Blanc & Beetles

ProfessorRoush's cardiovascular health was tested this morning as I had a bit of a shock while enjoying my garden.  I went out for a "spot check" of things and got excited about how many blooms were being visited by bees, and then I saw this bloom, of Blanc Double de Coubert, that wasn't being visited by a bee.  Instead, I found the first Japanese Beetle of the season (in fact, the first of the last two years since I didn't see any here in 2016).  

Curses.  A brief panic ensued and then I settled down and looked the bush over closely, finding around 6-7 beetles in all, lounging in the blooms, creating holes in the petals and depositing frass all over those virgin white blossoms.  I took great pleasure in knocking all of them into the ground and grinding them into the hard prairie clay.

Those who have read my past statements about Blanc Double de Coubert are aware that she is far from my favorite rose, and not even my favorite white Rugosa.  In the past,  I've found it nearly impossible to get a perfect picture of her; petals are always browned by rain or dew, blossoms don't last long in the Kansas sun, and the bush is just generally a mess, as you can see in today's impromptu photo at the left.  She's short and squat and has been a prima donna in my garden, demanding close supervision and extra care unbecoming of a Rugosa.  And now, to top it off, she is the Japanese Beetle Magnet of my garden.  Today, out of about 30-35 roses currently in bloom, along with some early Rose-of-Sharon and among scads of blooming daylilies and hollyhocks, she was the only plant with Japanese Beetles on it.  The only one, and believe me, I scrutinized every other bush in my garden for signs of a second stealth attack.  Why Blanc?  Something about the degree of whiteness that is attractive while nearly-as-white Sir Thomas Lipton (also blooming and without beetles) isn't?  Something about the fragrance that is different from all the other roses in my garden?  All in all, this is just another reason for me to really not like this rose.

I will remain vigilant for the next few weeks and make sure to watch this rose and others for any further Japanese Beetle mischief.  I'm trying very hard to keep these blasted bugs from establishing a breeding colony in my back yard and I may have to go back to the traps I previously employed.  Squeezed between beetles and rosette disease is a hard place for a rose gardener to keep his chin up.

Sky Worship

I'm sure that many, especially those who reside near the coasts or mountains rather than "flyover states," may not understand my self-enforced and barely-borne tolerance of the trials and tribulations stemming from gardening in the Kansas climate.  Certainly my parents, from rich- and fertile-soiled Indiana, have occasionally expressed their lack of appreciation of the charms of Kansas.  I feel, therefore, obligated to show you a few photos that I've taken just in the past two weeks, lest you think that ProfessorRoush is entirely crazy.  For starters, this is a panorama of the view to my east a few mornings back as I was taking Bella out for an early stroll:

How could I possibly ask for a better greeting and start to my day?  Such sunrises are not at all unusual, pink clouds chased by warm sunshine until the entire sky glows.

A night or two later, it was this double rainbow that appeared, to my south, rain in the distance chased away by the setting western sun.  I've seen double rainbows on two occasions in the last month, and it has only rained twice all month!

Sometimes, it seems as if Mrs. ProfessorRoush tries to rouse me off the couch every evening at sunset, wanting me to take a "real" photo of a sunset instead of using an iPhone.  I actually often complain about how frequently my restful postprandial lethargy is interrupted by her enthusiastic worship of the sky.  I haven't yet mentioned the existence of Tengrism to her, for fear that she may forsake her Christian background to join others in formal worship of the Eternal Blue Sky.  The photo below is a wider panorama taken slightly before the photo at the left.

There are also those mornings where the beauty of the day stems from atmospheric turmoil more than the beneficent touch of the sun.  A few days ago, there was an entirely different appearance to the same morning view of the northeastern sky that I showed you in the first photo on this page.  A little past 5 a.m. Central, the rising sun and distant sky was a backdrop to these very low, fast-moving wisps of cloud.  This time-lapse is taken over about 15 seconds as I tried to hold the camera still.  There was no rain or moisture, just these strange clouds moving opposite the high altitude flow.  

Of course, what I've left out of all these pictures is the almost constant sunshine and moderately cloud-free days of this climate.  Manhattan, Kansas may not have one of the most sunny climates in the world, but officially we are around 240 days of sunshine a year, less then I would estimate (I figured it was over 300), but about 60 days more than Indiana/Ohio/Wisconsin where I've previously lived.  The picture below was taken Friday, June 30th, as I wrote this blog entry, when I realized that I haven't archived pictures of the "normal" sky, just the stormy scenes.  So, at random, this is yesterday, 3:00 p.m., taken right outside my front door, and you can consider it a "normal" Kansas sky.   Maybe those "Tengrists" aren't too far out  on a spritual limb after all.

Bombus-ed BeeBalm

ProfessorRoush was "beeing" busy in search of bees this weekend.  After my last post, when I included a photograph showing a bumblebee on an 'Applejack' blossom, it occurred to me that although I have seen plenty of "bumblebees" around the yard this year, I haven't seen a single honeybee.  Nor could I find one this past Sunday as I specifically searched for them, albeit on a cloudy day with occasional sprinkles in the air.

Honeybees should surely be visiting nearby, because Monarda fistulosa, otherwise known as Wild Bergamot, is blooming all over the prairie.  I've written before of my garden Monardas, and the native prairie species lives up to its common name, "Beebalm," but the balm exuded by Monarda only seems to be attracting the American Bumblebee (Bombus pensylvanicus) this year.

