Stellar Magnolia

Magnolia stellata 'Royal Star'

Despite the lack of much rain, there is a bright spot in my garden.  I've mentioned it before, but a nine year old Magnolia stellata is once again the center of attention in my garden...or at least it was yesterday.  A "center stage" performance, even though it is positioned in the wings of the garden, east of my peony bed.

My M. stellata is a cultivar named 'Royal Star', according to the label.  Those wonderful waxy white blossoms began opening a week ago and seem to be peaking today.  I believe this year's performance is the best of its short lifetime in my garden, and perhaps because it is reaching towards the heights promised at maturity.  My 'Royal Star' is about 5 feet high and 3 feet in diameter, a bit below its advertised 10'X8' maturity, but still a respectable size to make an impact.  She's reportedly hardy to Zone 3B, and I've never worried about her health, only about whether a late spring freeze would shorten the life of these blossoms.

M stellata's best input to my garden is undoubtedly sensory.  During these showy days, a unique fragrance wafts across the garden.  Although I'm not a "fragrance expert", I'd describe this one as dense or heavy, warm, moist and musky, a suiting aroma for a genus that first made sugar from sunlight in company with the dinosaurs.  If I were to make a dinosaur park, a playground reminiscent of Crichton's The Lost World, I'd surely fill it with magnolias from edge to edge.  Those thick heavy petals also echo the mists of time and the presence of swamps and humid breezes and dark jungles. Creamy white at first glance, if one looks closely at a flower, one also sees a slight pink blush when the flower first opens, as if it were embarrassed to be caught in such an immodest display.  Born new into a world when asexual means of plant reproduction were old and unfashionable, and pollen and stigmas and flower sex were new and "hot", magnolias exude sex, from the heavy musk of their fragrance to their brazen display of desire.  "Come up and fertilize me sometime," says this early Mae West.

So, if there's a plus side to not yet having spring rains, its that M. stellata is blooming in peace, petals unstained, perfect and beckoning in the sunlight.  It is a sad thing to think that I'd trade all this beauty for a measly inch of warm spring rain.

Update:  I wrote this before things turned bad yesterday.  This morning my 'Royal Star' is almost stripped clean by last night's wind.  Plus it's below freezing out there.  A fleeting moment of beauty followed by bare nothing.  I'll bet the dinosaurs went out the same way.

A Thor Kind of Night.

ProfessorRoush is angry today.  Lightning bolt throwing angry.










We need rain here in the Flint Hills. Lots of rain.  As a result, I've been waiting all week for the predicted rain this Saturday and Sunday.










Last night, we saw this thundercloud form just to our west.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush was excited for me and for the garden.

I watched it, however, with a sinking heart.  Because I saw this pattern all last year.  And I knew this cloud was going to move north and west of us.









And it did.  Oh, we had a wonderful lightning show.  My iLightningcam app triggered off 220 pictures in under 5 minutes. Click on the pictures if you want to see more detail.

I was happy to get the pictures, however, I had to quit because the cats kept rubbing around my legs.  Standing in a lightning storm with cats rubbing their fur all over your legs is probably not a good idea.  Think static electricity.



Not a drop to drink here though.  Another storm also came and went to the south and east of Manhattan.  Nothing.  We've got a 60% chance here today, but nada currently visible on radar.


We'll see.  It's going to get cold here again tomorrow.  There's a predicted low of 27ºF here Tuesday morning.  Maybe it'll snow.  Does anyone else see a sneering face in the middle of this cloud pictured at right?  Cause I totally think it's laughing at me.

Excuse me now, I need to go cover a few baby roses.  And throw some more lightning bolts around.  Stupid weather.



Update 2:46 p.m.;  Got 0.3 inches rain at noon, but the predicted high today was 72ºF.  It only reached 52ºF an hour ago and is back to 50 already with a stiff north wind.   Yesterday, remember we had a high of 86ºF   Predicted low tonight has gone from 38ºF to 32ºF a...a 54 degree swing in a little over 24 hours. And snow is now predicted after midnight.  Tuesday morning's low is now predicted to be 23ºF.  That would be a catastrophe to just about everything...lilacs, roses, magnolias, etc.   Maybe I can mow it all off and just have lawn.....

Sensory Saturation

Newcomers to the Kansas Flint Hills, during their first March or April in residence here, are often surprised to see seemingly mentally-stable new neighbors and friends turn into enthusiastic arsonists that happily participate in the wanton torching of the surrounding countryside.   This annual ritual, a Spring rite of passage in the Flint Hills, is a necessary part of proper range and ranch management.  Carefully timed burns suppress invasive shrubs and trees and keep them from out-competing the prairie grasses and forbs.   Burns also improve the pasture quality and increase the weight gain of grazing animals the summer after a burn.

