TIL: Hedge Shear Epiphany

TIL, for those gardeners who are not yet hip to Reddit, is shorthand for "Today I Learned" in millennial-ese.  ProfessorRoush was introduced to Reddit by his two millennial children, but I still need an internet Urban Slang Dictionary on standby every time that I venture into a new subreddit.

Anyway, TIL (actually I discovered on my own) something about the hedge shears pictured to the right.  I was using them to chop down some of my thickest Miscanthus clumps; you all know the massive monsters that I'm talking about, resistant to chopping, too slow to cut with a knife and too thick for easy trimming.  Some grasses fall easily to my battery-operated electric shears, but these demons have stems as large as 1/2" diameter, and are tougher than nails to cut with pruners.

To cut these mutants down to size, the best way I'd previously found was to insert the blades of the hedge shears around a section of grass, and then to slam the handles together once, twice, thrice, and more, over again and again with all my might.  It takes a lot of strength and energy to fell several large clumps this way, but I know of no better alternative; all my electric pruners simply clog up and stop on the thick stems.  A chain saw might do it, but I've never tried one, for the simple reason that I hate the loud, noisy, stinking things.

I've always wondered, however, about the reason for the wavy edge on one side of the blade (look closely at the left blade on the photos) of my manual hedge trimmers.  The only internet sources I could find that described it suggested that the wavy design "grips branches for solid cutting."   What I discovered today, however, is that if I pulled back sharply just as I closed the blades, the shears slice through the thick grass in MUCH easier fashion, like scissors on steroids.  Wow, what an epiphany!

This leaves me, once more, wishing I had a horticultural education so that someone would have taught me the correct way to use these shears sometime before my 57th birthday.  In fact, however,  now I wonder if the trick is taught anywhere.  I consulted Jeff Taylor's Tools of the Earth, and found nothing other than the repeated idea that the serrations hold the branches for cutting. Likewise, William Bryan Logan's The Tool Book discussed the wavy edge as an improvement for holding twigs, but left out this little technique of slicing.

So, for those of you who use this type of hedge shear to trim back your heavy grass clumps, give this technique a shot.  For the first time ever, I'm actually looking forward to cutting down Miscanthus.  I'll have to wait for next year, though, because the work went fast today.   I'm done cutting back grass in my own garden, and I'm not enthused enough to go find another garden and cut down some more right now.  I'm thrilled, not crazy.

DeForsythiaized Depression

Okay, now it's obvious, Someone is just playing a particularly cruel joke on me.  I think it was just last year, or perhaps the year before when I said out loud that I should plant more forsythia, doubtless in a weak moment brightened as always by their cheery little blooms in the early spring.  Someone, Some Evil One, overheard me.  There must have been hidden microphones about, hard-wired back to the depths of Hell.  Or maybe I was inadvertently included on a wiretap directed at the Trump campaign.

You see, over 6 weeks ago, I cut some forsythia stems to force indoors, an early gift of spring to Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  They leafed out, but never bloomed, a disappointment I chalked up to my poor technique.  Then a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the forsythia were blooming all over town.  Since it's not uncommon for my windswept hillside to be slightly behind the concrete-warmed microenvironment of Manhattan, Kansas, I was not alarmed, just titillated as I awaited the many forsythia of my own garden.

This week, however, it became evident that I have waited in vain.  There will be no forsythia blooms here on the prairie this year, only a very few isolated bits of yellow that are invisible unless you are searching.  Not on 'Spring Glory'.  Not on 'Golden Times'.  Not on my new superbloomer 'Minder', also marketed as "Showoff".   Not even on 'Meadowlark', my favorite, said to be the most cold hardy of all the forsythia.   They are all leafing out, bloom-less and boring.

 Internet sources state that forsythia might not bloom for a number of reasons, including improper pruning, hard winter, or late spring frost. lack of sun, too much nitrogen, or just too darned old.  In medicine, I've come to learn that when there are a number of explanations, it usually means that no one really knows a cause.  In my case, I can eliminate improper pruning (fall instead of spring) because I don't prune my forsythia as a general rule.  They aren't too old because some of these plants were planted last year or the year before and are no where near maturity.  I can eliminate lack of sun because, well, because it's Kansas and they're all planted in full sun.  And we just had the mildest winter overall that I can remember.  I do have a general tendency to fertilize things too much, but a few of my forsythia never get fertilizer, so that is unlikely as well.  I'm attributing this one to the late freeze that I noted in this blog just 17 days ago.

I'm despondent, discouraged, and dejected over my deforsythiaization.  I'm not sure spring even counts without forsythia.  I'll try to console myself with the bright new foliage of 'Golden Times', pictured above, but it is not enough yellow to start to cheer me up.  And "next year" is just too far away.  Curses.