Monarda fistulosa with Bombus pensylvanicus

Bombus pensylvanicus (Bombus, what a neat name for the ungainly genus comprising bumblebees!) was once the most prevalent bumblebee in the United States, but Wikipedia notes that it is recently declining in population.  Nationally, that may be true, but they seem to be as prevalent as ever in Kansas.  I'm not an insect expert by any means, but there are two species of bumblebees found in Kansas and I believe they're different enough that I've got this one correct.  Mostly black abdomen.  Check.  Black stripe behind wings.  Check, Check.  Certainly they were everywhere on my patch of native prairie today, feasting on the Wild Bergamot and the Asclepias tuberosa that is blooming everywhere.  The Monarda is such an ungainly, unkempt flower, that I think it matches the non-aerodynamic bumblebee.

'Jacob Cline' Monarda and Knautia macedonia

I haven't jumped onto the "glyphosate will destroy the world" train since the science says otherwise, and those of you who read this blog regularly know that I do believe in climate change but that I remain unconvinced that Man is primarily responsible for it (given the sure and certain evidence that it really was a lot warmer in 10000 B.C. than it is now and we just weren't around in enough numbers then to get the blame for it).   That all being said, I do worry a lot about the declining bee populations and I think Man probably has a lot to do with that one.  Whether it is disease or pesticide or habitat destruction, I have no idea, but on my little patch of prairie, I can tell you that the native Monarda clumps usually have a visiting bee, while the 'Jacob Cline' Monarda in my front landscaping hasn't a bee, bumble- or honey- in sight, everytime I've checked.  It seems that my preference for bright red flowers, and my happiness with the tough nature of the nearby Knautia macedonia, isn't shared by the bumblebees in my environment.  Perhaps I should turn over a new leaf...er...uh...flower, and encourage the Wild Bergamot to spread from the prairie to my landscaping.  When visitors complain about the insipid colors, I'll tell them simply that it looks delicious when viewed through a bee's eyes instead of those in a falsely-discriminating human.          

Applejack

Applejack w/ bumblebee

I'm going to describe a rose today, one that has always left me with mixed feelings.  The bumblebee sitting deep in this blossom, however, does not seem to share my ambivalence, so perhaps it is time to give this rose its proper credit and decide that it has a place in my garden.

'Applejack' was one of the first releases of Dr. Griffith Buck, bred before 1962 and introduced by the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station in 1973.  Although Heirloom Roses nursery describes it as one of Dr. Buck's most popular roses, I fail to understand why.  It is also disconcerting that Heirloom's current online photo of Applejack is not Applejack. 

Applejack grows in my garden as a large, lax bush, with 6-8 foot long canes that drape over neighboring plants, so I can't recommend it in a small garden.  In fact, I've moved it several times myself, although I now actually have two large specimens, the second formed by regrowth from roots left behind at the last move.  And common descriptions of its blossoms, as "large 4-inch semidouble rose-pink blooms with crimson streaks" doesn't really match what I see here in Kansas.  Yes, the first blooms of the season are semi-double and have some mild streaks, but later blooms are 5-petaled and lose their streaks to the summer sun.     

Applejack individual blossoms

Another discrepancy between what I see and what some sources describe is the bloom period of this rose.  Helpmefind/rose.com describes this rose as "blooming in flushes throughout the season," and Peter Beales says it is "very free-flowering."  Iowa State, presumably from Dr. Buck himself, described the rose as "intermittent flowering from late May to killing frost." I find that Applejack has an extremely long first bloom season (now going over 6 weeks), but I rarely have seen bloom later in the season.  And, in fact, many of the member comments about this rose on Helpmefind.com also suggest that they don't see any rebloom.  Is this rose just that variable in bloom depending on its climate or is the great, late Mr. Beales wrong about this one?  I believe that Rogue Valley Roses has it right, describing it as a first bloom of a month or more, "sometimes followed by autumn flowers."  (07/04/2017 addendum;  Well, I was wrong.  My two specimens are fully grown and both have had blooms almost continuously since early May, albeit sparse at best, but they're still there.  I guess this rose does bloom throughout the season, at least once it reaches a mature span.  The photo at the bottom is a photo of one of the bushes on 7/04/2017).

Given my current RRD issues, and the extremes of Kansas weather, I really should make myself focus on the positives of this rose.  It does indeed have a really long first bloom season, and it is extremely hardy here in Kansas and drought-resistant as well. A tough rose, I've never seen blackspot affect it, and so far, the Rose Rosette Disease has left both of my specimens unscathed.  The offspring of 'Goldbusch' and a cross of 'Josef Rothmund' X Rosa laxa, its genes are now spread throughout several lines of roses, chosen for procreation because of its extreme hardiness and disease resistance.  And, really, if the bees like it, so should I.  

And, of course, I haven't touched on the most redeeming feature of Applejack.  'Goldbusch' and 'Josef Rothmund' are both sweetbrier hybrids (R. rubiginosa), and they have passed on the sweetbrier-scented foliage to Applejack.  Walk around this rose on a rainy day, and if you don't melt from the rain yourself, you'll find the scent of green apples everywhere in its vicinity.  Despite this, however, Applejack is always planted on shaky ground in my garden.  Perhaps if I quit moving it, it will settle in and bloom more to its billing.  Or perhaps it would repeat bloom if I was mentally disturbed enough to actually want to deadhead this rose as it blooms.  I should give it more of a chance.

2017-07-04 bloom