Queen Matrona

September, in the Flint Hills, is the time that sedums become the stars of the garden, or at least they become the stars of my garden.  In my "add no extra water" garden, sedums are a great group of plants to propagate again and again throughout the garden, tying it together and allowing you to fulfill that "repeat theme" fundamental of good garden design.

'Matrona', pre-bloom, mid-summer

My favorite sedum, and one I'd recommend for every garden, is  'Matrona', full of gray-green foliate,  dark red stems and pink flowers.  This one is a four season performer for me;  tall, strong and disease free through Summer, colorful in Autumn,  a copper-brown support for snow in Winter, and then with the cutest little purple buds in early Spring as I clean off the beds. I've copied 'Matrona' over and over in my garden, and just this year I started a hedge of it on the southeast edge of my newest rose bed.  I'm hoping the 10 or 12 clumps planted there will make a nice and neat, if tall, border to its rose backdrop next year.  The entire 20 foot line cost me just one clump from my front garden, divided a dozen ways with a shovel early this Spring. 

The foliage of 'Matrona' always acts as a foil for its neighbors, either through the fleshy, thick character of the leaves or by color contrast with the purple-blue-green color of the leaves and red stems.  Look at it at the upper right, planted alone as an accent among green shrubs and daylilies, or as pictured to the left, in the garden and in full pink flower in front of 'Wine and Roses' Weigela and between Blue Lyme Grass (Elymus arenarius) and 'Emerald Gaiety' Euonymus.  Isn't she just the center of attention?

'Matrona' was a 1991 selection from Germany, and she received recognition as the "Perennial of the Millennium' from Europe in the year 2000 and also received the Royal Horticultural Society 2006 Award of Garden Merit.  The name comes from the German word "matrone", which means "lady of well-rounded form", so just in case your spouse spends a lot of time on the Internet, I'd suggest that all the male gardeners reading this resist any temptation to compare their wives to the beauties of 'Matrona.'  In the Netherlands she is known as 'hemelsleutels', which supposedly translates as "keys to heaven", so perhaps we should refer to this sedum by that name. 'Matrona' grows trouble free to about 2 feet tall in my garden in a nice compact clump, and she gets no extra water or care.  The one mistake to avoid with 'Matrona' is NEVER overfertilize a mature clump.  Fertilization with high levels of nitrogen just causes her to grow lanky and sprawl over her neighbors, a little too voluptuous for her own good.  If she is in extremely rich soil, it often helps to give her a little beheading in late June, to keep her compact, and I sometimes use peony supports on the bigger clumps so that the Kansas wind doesn't flatten her out.  Mainly, just keep her in full sun and leave her parched and 'Matrona' will be a star in your September garden.

Too Soon For Dreams

Every year I watch the commercial Christmas season creep earlier and earlier and, like all of you, I wonder where the creeping will stop. I hadn't, however, realized until today that the Spring planting season is also slowly moving forward year by year.  A spam email from Thompson and Morgan today, advertising an extension on their Thanksgiving seed sale, opened my eyes to the new reality. 

I dutifully opened the provided link to tmseeds.com, an action at least slightly better than the rapid deletion that recent commercial emails from Wayside and High County Gardens have received.  A few brief glances at the website, however, were enough to convince me that I have no enthusiasm to shop for seeds yet.  I haven't moved far enough past the disappointments of this year to even begin to dream of next year's glorious garden yet.

Plant and seed companies need to be more considerate of the delicate condition of North American gardeners right now.  Those of us in the Northern climes are still in that "just-broken-up" phase of our relationships with our garden, fresh from the loss of daily intimate contact and too depressed to think about flirting with the next garden yet, let alone committing to a date with one.  We need some time to let the emotional wounds heal, time to begin to believe again that the next garden could be The One, that perfect garden that we've hoped for and dreamed of all our lives. Twenty-five percent off all seeds for next year just isn't enough to make me put down the chocolate truffles and move off the couch yet. I need a cold winter of rest and the lengthening days after the Winter (Southern) Solstice to heal my drought-stricken, wind-beaten, sun-scalded gardener's soul.

Save your advertising budget, nurseries and growers, for January, when the blizzards are raging, my fingers are frozen, and I've forgotten the doldrums of summer. Spam me again then, when I'm thinking of the gardens of Spring, flush with the beginnings of new love for another gardening year and early romance with the soil. The passing of time alone brings healing and hope, and hope creates gardens. 