Prairie burns also have a number of opponents for various and sundry reasons.  Burns from the prairies increase the daily ozone levels in nearby overpopulated cities; this serves to distract the affected public from directly facing their own contribution to the perpetually marginal ozone levels in these regions.  Lately,widespread annual burns have even been blamed for contributing to the endangered status of the Lesser Prairie Chicken by destroying habitat, as if these beautiful and elusive birds did not evolve in the midst of frequent natural prairie fires.

Setting all of that aside for a moment, however, I always enjoy the majestic beauty of the Spring burns and savor my participation in the age-old cycle of burn and renewal that anchors the existence of the prairie ecosystem.  Columns of smoke from these burns provide grand and epic visions when the burns are controlled, and can terrify and panic the greater region when they are not.  The massive fire pictured above occurred recently on a beautiful spring Saturday and was on the horizon directly to the north of my house.  At such times, one prays for an southerly breeze and good fortune to keep the flames at bay.

The most beautiful burns, however, occur at night, such as the one above. I captured this image of the living flames near my neighbor's house last night.  He wanted to burn the pasture directly behind his house and I assisted, at times worried about the slightest gust of unanticipated wind and at other times bathing in the childlike joy of playing with the fire at my feet.  The sensory impact of a prairie fire is unique and spectacular.   Lines of fire grow from darkness, move forward, meet and blaze up, and then die back to charred earth.  The sight and smell of rising smoke and the crackle of flames in the dry grasses fills the immediate universe.  Smoldering piles of horse and donkey dung add earthy scents to join those of burning sage and prairie earth.  Heat licks at your face while damp night air slithers down your back.  Feet are sore from walking on the flint-strewn ground and muscles tired from spreading and monitoring the fire.  At times you're still, watching the fire creep forward with tentative fingers, and at other times breathless and running to check a worrisome and suspicious area of smoldering debris.  In the midst of a prairie fire, the Earth and the prairie and you are one, merged beneath the timeless gaze of distant stars in a black firmament, one entity enjoined in this single moment of today, in this cycle of cleansing renewal and rebirth.    

Oh, Bother!

"If memory serves"....but memory often seems to fail to serve the old gardener, doesn't it?  I'm always exasperated when I find that I failed to write the name of a plant down or failed to note when I moved it.  I like to call things by name and know where they are.  It is partially a surgeon thing; it's comforting to be able to name the warm and glistening organ beneath your fingertips, and also to know where it should or shouldn't be in a body.  As a gardener, it is especially taxing to me if the plants in question are beautiful and even more if they're a rare and special shade of blue that isn't often seen here.   As Winnie The Pooh often said, "Oh, bother".

These few beautiful iris pop up every year in my "viburnum" bed, protected and shaded during summer beneath a number of roses and viburnums, but they rise early in spring in the dappled shade of the bare stems of the neighboring shrubs.  They are likely Dutch irises (Iris xiphium or Iris hollandica).  Except that I have no memory of planting any Dutch iris here.  I do remember planting some Siberian irises (Iris siberica) in this bed.  And the cultivar names 'Harmony' and 'Sapphire Beauty' ring a distinct bell in the back of my mind.  Except that the latter cultivars are Dutch irises, not Siberian irises.  Oh, bother.  

My planting notes say absolutely nothing about planting anything but tall bearded irises in this border.  In fact, my planting notes say nothing about planting any Siberian irises anywhere in the garden (and I'm sure that I have).  My notes do say that I planted 30 bulbs of the Dutch iris 'Sapphire Beauty' in the "peony" bed in 2006.  That's nice, but there are no iris of any kind in my peony bed.  What happened to all those Dutch iris bulbs in the peony bed?  Internet sources say that they often fade out and disappear, but all of them lost in a few years?  Did a squirrel root them all up and move them to another bed?  That would be a fine theory but there aren't any squirrels (or large trees) within 300 yards of my garden.  Did I write down the wrong name when I noted the planting bed and these are the few survivors of those 30 bulbs? That might make sense, but I seem to recall these iris blooming in this bed long before 2006.  Oh, bother.

I shouldn't care.  They're there and they return and they are beautiful, a sight for sore eyes after a long winter and their quiet tones are much more restful than cheery yellow daffodils or bright forsythia.  I'm darned well going to plant some more around.  Just as soon as I remember what they were.  Oh, bother.

I need to stop saying "oh, bother" too.  I already vaguely resemble Winnie The Pooh as I putter around the garden, tottering slowly from plant to plant.  I avoid bright red t-shirts in the garden for that very reason. Adding "oh, bother" to the mix might further dampen my manly appeal to Mrs. ProfessorRoush.