Concrete Leporidae

How many of you, Garden Fanatics, Part-Time Dirt Grubbers or Cutting Garden Aficionados all, would voluntarily choose to host a rabbit in your gardens?  No?  ProfessorRoush suspects that any decent comprehensive poll of gardeners would overwhelmingly demonstrate their lack of  interest in a resident rabbit or two, even accounting for the usual 80% of contacts that either slam the phone down or ask never to be called again, and for the  5-10% who answer in the affirmative in a misbegotten attempt to throw the poll numbers off.  I don't know about you, but my response to any pollster who calls me at mealtimes or during my Sunday afternoon naps (which seems to be the only time these demons call), is to give them the most contrary answers I can think of.  And then to place a curse on all their descendents.

Here's a news flash:  I LOVE RABBITS IN MY GARDEN!  Concrete rabbits, only, to be fair and accurate.  I have a weakness for fairly visible rabbit statues, here, there, and everywhere.  There is hardly a bed in my garden without it's resident rabbit, from the "Gentleman Rabbit" above, who greets visitors at an entrance point to the lower garden, to the "Begging Rabbit" at the left.








One of my favorites, and most recent addition, is the "Long-Eared Rabbit", that I added last year.  He stands in a refurbished bed of peonies and daylilies just off the back deck.  I enjoy him there, but the tall ears make his center of gravity higher and he tends to topple over on really windy days.












I have several "inquisitive" rabbits, sitting on their hind haunches and curious about their surroundings.  The tallest, at the left, is nearly two feet tall and hard to miss.  I inherited that one from my father's garden about 5 years ago.  Nearly as tall is the rabbit who peeks out from under a holly near the front door, always ready to thump out an alarm at the first site of intruders.








There are also a few more basic rabbits hidden here and there.  If I ever host a large garden party again, I might just make finding each rabbit a scavenger hunt for any children at the event.  On second thought, however, encouraging children to run madly around the garden is perhaps not a good plan.


You can even sit on the rabbits in my garden. This rabbit-themed bench sold itself at a single glance, providing a spot to rest and screening the pipe from a buried propane taken as it enters into the house.  The two "legs" of the bench, are crouching rabbits, better seen from the sides than from the front.




Subconsciously and consciously, I hope that my collection of concrete rabbits is viewed by any LIVING representatives of the clan as either a cautionary tale (stay around this garden and the gardener will turn you into stone!) or as a sign that the neighborhood is overcrowded and they should move on.  I'm about done collecting rabbits, however.  I've been able to successfully resist the impulse to purchase several recent rabbit sightings.  Any more hares in my garden and I'm afraid I might start having nightmares.  Even now, sometimes, late at night, I wonder and worry that they'll start breeding and producing more little concrete bunnies in my garden.  I'm not crazy; one can never be too careful around a bunch of rabbits.

Just in Time

Just in time, I got the debris cleared off the asparagus bed today.  See the new white shoot just breaking the soil in the center of the picture?    If I'd waited another two weeks, I'd have broken this shoot and others off as I snipped away at the mass of brown asparagus ferns, delaying our first freshness of the new year.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush likes her asparagus carried straight in from the garden, sprinkled with oil and Parmesan cheese, and then broiled.  I like it however she wants to fix it, that first taste of soil and spring.







It has been too cold, at least on the weekends when I've been free, to do much of the spring work in my garden, and yet today it simply got too hot.  The local weather app tells me that it is 92ºF here at 5:00 on Sunday afternoon and ProfessorRoush is not yet conditioned to working in heat, so I lasted about half a day in the garden.  I cleared the asparagus bed,  replanted the strawberry bed, put some gladiolus bulbs down, and moved a half dozen fragrant sweet pea plants from their cozy inside surroundings to the cruel world.  I was just starting to cut down some ornamental grasses when the warmth and a rising wind forced me back indoors. The rest of the week is cooler, thankfully, back to springtime instead of summer.  On the plus side, the temperatures for the next 10 days range from highs of 53º to 73º and lows from 57º to 37º, so hopefully, this 'Jane' Magnolia flower, just opening up today, won't get damaged and the rest of the 8' shrub should bloom without a hassle.

Since I've shown you 'Jane', I should give you a followup on my poor Magnolia stellata, bouncing back from the 20º arctic blast of last week.  Yes, the crinkled brown blooms distract from the newer perfect blush-white petals, but there are enough of the latter to waft the damp musky scent around its vicinity.  The fragrances of these two Magnolias are quite different, 'Star' gifting me with the scent of Mesozoic swamp, a deep and thick odor that is not quite sweet but not unpleasant, and 'Jane' emitting a light and definitely sweet fragrance with just the slightest hint of cinnamon.  Of the two, I'm drawn more to earthy 'Star', for some reason that likely rests in my animal brain more than my intellect.  'Jane' is just too....sweet....to entice me for another sniff.  'Star' says "hey there, Sailor, wanna sit on the sofa and mess around?", while 'Jane' says "I think I'd like to go get some ice cream tonight."

I was excited today to see that the Martin scouts have returned!  This year, I have been ashamed to say, I never even took down the houses for winter, but now I'm glad they are already up, two weeks before the April 1st date that I usually bring them out of the barn.