Life Renewed

ProfessorRoush had prepared a profound plum of gardening philosophy for you to ponder today. However, the accompanying photo, of 'Yellow Bird' Magnolia, newly displaying a perfect yellow hue and partially escaping from its protective cage, is substantially more appropriate to represent the deliverance and rebirth of the season of Passover and Easter today.  Happy Easter 2017, Everyone.

(PS:  For those of both a Christian and Country bent, my brother-in-law introduced me to the song Outskirts of Heaven by Craig Campbell.  Take a listen on this sunny Easter day.)

Hidey-Holes and Fairy Gardens

Unlike some of my fellow human-kind, ProfessorRoush has never quite bitten on the lure of the supernatural.  Sure, I have always liked a good scary movie, particularly in the company of a younger Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  In those days, she reacted to fright by clinging all the more avidly to my brawny gardening arms.  Scare the current Mrs. ProfessorRoush and she's just as likely to take a swing at you.

The whole gobbledygook of ghosts and goblins and garden gnomes, fairies or elves is not part of my fantasy world, and as much as I liked Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, or even Brendan Fraser as the hero in the modern "Mummy" films, I seldom worry about encountering such creatures in real life.  I normally agree with Rod Serling, host of The Twilight Zone, who said, "There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the lights are on."  At least that's what I tell myself on dark nights on the Kansas prairie when the wind is howling outside.  And when I'm trying to decide at twilight if the dark lump in my landscape is a known bush or a browsing deer or a Sasquatch.

I briefly reconsidered my thoughts on the other dimensions last weekend, however, when I noticed the little tunnel as pictured above, heading darkly under the roots of a Purple Smoke Tree.  Just for an instant, one can believe that this Hole would be a perfect little entry to Alice's Wonderland, the motivation for any number of fantastic tales.  Shrink me down, and how far would I tumble here before I encountered the Red Queen?  What sort of creatures, do you think, have made this Hole a haven?  Mundane little prairie frogs or mice?  An intrepid little pixie or goblin?  If a leprechaun had popped out of The Hole right as I discovered it, I wouldn't have batted an eye.  Surely, on this prairie, I'm not about to poke The Hole with a stick.  With my luck, it wouldn't be a grouchy gnome that would answer, it would be an unreasonably angry copperhead snake with vengeance on its mind.  

I won't do anything as rash as creating a fairy garden to lure something out of the Hole (the picture at the left is from a friend's garden), but I will watch this Hole for activity, perhaps spreading a few grass clippings on the bare ground so I can detect movement in and out of it.  In the process, I may discover new things about my prairie ecosystem, or I might be permanently perplexed at this prairie perforation, or I might yet discover that I'm just another part of the Matrix and learn something of the unknown worlds beneath our feet.  The mere discovery of this Hole has convinced me that I should at least be more open to the viewpoint of Woody Allen, who stated, "There is no question that there is an unseen world.  The problem is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open?"

Who Wore It Better?

'PrairiFire' Crabapple

ProfessorRoush has a guilty little secret to confess.  Come a little closer, please, I don't want to shout this to the world (looks left, looks right, swivels to look behind, lowers voice).

When I'm waiting somewhere, doctor's office or haircut or oil change, and when I rummage through the  magazines while waiting (I have to read, I can't just sit there), my favorite magazine to read is....People.   As much as I grumble about the cultural devastation wrought by Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and the Kardashians, I still prefer to bide my down time in the tabloid company of the stars.  To my further discredit, I think one of the best recurring themes in People are the "Who wore it better?" pictorials.  In full disclosure, I generally prefer Salma Hayek over Lindsay Lohan in that red evening gown.

'Royalty' Crabapple

Today, working all day in the garden, I was honored to be in the presence of three finely jeweled leading figures, my trio of crabapples, all decked out at once at the peak of their bloom.  Obviously vying for my affections, all three were posing the "Which of us is wearing it better?" question straight up.  So I thought I'd bring them here, to ask your help.  What do you think, who wore it better?

Was it 'PrairiFire', pictured at the upper right, with her prolific blooms destined to form oodles of 1/2 inch fruits for winter?  This 'PrairiFire' was planted in back in 2009 near the vegetable garden in one of the most continually moist spots in my garden and seems to be doing well here.   She is relatively fast-growing and the bees were very busy today tending to all her lady parts.  She has been a fickle lass for me, however.  I dallied with several other 'PrairiFire' in the past before this one and lost them all to drought or cold or prairie fire or  pure gardening incompetence.  'PrairiFire' is a little too high maintenance here in Kansas where the prairie fires can snuff her out in an instant.

'Red Baron' Crabapple

Or perhaps is it 'Royalty', adjacent to my front driveway, who shows off the best?  'Royalty', pictured at left above, is a 2001 planting, has a somewhat rotund overall form, and I often complain that she hides her purple-red blossoms within the wine-cast foliage; a pretty maid in purple sackcloth.  She has been a slow grower, but is stalwart and dependable in her own way, sort of a Carrie Amelia Moore Nation of crabapples.

And then there is Monsieur 'Red Baron', displayed at the bottom right, a suave gentleman, but yet another of the poor choices of burgundy foliage that I planted during my "wine foliage" period.  He is a 2002 vintage and is planted out near the road.  Tall and slender, 'Red Baron' seems as embarrassed to have his deeply dark red flowers as I am in admitting that I read People.  

Oh forget it, my introductions to each have probably swayed you towards my personal choice, 'PrairiFire', so I'm just tallying another biased poll like all the pollsters in the last Presidential election.  I, myself, undoubtedly prefer 'PrairiFire', even if she is a little high-maintenance, for her brighter blossoms and for the fact that she never produces suckers, chaste in contrast to the other two older crabapples who are prolific sucker-makers (sucker-ers?).  'PrairiFire', in my garden, is the strawberry-blond Julia Roberts of Pretty Woman, wearing it best, year after year.

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.