Stalwart Roses

Hibiscus syriacus 'Blue Bird'

If there is a stalwart plant of the autumn garden for the Flint Hills, a prime candidate must be the various cultivars of Hibiscus syriacus, the Rose of Sharon.  Tall and drought-resistent, the Rose of Sharon or Shrub Althea begins to bloom in the heat of summer here and laughs at the worst of autumn.  By no mere coincidence, it is also one of the more "tropical" looking perennials available to grow here.

Hibiscus syriacus 'Rubis'

Hibiscus syriacus is a native to much of Asia, although not to Syria as Linnaeus thought when he named it.  This is group of tall bushy shrubs in white, purples, pinks and reds for the most part, reaching about 6-8 feet in height and four feet in width.  Flowers last for a day on the plant and they are edible, although the thought of eating a flower rarely crosses my mind.  But if you want a "plant and forget shrub" for Kansas, this is the one.This shrub alongside the viburnums, are backbone shrubs for the Flint Hills, hardy far north of my 5B climate and sneering at the worst of both summer and winter.

Hibiscus syriacus 'Double Red'

I grow all six varieties pictured on this page; 'Notwoodtwo' (also known as 'White Chiffon'), 'Red Heart' (with its red center of an otherwise white flower), 'Rubis' and its cousin 'Double Red', 'Paeonyflorus' (or 'Double Pink') and, my favorite, 'Blue Bird', the latter pictured first here, at the top.  It was that light blue of BlueBird that first attracted me to these shrubs, and then I realized the wider variety available.  Recently, as noted on a previous blog, I've also added the large white blooms of 'Diana' (a newer, sterile triploid) to my garden, although it will take her a couple of years to make an impact on my garden. 

Hibiscus syriacus 'White Chiffon'

Hibiscus syriacus 'Paeonyflorus'



Hibiscus syriacus 'Blue Bird', in full flower



'Blue Bird' actually blooms a lot earlier than the others, often at the end of June before the summer heat arrives, and it is all the more welcome because of it.





Hibicus syriacus 'Red Heart'



It takes a fairly large garden to place a Rose of Sharon, but if you've got the room, they've got the flowers for your August garden.  Sometimes, these shrubs are the only left blooming in my August garden and they tide me over to the cooler nights of September.  You could say that they keep my heart beating during the August doldrum.



Cardinal de Spread-Alot

It has surely been awhile since I featured a rose on my blog.  After I fled my garden in the heat of summer, the roses and I parted company for the year, except for a brief reunion in late September when enough rain came to stimulate a little late blooming.  My collection of pictures, however, has not been nearly exhausted and I'm going to use them to help us scrape through another dull winter in the Flint Hills.

One rose that I've never blogged about is my (surmised) 'Cardinal de Richelieu'.  CDR is a Gallica attributed to Laffay and dating from 1840, but at least one source has it being bred by Parmentier near that time.  Regardless, he is a low-growing (about 2-3 feet tall) but hardy creature, the worst of the Gallica spreaders in my garden, dancing all over the bed I've placed him into.  I tolerate those bad manners simply because of the prolific, very double, fat blooms and their deep, dark purple color, the darkest of the Gallica roses.  A once-bloomer, over a long period in late May here, I've also found that the flowers stand up to the summer sun and humidity of the Flint Hills pretty well, gaining a little powdery mildew on the leaves occasionally, but never fading too quickly in the sun nor balling up in the worst of wet Springs.  CDR has a strong fragrance, increasing as the petals dry, and very few thorns, so even though it tends to become a thicket, it remains an inviting one.  When it does get a little too aggressive, every two or three years, I appreciate the fact that the lack of thorns doesn't leave me reaching for a shovel to spade-prune it.

I call this my "surmised" 'Cardinal de Richelieu' because my rose is one of my cemetery cuttings, from a local grave whose headstone places the family in the late 1800's.  I could be wrong about its name and provenance, but I don't think so.  It fits the pictures, habit, and growth of that rose to perfection.  If not, then it's another lost Gallica, and a deep purple one at that.

The real Cardinal de Richelieu was Armand Jean du Plessis, a clergyman and French nobleman of the early 1600's, Described as the first "Prime Minister", he was the minister to Louis XIII from 1624 through 1642.  He was also known as the "Red Eminence" and quickly rose to power in the French court.  Richelieu was a dichotomy as a leader, ruthless against the peasants who revolted against taxes levied to pay for the Thirty Year's war, but at the same time, a renowned patron of the  theater and literary wings of the art world in France. I'm not sure how this particular rose came to bear his name, but Cardinal de Richelieu is still an honored patriot of France and the rose 'Cardinal de Richelieu will always have a place in my garden. 

Unless he loses his manners completely.