sun and gave it more attention than any other plant this summer. 

And it is a good thing I only ended up with one, because I'm not impressed at all by my 'Red Drift' rose.  You can see it above, pictured at the end of what was admittedly a very hot summer, the leaves a little scorched from all the Kansas sun.  Yes, it seems to be blackspot resistant, but I did have to fight a bout of spider mites with pressurized sprays of water.  It didn't grow 6 inches in any direction all summer long, despite almost daily watering in the extreme heat and careful attention to fertilization.  And what you see above is the best bloom display I saw all summer, as underwhelming as it is.  The lack of bloom was a bit understandable during the heat spells, but I would think that the cooler weather of the past two weeks would have kicked off a bloom cycle, wouldn't you? 

So, pending further evidence, I'm done with the Drift® roses.  They're just not enough of a landscape spectacle for me to overlook the fact that the blooms are not individually striking. I'm going to keep the container outside, so by next spring, I will have a strong test of how hardy at least 'Red Drift' really is.  I also plan to see how they did in the garden of a friend who planted 50(!) of them this spring, so there's still a chance I'll change my mind. Or maybe not, if you get my drift.