Luck for a Buck (or Nine)

Yesterday I took Mrs. ProfessorRoush and her younger clone on a shopping trip.  After dropping them off into a sucking money whirlpool known to human females as a "mall", I bided my afternoon visiting the bookstore (which means more garden book reviews to come later), and browsing aimlessly at various harmless home improvement stores. 

Not expecting to find any outdoor plants for sale here late in November, I was nonetheless pleased to discover the last remnants of summer's bounty at Lowes, which consisted of several 2 gallon specimens of 'Diana' Althea (Hibiscus syriacus 'Diana'), and a number of gallon containers of variegated sea oats (Chasmanthium latifolium 'River Mist').  It was surprising enough that both plants seemed to be in somewhat survivable shape this late in the season, but of more immediate importance was the fact that the 'Diana' was marked down from $16.98 to $3.00, and the 'River Mist' were all $1.00, down from $7.98.  Needless to say, there will soon be a 'Diana' planted somewhere in my beds, and a half dozen 'River Mist' edging some taller grasses.  Even if only half of the latter make it through the winter to come, I couldn't miss the price of those 'Mist', now could I? 

I either just got a heck of a bargain or else I just wasted a whole $9 and had to dig a bunch of worthless holes in my garden beds.  I'll let you know next Spring.

October into November

One sure aspect of gardening is that we come more and more, over time, to appreciate plants that dependably put on a show.  Take for example, my 'October Glory' maple, highlighted against our first dusting of snow of the coming Kansas winter.  It has otherwise been a pretty dismal fall display here in Kansas.  The drought and summer heat combined to make most of the fall foliage sparse, fleeting, and of hue subdued.  At this time, the leaves of almost all my other trees are down, dry and crispy, blown here and there by the Kansas winds.  But here, even in this subpar Iphone photo taken at the break of dawn, stands 'October Glory', now glorious deeply into November, holding onto its leaves and glowing like a burning flame on the prairie.

In fact, looking around the garden this morning, only four trees are still holding onto leaves.  Other than 'October Glory', a paperbark maple and a swamp oak both cling to dry, ugly brown leaves.  But I'm further intrigued by the fact that one of my three Cottonwoods, a volunteer specimen that I transplanted to a useful spot, is still holding on to some gorgeous yellow leaves while the other two have long been reduced to nakedness.  I'll have to watch this one over a few years, to see if this color and foliage longevity repeat.  If I'm very, very lucky, maybe there is a 'November Sunshine' Cottonwood in the future of the gardening world.

Time Away

Just a brief note to let regular readers know I'll be back to garden blogging soon.  I had to suffer through the last week in the subtropical paradise of St. Kitts and was unable to do any blogging or gardening there, so I had a rough week.  I know that the picture below is just rubbing it into my New England friends who are buried in the early snowstorm, but this is all behind me now and I'm back to the cold, windy plains of Kansas.

St. Kitts;  view from hotel.

October GGW Photo Contest

I've been making photographs for October's Gardening Gone Wild Photo Contest for weeks, trying to find just the right composition to fill what I felt was the nebulous theme of "fill the frame."  The contest rules, as I understand them, don't allow post-cropping of the photograph (the entire "canvas" must be used) so it creates a bit of a challenge to allow my camera lens to do the cropping.  I've taken wide lens garden vistas, and "whole plant" photographs and closeup after closeup, and before today, I believed the hardest part of the challenge was to make my own choice from among many possibilities.  Right up, that is, until I found this solitary, late bloom of the Griffith Buck rose 'Prairie Harvest', and then, even before the picture was taken, I knew I had my entry.  She was perfect, and delicate and a deeper yellow than the blooms of high summer, and even our recent first October freeze couldn't dim her glory.  So here she is, immortal hereafter, my "harvest" of the memories of past summer's sunshine:

Rosa 'Prairie Harvest', 10/22/11