Blackberry Bounty

It's Blackberry time here in Kansas!  It's Blackberry time here in Kansas! 

There should be a song written to the wonders of blackberries here in the Flint Hills, a boisterous song to rouse the spirit and whet the palate.  Many fruits are iffy in these dry, thinly-covered hills, but blackberries are usually not among them. The peach crop can be wiped out with an inopportune freeze, strawberries die with the droughts, the watermelons and cantaloupes survive only at the mercy of the squash bugs, and grapes can disappear overnight as the June Bugs arrive, but blackberries, oh blackberries, usually can be counted for a fresh, sweet beginning to the summer.  Okay, maybe except for last year.


I grow a number of blackberries varieties, in theory, but I may be down to one or at most two varieties in reality.  I originally began with a row of thornless 'Arapaho', 'Navaho', 'Black Satin', and 'Cherokee', but those original plants have dwindled with crown gall and I've moved suckers everywhere to grow in other areas, so it's entirely possible that I've ended up with only one of the original cultivars (probably 'Navaho', which seemed the most vigorous) and certainly no more than two of that group.  This year I'm making a concerted effort to provide these thornless varieties some deep watering at intervals (economically, with soaker hoses), in an attempt to improve the number of canes and the harvest.

A couple of years ago, the University of Arkansas released some varieties that fruit on primocanes as well as the floricanes.  Hoping to get two harvests each year of blackberries, I purchased three plants each of Prime-Jim, Prime-Jan (both 2 years old) and Prime-Ark 45 (a yearling) to try.  Of the former two, Prime-Jim seems to be the better variety for the Flint Hills.  It is a thorned variety, but the canes are stiff and erect, not trailing and grabbing at everything in sight like the old classic varieties.   This year, my three Prime-Jim plants have many, many more berries than Prime-Jan, and they are ripening at a quick pace and all at one time.  There are so many berries on Prime-Jim that I don't even care what the second harvest is like because the first out-does any other blackberry I've seen.  Prime-Ark 45, which is said to be the best producer and have the largest berries, is not old enough yet for me to evaluate, and it has been at a disadvantage anyway, putting on most of its current growth during late summer of last year in the midst of a drought. 

I suppose I should expect hybrid blackberries to do well in an environment where wild blackberries grow up everywhere that is not mowed, burned, or otherwise treated, but one can never be sure what evils man may have created during the "improvement process."  Except for a little bacterial crown gall, blackberries are normally trouble-free for me.  In fact, my only problem with blackberries is that I rarely harvest enough of them to use in jam or jelly.  My family tends to eat them off the vine, unwashed, but oh so warm and sweet (the berries, not the family), as fast as they ripen on the canes.  Blackberries stain us, and sustain us, until the main garden bounty comes with summer.

Mme Plantier, I presume?

'Madame Plantier'

Just because I feel guilty about trashing a world-treasured Alba rose in my last rose post, I'll show you an Alba rose that I really wish I'd planted years ago.  My one-year-old Madame Plantier bloomed for the first time this year and I am most definitely impressed by the young maiden.

Unlike my spoiled 'Maiden's Blush', 'Madame Plantier' gave me quite a display this year, young though she was.  She was covered from head to toe for three weeks with 3 inch blush-white blooms, and every one of them just as perfect as the picture to the right.  No blight, no browning buds, no thrip damage.   I think "scrumptious" describes this rose best.  Somewhere, in my reading, I had gained an impression of  'Madame Plantier' as being less than a star, so I had avoided her until recently. What a mistake that was, because a star she is!

'Madame Plantier' is an 1835 Alba bred by Plantier of France.  Well, I think she's an Alba.  Some references list her as a cross of Rosa alba and Rosa moschata, while others list her as a Damask rose, the result of a cross of R. damascena and R. moschata.  Regardless of the actual heritage, the clustered blooms lose their blush as they age, much like a young lady growing into womanly maturity, and they end up flat with a nice button eye.  The bush is almost thornless, completely hardy without protection here, and completely blackspot and fungus free so far.  I've read that she's going to get much bigger, and the canes will stay flexible, so I've provided her lots of room for her anticipated 8 by 8 foot size and drooping arms. What a spectacle that will be!

While researching this rose, I stumbled upon a reference that characterized the scent of 24 Old Garden Roses, and so I can report that Madame Plantier contains 31.44% 2-phenyl-ethanol, 28.11% benzyl alcohol, 21% hydrocarbons, 8.63% geraniol, 5.91 % nerol, and trace amounts of 20 other organic compounds.  Do we really believe that we can take the essence of a rose and distill it to a few carboniferous chemicals?  Blasphemous! This formula is TMI (too much information) and reveals too much of the soul of this beautiful rose, and so I will now attempt to forget I ever heard it.  There are none so cynical as a rosarian who has seen a favored rose stripped of its mystery.

Chipping Cheerfully

Just for those who were wondering how the Chipping Sparrow eggs were doing, I'm happy to report that the babies have hatched and are growing just fine.  Momma Chipping Sparrow, however, looks a bit harried and tense as she tries to keep these hungry little critters fed.

Lately, watching these little bits of life develop, it strikes me that there is nothing quite so life-affirming as watching a nest of baby birds go from egg to fledgling.

Now You See It (or not)

Eastern Meadlow lark nest, exposed

I got another surprise Sunday morning as I was watering a fairly new Acer rubrum 'Autumn Flame' to the west of the house, in an area that I used to mow but have left "long" these past two years.   Practically at my feet, a brown streak exploded and then quickly disappeared into the eight-inch-tall grass about 25 feet away.  Looking carefully near my feet, I found another bird nest filled with 5 brown-speckled eggs.  Using some local forbs as references, I mentally marked the location.

I returned about an hour later to photograph the nest and spent about 25 minutes looking for it, even knowing it was within a 5 foot square area, and I located it only after I got on my hands and knees and slowly combed the brush to find it.

 Can you find the nest?


How about now?  It's like one of those "Where's Waldo?" games isn't it?  Imagine me moving gingerly around the area, expecting every minute to hear a crunch as I accidentally ruin the nest.

Well, I'll make it easy, the nest is in the exact center of the photo below.  In the first photo above, it's in the right third quadrant at the center line, and in the second picture it's at the upper left.  Almost impossible to find even from a few feet up or away.

This is an Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna) nest and although it is laying exposed on the ground for lumbering animals to step on or slithering snakes to seize on, I've got to give the mother Meadowlark extra credit points for care.  This is a much better camouflaged and constructed nest than the matted patches of grass the Killdeer start their families in.  I guess I'm being a little judgemental here, but, hey, I know a dotting mother when I see one.

I won't go looking for this one again because I'm afraid of damaging the brood, which takes about 2 weeks to hatch and another 2 weeks to empty.  And my own inability to avoid a nest that I KNOW is there makes me wonder how these birds ever evolved to ground-nest in an area filled in recent centuries by bison herds and in millennia past by larger herbivores including primeval horses, rhinos, and mastodons.  I would have predicted that the first stupid bird to drop an egg on the prairie would have seen its eggs quickly crushed and its gene pool darwinized to extinction.  Timing the movement of the herds, perhaps?  Sheer numbers?   Certainly. there weren't many other choices for nesting sites, since there were few trees on that virgin prairie.

But this nest does make me even more happy that I let the grasses grow in this area over the objections of Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  Aside from the decreased mowing time and gasoline usage, I'm now seeing the beginnings of the environmental riches that the native prairie can provide.