Empress of Rose Reads

I have been engaged, this past week, with a wonderful addition to my gardening library, a coffee-table-sized book filled with beautiful pictures and tales of roses such as those that I worship.  The book in question is Empress of the Garden, by noted rosarian G. Michael Shoup of the Antique Rose Emporium and it was evidently "self" published by the Antique Rose Emporium Inc. late in 2012. 

This one is a must have for all my fellow fanatics of old garden roses or "off-the-beaten-path" roses.  For the rest of the world, pagan worshipers of Knock Out and its brethren, just move along please, move along:  There is nothing for thee to see here, and Heaven forbid thee be offended, and forced to gouge out thy eyes if thou wert tempted to stray from the Knock Out altar. 

 

G. Michael Shoup, of course, is the founder of The Antique Rose Emporium of Brenham, Texas, a garden that I was once blessed to visit with my family.   Mr. Shoup groups the roses of Empress of the Gardens into 19 chapters that are titled according to the "behavior" of the roses within them;  chapters such as "Drama Queens," "Tenacious Tomboys," "Supine Beauties," "Earthy Naturalists," or "Petulant Divas."   Looking at the chapter headings, I was envisioning something different for "Supine Beauties," but the two roses discussed in that chapter, 'Red Cascade' and 'Sea Foam', were still satisfying, if only in a floral manner.   For every rose in the text, Michael describes its  background and characteristics, ending always with some adjectives to describe his imagined personality of the rose.  For 'Red Cascade', for instance, he termed it "engaging, adaptable, exuberant."  For 'Madame Isaac Pereire', she's "petulant, opulent, ravishing."  You get the picture; actually you get lots of pictures, beautiful pictures of the roses and all taken by Shoup. 

 

Through the pages are sprinkled a thousand sidebars, which turned out to be my favorite parts of the book.  They are lessons all;  how to peg a rose, the history of Bourbon's, a biography of Ralph Moore, and all written in a simple clear prose that kept me enthralled to the end.  In fact, Empress of the Garden is the perfect gift for the rose nut, rosarian in your life, except perhaps for one drawback.  This is a BIG book (12"X12"), meant for display, and it won't fit on your shelves easily, at least if they're like mine.  I'd have preferred a more library-friendly format. 

 

To this day, I still fondly recall our family vacation sidebar to The Antique Rose Emporium.  My family thought we were only visiting friends in Texas and sight-seeing The Alamo and the Houston Space Complex.  I sprung the Emporium on them on the way home, when they were at their most weary and thus least inclined to resist my passions.  I gained some wonderful pictures from the trip, foremost among them the picture here of my then-very-young daughter standing next to 'Yellow Lady Banks' at the Emporium.  And I gained some roses that still grow here in Kansas, squeezed into the back of the van alongside the suitcases and my children, who were only forced to endure occasional and random thorn attacks for the 8 hours or so it took to get out of Texas, cross Oklahoma, and come sliding up into Kansas.  A small price to pay for the fragrant annual reminders of our trip, wouldn't you agree?  Well, I think so, even if the now-teenager isn't as appreciative or cooperative today as she was when this picture was taken.  What a trooper!   

A Prairie Star?

'Prairie Star' in June, 2012

It is time, I think, to set aside all my grumblings and cursings over the fickle weather impeding the onset of Spring here on the Kansas prairie, and to look instead towards the future bloom of my garden.  One rose that I've briefly touched on before is the beautiful cream-white Griffith Buck rose 'Prairie Star', and while we are waiting for the bloom of new roses in my garden, I feel I should formally introduce her, a debutante coming-out party, if you will.

I've grown 'Prairie Star' since the very start of this current garden, some 14 years ago now.  My neighbors and I, as part of a new development, were able to name the road we live on and we had chosen Prairie Star Drive to commemorate the starry night skies we live under.  It was a quick decision, therefore, when I soon after discovered the existence of a rose named 'Prairie Star', that I purchased and placed her into a new garden bed, where she remains today, surviving the worst of heat, cold and drought that the Kansas climate has thrown at it.

I won't try to pretend that 'Prairie Star' is the best of the Griffith Buck-bred roses I grow, but she is a tried and true survivor here in the Kansas climate.  At maturity, this shrub stands a little over three feet tall and slightly less wide, and she is always clothed in dark green, glossy, disease resistant foliage times.  I never, ever have to spray 'Prairie Star' for blackspot prevention, and she drops very few of her lower leaves even in the worst of summer.  More than that, I can't remember ever having to prune this rose, for she rarely has a dead cane or dieback to contend with.  Introduced in 1975, she has a moderate fragrance (although I cannot detect the green apple tones she is rumored to have)and very voluptuous double form with 50-60 petals per each 3 to 4 inch diameter bloom. 

Where I differ with official reports is that everywhere you look, this rose is described as being pale chrome-yellow, with pink undertones.  Helpmefind.com, Heirloom Old Garden Roses,  Iowa State University, no matter where you look, they all talk about a yellow tint to the blooms.  I have two bushes of 'Prairie Star', purchased from different nurseries (one was, in fact, Heirloom Old Garden Roses), and neither regularly shows any signs of yellow undertones here in Kansas.  Perhaps, in the right light, in the center of the bloom shortly after opening I could acknowledge a hint of a tan, but it disappears quickly in the sun.  I would have described her as white, with pink undertones that increase in cooler weather.  Extremely sensitive to climate changes, in hot weather she'll open and stay a virginal white but she almost rivals 'Maiden's Blush' in pink tones in early Spring and late Fall.   

