Positional Vistas

I am a gardener that spends most of my garden time looking down at the level of my feet, peering into the depths of each flower in search of beauty, examining each leaf closely for evidence of insect damage or fungus, standing fast against the tiny advance guard of marauding weeds.  I rarely take the time to glance up into the greater world and appreciate the wider views of my garden.  I could probably blame my approach to gardening on my surgical training because of the similar approach when I concentrate on a surgery.  In one moment, in a surgery, the world is small, the length of an incision or of a bone fragment.  The work completed, I take a breath and suddenly there is a bright room, with people and beeping anesthesia machines and the clank of instruments thrown back onto the table.  My innate focus on the activity at hand, however, is probably not training but is simply my nature and perhaps why I enjoy both my vocation and my hobby.  Anyway, the lesson for the today is to try not to be like me.

I was struck recently, walking Bella and passing by the northeast facing "entrance" to my back patio (shown above left), that a tall pillar rose on the left and the house on the right frame an almost good vista, the fake path stones leading one's eye to the patio and the statue and steps at the other end beckoning onward.  I was also struck by the fact that I know the view from top of the steps at the other end, shown to the right here, is not quite as artful, no frame to draw the eye and the satellite disk rudely imposing on the scene.









But those observations did serve to lead me into a search for other pleasing vistas in my garden and I learned once again that finding beauty is often simply a matter of one's perspective.  A frontal view of this peony bed, with peonies, mockorange, and honeysuckle in full bloom is not nearly so interesting as the "long axis" view at the left, with the curved line of the bed drawing our eyes down it.  It was a fabulous Spring morning, that day I took this photo.











And likewise, my lavender border, frozen back and beaten down by a harsh winter, looks like forty miles of bad road until the gardener or visitor takes a position to look along the bed, focusing on the upended limestone rock at the center.  The light blues, purples, grays and greens are so soothing that I could sit and look at this picture all day long.













I need to remember to look up far more often.  I live in a place where the sky and the land meet sometimes to form a fantastic view, a vista that only needs to be carefully framed to release the magic within it.  Two steps to the right and several feet forward and the picture at the left, of the low clouds, distant fog and my neighbor's house, could have been an even better memory of a special early morning.  We merely need to always remember to look for the beauty, frame it, and file it away, in a picture or in that collection of neural paths called a memory.  Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, but it is certainly enhanced and improved by the perspective of the beholder.

Rural Rhythm

Among the Griffith Buck roses that I ordered and planted this year is a delightful delicate pink rose named 'Rural Rhythm'.  Introduced in 1984, 'Rural Rhythm' is a cross of 'Carefree Beauty' and 'The Yeoman' and is the first of the Buck roses I've run across that incorporated David Austin's English Rose line in the breeding.   I would say her appearance, however, reminds me of a more delicate 'Tiffany', the very shell pink blossoms of 'Rural Rhythm' tending to yellow at the base.  The petals on this rose are, however, almost translucent when the rose fully opens, reminiscent of the English rose parent.  According to Sam Kedem, the color of the flowers intensify in cool weather, so I'll be looking forward to that as Fall nears.

'Rural Rhythm' blooms in clusters of 1-5 and the flowers are full and quite large, about 4 inches in diameter.  They start out in Hybrid Tea form, but quickly open to golden stamens against a light yellow center. One poster on Gardenweb.com suggested that the flowers have weak necks but I haven't yet noticed that here.  On the plus side, the bloom is so light-colored that it doesn't burn in the Kansas sun, but not so light that it browns when it gets wet or fades.  There is a moderate fragrance to my nose, again tending more to the English rose parent.  My small bush has been blooming its head off (I counted 20 blooms at once on a bush that has yet to reach one foot in height or wide), but it is far to early for me to say anything about blackspot or winter hardiness here in Kansas.  Internet references suggest that it is both hardy to Zone 4b and blackspot resistant.  I did run across a really great pamphlet on hardy roses for Zone 4 from the University of Idaho Extension, which listed Rural Rhythm as having 50% winter dieback.  

Beyond everything else, I simply love the name of 'Rural Rhythm'.  I can't find any explanation of why Dr. Buck gave it that name, but it has everything going for it.  It has alliteration, it rolls off the tongue, and it reflects the quiet nature of the rose in the garden.  My rural garden.

