ALLRIGHT, That's IT!

I've had it!  Or rather I haven't had it.  I'm fed up with the cold weather and the damp wind.  If Spring won't come to Kansas, then I'm just going to have to fake it.  So I will. Welcome to Spring in Kansas!

The pictured lonely plant is a 'Declaration' lilac I bought already in bloom almost a week ago, a Sunday present to myself for the simple occasion of sub-Seasonal Depression.  What, you've never heard of "sub-Seasonal Depression"?   That's a near-terminal condition that occurs whenever a gardener is disappointed by the late arrival of Springtime bloom.  It's a depression born of desperation from viewing the detrimental effects of snowfall on lilac blooms.  Believe me, it's not pretty.

But I digress.  After a few days of pulling the car into the garage and dodging the plants I have stashed there to wait out the cold spell, it finally occurred to me that I shouldn't let these beautiful purple, aromatic blooms go to waste.  To paraphrase Bart Simpson, "DUH."   So I translocated the lilac to our sunroom, a place where I'd probably never try to keep it going year round, but where it seems quite content to wait out the remaining cold spell while the planted lilacs near the driveway shrivel up to resemble brown tissue paper.

'Declaration' is a 2006 release from the National Arboretum breeding programs, a purple-red bloomer to join bluish 'Old Glory', and white 'Betsy Ross' as the members of the "U.S Flag" group of lilacs from the Arboretum.  Both 'Old Glory' and 'Declaration' are the selected progeny of a 1978 cross of  Syringa hyacinthiflora ‘Sweet Charity’ and S. ×hyacinthiflora ‘Pocahontas’.    'Declaration' is a vase-shaped shrub  that will grow to approximately 8 feet tall and bears purple single florets on thyrses up to 30 cm long.  Like other Arboretum releases, 'Declaration' is not patented, and so it may be propagated and freely sold. 

But all of that is just "book-learn'n'", and not really important.  What is important is the heavenly perfume that now spreads over the house from our sunroom into the living room and kitchen.  What is important are the deep purple-red blooms that brighten up my currently-sunless sunroom.  What is important is the lift in my spirits and the contented smile on the face of Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  Based on visual evidence in my household, I believe that Da Vinci must have painted the Mona Lisa while she gazed on a purple lilac in the midst of an otherwise late and boring Spring.  It's the smile of the cure for sub-Seasonal Depression.
           

Sweet Smell of Spring

'Mohawk' Viburnum

Ask yourself, dear Reader, what is it that trumpets full-blown Spring for you?  Do you stir at the first sight of snow crocus?  Don your garden clogs at the glimpse of yellow forsythia and blooming redbuds?  Rejoice at the sight of cheerful daffodils and deep red tulips?  Instead of polls about politicians and social issues, ProfessorRoush would like to see CNN run a poll to determine the jumpoff point of Spring for the gardening public.  I might actually care about that result.

I suppose I react to all of the aforementioned signs, but the concept of Spring doesn't really rise up and excite me until the first fragrant viburnums bloom, as they are now beginning to bloom in my garden.  When I see those floral white snowballs open, when I suddenly run across a sweet current of air, that's when I really know Spring has arrived.  I know it is Spring when my nose tilts to the air and I begin chasing scent across the garden to its source, almost always leading me to a viburnum.

'Mohawk' bush form

'Mohawk' Viburnum has long been one of my favorite shrubs.  It exists in my garden in my "peony" bed, next to a wisteria and the path around the southeast corner.  'Mohawk' is a cross of V. x burkwoodii (itself a cross of V. utile and V. carlesii)  back to V. carlesii, and it has the distinction of being released into commerce by The United States Arboretum in 1966.  My current 'Mohawk' is about 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide, but I had a previous specimen that reached 8 feet in all directions.  When 'Mohawk' is blooming, I can never pass by it without a moment of deep inhalation and intoxication in silent reverence to the fragrance.  To imagine Heaven, one must only stand downwind from 'Mohawk', close our eyes, and inhale deeply.

I also grow the Judd Viburnum (V. juddii, a cross of V. carlesii and v. bitchiuense), first introduced around 1920 by William Judd of the Arnold Arboretum, the Burkwood Viburnum "species" plant often seen labeled as V. burkwoodii (but really a cross of V. utile and V. carlesii), and I grow the species V. carlesii (which is later and not yet in bloom here).  All are extremely fragrant, with burkwoodii a little larger and more aggressive in my garden than juddii.  The blooms are impossible for me to tell apart without knowing the bush of origin.

Viburnum burkwoodii

Of the three viburnums currently in bloom, I prefer the bouquet of 'Mohawk'.  It is less sickly sweet than Juddii or burkwoodii and it gently bathes my nasal passages in pleasure rather than assaults my schnoz with a wall of overpowering scent.  'Mohawk', to my uneducated nose, has more musky tones, which sound a note of deep calm in the fragrance, and it has a hint of vanilla that appeals to me, vanilla lover that I am.  Juddii is also great, but almost too sweet for me to stand there and inhale long lest I overdose and collapse, and burkwoodii has some licorice undertones that I'm not as thrilled about as I am about the vanilla of 'Mohawk'. 

In this week of yet another hard frost, another strong positive of these viburnums is readily apparent as well.  I have not, for a single moment, contemplated them needing any covering or protection because their tough blossoms need none.  The waxy petals shrug off frosts and simply resume blooming as soon as the air temperatures catch back up to the calendar.  Here, as one gardener suggested to me, on this 83rd day of February in the Kansas Flint Hills.

 

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.