'Prairie Star' in September, 2012

The drawback to 'Prairie Star', at least in this climate, is that she rarely has a bloom without a blemish of some sort.  These defects can be almost invisible as in the picture above, or quite distracting, as in the picture taken in cooler September weather at the right.  I love the white or blushing purity of the blooms, and she reblooms continuously after a large early flush, but the blemished blooms, worsening in cold wet weather, leave me often disappointed.  I view her as an otherwise ravishing maiden perceived to have a flawed moral character deep down inside.  Her strong suits are rebloom, disease resistance, and form, so as a landscape specimen, she certainly holds her own from a slight distance away.  In an environment where she could be raised without blemish, I predict that she would have no peer, as perfect as you could ever want a rose. 

Utterly Ridiculous!

All right, who's responsible?  Snow?  On the 23rd of April?  Unheard of.  I have never seen snow this late in the year in the 24 years I've lived in Kansas.   The latest I can remember was the devastating late snow of April 5th, 2007, the year I now refer to as "the year without flowers."  It is 32°F here this morning, heading for a high of 43° and a low tonight of 25°.










I can only surmise that this is yet another predicted calamity resulting from The Sequester.  It's being blamed for everything else right now, why not this aberrant weather?  The Feds must have furloughed the guy responsible for Global Warming.  If not, then I want that guy fired immediately because he's not fulfilling his promises.  At this rate we're going to slip back from zone 6A to 5B.  According to the Midwest Regional Climate Center we are 13 days past our median last FREEZE of 28°F in Manhattan, 8 days past our median last FROST!  Our 95% frost free date here is May 9th.  Will we be extending that this year?  Will we break the freeze all time record of May 27th, set in 1907?  I'm starting to wonder.

The plants here knew what was coming.   Everything is late to bloom, and I've had little reason to blog.  Unlike 2007, not even my earliest lilac has yet bloomed, but it was only a couple of days away, as was my ornamental Red Peach tree.  But they're not delayed enough.  Tulips in the snow?  I've seen daffodils in the snow several times, but never tulips.  My peaches and apples were blooming this weekend, so I can kiss those crops goodbye.  The star magnolia and 'Ann' and 'Jane' magnolias are in full bloom right now.  Goodbye magnolias.  My 'Yellow Bird' magnolia is still in bud phase, but I don't know if those fuzzy buds are tight enough to stand tonight's freeze. 






I stand here in Kansas, rejected, dejected, and neglected, as the snow continues to fall.  The picture below was taken early this morning at first light.  It has since snowed another inch and it is still coming down.  The prairie grass is completely covered now.   I've got 11 new rose bands currently in transit, with delivery expected on Thursday.

There is a predicted high of 81°F this coming Sunday.  Just in time to roast the just transplanted roses.

Burning Day

Last Saturday was "burning day" for myself and my neighbors, as we took advantage of cool temperatures and the recent rains to "safely" burn the prairie surrounding our homes.

Prairie burns, as I've discussed before, are an important factor in prairie maintenance.  Burns act to keep the prairie clear of invasive trees and non-native "weeds", and they increase the quality and protein levels of grassland intended for livestock pasture or hay.   As a consequence, of course, our intrusive government tries to regulate and prevent this useful and quite natural act, particularly during April when the burns are carefully monitored to limit their contribution to ozone pollution in overcrowded cities to the east. For untold millennia, prairie burns occurred as a result of lightning or the actions of Native Americans, but widespread burns today are unusual and it falls to the homeowners to nourish the prairie and to protect humans and human property. 

This year, we burned starting early in the morning.  Night burns can be spectacular, but our quiet morning burn was still beautiful and fretful and frightening, all at once.  Our primary goals are to keep the burns from escaping into town, and to burn our pastures thoroughly without burning our homes and outbuildings and my garden.  Hence, we usually "backburn" the perimeters of our landscaping into the wind, and then set fires to run with the wind to hotly and quickly finish the job.  In that final phase, sometimes it seems like the whole world is on fire.














Based on long experience together, none of my neighbors trust each other with a match in hand, and so burning is coordinated in person and by cell phone and burn tactics are chosen by consensus.  I view my neighbors as crazy arsonists hell bent on roasting my garden, but in their defense, the largest uncontrolled fire in this area occurred as a result of me trying to clear a bed for tulips a decade or so back.  Every year, somebody's pine trees get singed or a burn eats into someone's landscape mulch, but this year it was a perfect burn and there were almost no casualties, except for the accidental burning of four large hay bales owned by a neighbor (his own fault).  

I say almost no casualties, but at approximately 6:50 pm, several hours after the burns died down, our electricity died as well.  Pack rats often infiltrate the ground-hugging transformer boxes and nest there, and the nests will catch fire occasionally and smolder for hours in the boxes before finally taking our electricity with them.  Sure enough, on a neighbor's land, a blackened box was smoldering away and there was a large hole dug underneath one side.  Even in death, pack rats will get their revenge.   

I'll leave you teased with the view above, the blackened hills leading into town after the burn.  You can clearly see both the brush that gets burned and the rocks that litter what I call soil in this area. In about 2-3 weeks, I'll post this view and before's and after's of others, to show you the emerald paradise that burning creates on this Godforsaken land.