Pink Daylily Rap

'Frosted Vintage Ruffles'

I like pink day-lilies and I cannot lie

You other gardeners can't deny

When a bud pops open
with a pretty lacy bloom

And a pink that's over the moon

You feel young

Sung, of course, to the melody of Baby Got Back.  I'm not in the habit of singing rap composed by Sir Mix-A-Lot, but I couldn't help thinking of this one in regards to my pink daylilies.  I would advise older male gardeners who like my revised lyrics to make sure they sing the words rather than hum it when they are near their spouses.  Most wives just don't seem to react well to spouses humming Baby Got Back in their near vicinity. Ask me how I know.

'Siloam Double Classic'

I realized, as the main daylily bloom came on this past week, that this year it is the pink-toned daylilies that are bringing me the most pleasure.  And not just any pink daylily, but primarily those with clear clean pink tones.  From top to bottom, the first three daylilies pictured here are 'Frosted Vintage Ruffles', 'Siloam Double Classic', and an anonymous beautiful pink daylily that I'm in love with.  You can be sure that I'll be dividing these clumps  to spread others around my garden this Fall. 

'Jolyene Nichole'???

Of these three, 'Frosted Vintage Ruffles', a 2000 introduction by Begnaud, is my favorite for its delicate porcelain petals, the shading from light to dark pink, and its excellent fragrance.  'Siloam Double Classic', by Henry in 1985, is indeed a classic and a multiple award-winner including a Stout Silver Medal Runner-up.  It deserves a place in everyone's garden.  The name of the third daylily has been lost to my poor records system, but is likely either 'Jolyene Nichole' or 'Siloam Full Dress'.  The former looks a lot like it, but the latter's description also fits and I can't find a picture of it online for comparison.  I've got a huge clump of it shining pink at me from all the way across the garden.

'Bubblegum Delicious'

Pinks that are not quite so pure are doing nothing for my soul this year.  This fourth daylily, 'Bubblegum Delicious' is a more recent (2010) introduction by Kelly Mitchell that I planted in 2013, but despite all the edging and ruffles, it leaves me unimpressed.  The overall combination is just a bit too gaudy for my tastes.  Daylilies are just getting too fancy for me.

(returning to Baby Got Back)...
So Gardeners! (Yeah!), Gardeners! (Yeah!)
Is your daylily good and pink? (Heck yeah!)
Then you should show it (Show it!)
Show it! (Show it!)
Show off that healthy bloom!
Daylily Got Pink!

 

One Man's Milkweed, Another's Poison

I understand that there are biologists, both amateur and professional, who curse Carl Linnaeus for his Latin-infested taxonomic classification system, and I am sometimes among them.  I personally am quite thankful that someone else spent a lifetime pulling apart flowers and describing floral sex organs, because I don't possess the most minute fraction of the patience required.  On the other hand, all the Latin is a bit off-putting.  Today, however, I guess if Linnaeus hadn't been such a stickler for reproductive organ detail, I'd never have been able to identify the new wildflower in my untamed prairie backyard.  Well, Mike Haddock, the genius behind www.kswildflower.org helped quite a bit as well.  Being able to look at a collection of native flowering plants grouped by bloom color and month of bloom is a big aide to those of us who can't count stamens.

This new find is Whorled Milkweed, or Asclepias verticillata L. as it was known to Linnaeus.  I'd never have guessed that this perennial was related to my ubiquitous Asclepias tuberosa because it is not my nature to stare lewdly at flower parts;  I look at leaves, and commonly fail at identification because leaf shapes are reborn again and again in different plant families.  Look, for example, at the leaves of Whorled Milkweed.  I would think those thin leaves resemble a coreopsis family member, but their whorled pattern around the stem is responsible for the species name. Surprise, surprise, the favorite habitat of this one to three foot tall plant is a place in dry prairies with chalky or limestone soils, so my yard is as much of an Eden for Whorled Milkweed as it is for me.  I'd just never seen it before.

Whorled Milkweed, also known as Horsetail Milkweed, grows in colonies just as depicted in the photograph to the left, and it is poisonous to livestock.  Luckily, it tastes so bad that it is rarely consumed from the pasture.  Whorled Milkweed, as other milkweeds, may contain cardiotoxins and neurotoxins, and dosages as low as 0.1% to 0.5% of body weight may cause death in hooved animal species.  The toxins are not inactivated by drying; thus the biggest danger to livestock is the feeding of hay containing the plant.  Clinical signs include profuse salivation, incoordination, seizures, and gastrointestinal upset and death may occur 1-3 days after ingestion.  So, all in all, the presence of this plant in my backyard may not be so exciting as it first seemed.  I need to remember not to cut my backyard for hay to feed to the donkeys, and I may have to watch that the dog doesn't take a bite of the plant, but otherwise I'm glad that Whorled Milkweed is back in my prairie.