My Friend

After a search of his own blog, ProfessorRoush can scarcely believe that he has never even mentioned, let alone featured, the clear pink blossom of one of his favorite Griffith Buck roses, 'Amiga Mia'.  But, there it was, or more properly, there it wasn't, a glaring absence of the rose unlisted in the "labels" section at the bottom of this blog.

'Amiga Mia' is a medium pink Shrub rose bred by Dr. Buck in 1978, making it an early introduction in his group of roses.  It is described as "Seashell pink" on helpmefind.com, and as "light empire rose (RHSCC 48C) with white at the base of the petals" on the Iowa State Buck Roses page.  I simply call this a clear pink; no bluish or orange overtones in this one, a color that will mix well in the garden.

'Amiga Mia' is almost a grandiflora; Hybrid-Tea style blooms occur in clusters of 5-10 and open quickly.  They are double (25-35 petals) and 4 inches in diameter in my garden.  The plant is very healthy, with glossy, dark green, blackspot-resistant foliage.  'Amiga Mia' is an offspring of 'Queen Elizabeth' and 'Prairie Princess'.  She is hardy to Zone 4.

Dr. Buck gave her a catching name, naming her 'Amiga Mia', translating to "friend of mine" after his friend Dorothy Stemler, an eminent rosarian and proprietor  of California-based "Roses of Yesterday and Today".   That nursery still carries 'Amiga Mia', with the description from the current owner of "Griffith Buck had a great friend – one who respected and loved him, as well as his roses. Her name was Dorothy Stemler, and she was my mother."

This is my third year with 'Amiga Mia' in this garden (I grew her in my previous town garden), and she is a tireless performer.  She is a chubby elfin rose for me, growing about 3 feet tall at maturity, and she has a round overall form.   I love the bloom color and the constant ample display of her bosoms...oops, I mean blossoms.

I do have two complaints about 'Amiga Mia'.  The first is simply that I can rarely find a perfect, unmarred blossom on her.  More often, they're like the photo at the top of this blog, tempting me to learn photoshop so that I can airbrush out her blemishes, much like the fashion industry does with their flawless human models.  My second complaint is that she opens up too fast.  The middle photo, above, shows the bush with a number of new high-centered blooms on 5/28/13.  The photo at the right shows the bush the next day, with most of those same blooms open, pistils on full display.  No woman of the Victorian era would favor such brashness, so it is good that 'Amiga Mia' is around now, in our more accepting and less prudish society alongside our fascination with the Kardashians and Kendra On Top. 

Gratefully Thankful

ProfessorRoush is fully aware, and mildly abashed, that it has been quite some time since my last rose posting on this blog, but I promise that I'll get to one soon.  The next victim has, in fact, been chosen and is waiting in line.

Today, however, I awoke uncharacteristically grateful and I would be distinctly ungrateful if I ignored the feeling.  I'm not given to displays of random emotion, but I can't shunt aside the contented feeling warming me up on this cold Kansas morning.  I'm grateful for my life and my home and my love with Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  Grateful for my children, now almost grown and gone.  Grateful for the donkey's and the new barn cats and my garden. 


I'm grateful for the plants and life of the prairie.  I'm particularly grateful for the native blue sage that pops up randomly in my garden beds and provides a cooling reflection of the clear summer sky in the doldrums of August.  I'm grateful for the prairie grasses, and for the ample sunshine that makes it all possible.  I'm grateful for the mornings given to my life, fields dewy and golden with the rising furnace.

I'm extremely grateful for the Internet this morning, ready with all the information of the world at my touch-typing fingertips, including the origin of the word grateful.  ProfessorRoush's mind doesn't work in a straight line, often taking bends and u-turns through a maze of thought, and somewhere along this little piece of writing, I began wondering why we say that we are "full of grate."  There is no definition of "grate" in the English language (to sound harshly, to irritate, a frame of metal bars to hold wood) that seems pleasant.  Happily, a short search informed me that "grateful" derived from an obsolete meaning of grate as "pleasing", from the Latin grãtus as in gratitude, and that the first known use of "grateful" was in 1552.  It seems odd that "grateful" would have survived in the English language while "grate" no longer is defined as "pleasing."  It seems odd that I would even wonder about it.

But, strange as it is, I'm also grateful just to wonder about it.

Bluebird Harvest

While I was harvesting pecans, I was also taking advantage of that beautiful November Saturday to make my Bluebird house rounds.  I would rather do this annual chore now, in the sunshine and mild wind, traipsing up and down the hills through the tall grass, before the world gets cold and breezy again.

I'm pleased to report that 11 of 19 boxes, were occupied by Bluebirds this year, a record for me.   Eight of the eleven were boxes of my own North American Bluebird Society-approved design.  Of course, many of you remember the hatch group that I watched closely this year, raised in this nest (to the right) as it looks now and pictured during their growth period (below to the left).   If you haven't seen them before, this is a pretty typical nest for a bluebird, perhaps even a little on the cushy side.  Eastern Bluebirds are not, by any anthropomorphic comparison, very good architects and they seldom place more than an inch of unorganized grass in the bottom of their boxes, varying a little upon the depth of the box cavity.

Of the other eight boxes, two were completely unoccupied and six were occupied by whatever species in my area fills the entire box, top to bottom, with small twigs (House Wren?)  The latter six boxes were all close to the border of the trees in the draw.  I had placed them along that border but facing the open prairie, thinking that the Bluebirds would like the sites, but the Bluebirds seem to be drawn to boxes out in the middle of the grasses, on fence posts.  Since Bluebirds often start nesting in early February in this area, I presume they've got first choice on most of these boxes and are leaving the boxes around the woods and ponds for others.  I think this year I will move some of the woodline boxes out farther into the fields just to make sure I've got a surplus of Bluebird-approved housing in the area.

I have to be a bit careful, however, of my site selection.  I've found that the donkey's like to rub the boxes left within their reach, often to the point of knocking them down, so I've moved several boxes to the opposite side of the fence from the donkeys or into corners where the little brown asses will have trouble getting at them.  Ding and Dong must not like Bluebirds as much as I do.

Pecan Plenty

In the midst of a hectic early November, I almost forgot to collect pecans from my young tree, but after driving over them a few times, I did eventually notice that they had fallen from the tree and were awaiting harvest. 

Of course, my epiphany came when I was rushing around doing other things and so I picked them up as rapidly as possible and filled my pockets.  The ultimate result was this previously picked, pocketed, and photographed pile of perfect pecans placed on ProfessorRoush's kitchen counter.  There are, for those who want to know, 83 pecans in this pile.

Last year, I gathered about a dozen pecans from the tree at harvest, the first year it ever bore fruit.  If my crop proliferates at the rate of 83/12, or 6.92X per year, then next year I should harvest 574 pecans, and the year after I should get 3975 pecans, and then 27500 pecans in 2016, and 190348 pecans in 2017. 

I think I'll stop counting after that since I'll literally be rolling in pecans.  Or I can just start counting pecans by the dump truck load after 2017.  Pecan paradise awaits.