Weather Wierdness

I'm normally "ProfessorRoush Proud" that I've become something of a weather guru to Mrs. ProfessorRoush and her friends.  So many years of reading the Kansas sky, smelling the air, and viewing the radar patterns have made me and those around me reasonably confident and comfortable that I can reliably predict the immediate weather patterns and their severity better than the internet or evening newscasts.   I frequently get calls or texts on summer evenings asking me if a friend should take shelter from a dark sky or whether they can go safely to sleep, ample evidence that my meteorological mastery has indeed been recognized by others in my circle. 

Not this year, though.   This morning, Mrs. ProfessorRoush texted me as she was beginning a trail walk with a friend to ask me if it was safe to go despite the dark northern sky.  A quick check of the radar and a look at the movement of the pattern and I told her to go ahead and take a hike.  You can see Manhattan in the screen capture at the right, 8:30 a.m., just at the southern edge of a storm that was moving straight east to west and just to our north.  Mind you, the hourly weather forecast for this zip code showed no rain chances here at all until evening. 

Within an hour, however, we had a pretty stiff downpour on the east side of town, so I knew the west side was getting pummeled.  And look at the radar.  At 9:30 a.m., these patterns were moving stiffly to the northeast.  The previous rain stayed put but moved a little east to touch us, and then a large storm formed south and west of Manhattan and headed directly our way.  None of the lower pattern was even a wisp of color an hour prior.  And, while it was currently sprinkling outside, the internet weather still showed no rain until tonight.

Mrs. ProfessorRoush was not pleased with me.  When I texted and told her there was more coming, she said "I wish you would have looked when I asked."  I think, I think, she just might have believed me when I told her that I had, but she also might suspect that I wouldn't be above a quiet chuckle, sitting in my nice dry office, wondering if her hairdo got drenched.  I'll vow here and now in print, however, that I know better than to pull a little prank at the whims of the Kansas weather.

Splitting the Pot

As a cheap son-of-a-gun frugal individual, ProfessorRoush was not entirely unhappy when the pot containing the  'Heavenly Flight of Angels' daylily that I was purchasing split down one side as I lifted it to carry it to the sales counter.  Yes, it served me with fair notice that the plant was pot-bound, but I also knew I could divide the $10, one-gallon plant and get two decently size plants for the price of one.  I also just couldn't, at any price, resist the combo of a 7" inch yellow spider daylily with white ruffled edges and a fragrance described, in tongue-in-cheek fashion, as "heavenly."   Everyone thinks they're a comedian these days.

And pot-bound it was, in spades.  I normally would divide a plant like this with an old serrated kitchen knife that I purloined from Mrs. ProfessorRoush for just such occasions, or sometimes, as I face a perhaps less dense clump, with simply a garden spade, but in this case I was not going to let pass the opportunity to try out the serrated side of the new Hori Hori hanging right there on my belt.  A few quick strokes of the 6 inch blade and I proved yet another use for the knife and saved myself a trip to the shed for my previous implement of destruction.  I might even surprise Mrs. ProfessorRoush and return the kitchen knife.  

We've been having some blast furnace 100º weather here, hot and sunny, but the beautiful blue skies that accompany the horrid temperatures keep my complaint levels down.  Mama House Sparrow also does not seem to have any complaints, incubating these pretty little eggs in the cool dense shade of our 'Ann' magnolia shrub, about 3 feet off the ground.  I startled the attentive incubatee Mom with my early morning weeding today, but she had returned to the nest the next time I checked, so all is well.

'Ed Brown' (not 'Cream Magic')

I'm actually welcoming the warm temperatures, for once, because we are beginning daylily season and I'd like something to go right this year.  The first few are blooming here now, and I took great pleasure in seeing this beautiful daylily open yesterday, for Father's Day.  My notes tell me it is Hemerocallis 'Cream Magic', although I can't find a picture on the Internet to visually compare it (see addendum below for correction).  The description, however, does match the official "cream flushed pink with greenish cream throat" description, so I'm reasonably certain this is the 1980 cultivar from Lenington-G.  'Cream Magic' is blooming with the 'Stella de Oro's' and a couple of other nondescript cultivars, so she's the "cream" of the ball right now.   Until the next flashy daylily comes along.  Such as my two new clumps of 'Heavenly Flight of Angels'.

Addendum 2018-06-19:  The daylily that I thought was 'Cream Magic', is actually 'Ed Brown', according to the latter's label at the K-State Garden, where I purchased my start and where it was blooming today when I also saw the real 'Cream Magic' blooming.  So much for interpreting written descriptions without photographs.  To straighten out my daylily maps at home is an impossible task.  The real 'Cream Magic' is pictured here, to the left, for Internet prosperity.

Elm Excogitation

I took a walk today, a "noon constitutional" as it might have been termed in another more gracious age.  I took a walk and strode in a single instant from complacency to sorrow, contentment to loss.  From sunlight into the shade of a massive American elm was only a few steps for a man, but a mile for my mindset.

As gardeners we all, I'm sure, know of the previously ubiquitous American Elm and the disastrous impact of Dutch Elm disease on the species.  Intellectually, we understand that the American Elm (Elmus americana) was a valued tree in the landscapes of the 19th and early 20th centuries, so-called "tabernacles of the air."  Viscerally, however, gardeners of my age have no memories of a cool picnic under the elms or the spreading chestnuts of history.  Our blood does not stir from loss of such things as we've never experienced.

On this 96ºF sunny day, however, I ambled to the K-State Gardens and, passing under the massive canopy of its surviving and much-pampered American Elm, was instantly struck by the stark drop in temperature and stress I experienced.  If it wasn't 20 degrees cooler under the tree than in the sun, then I'm a mange-ridden gopher.  I understand now, acutely and intimately, what civilization lost when DED was "accidentally" introduced through the hubris of man.  The K-State Gardens elm was planted in 1930, is currently 60' tall, and requires $1000 injections to prevent Dutch Elm every 2.5 years.  While it seems presently healthy, I'm not encouraged for its long-term survival, knowing that administrators and politicians inevitably appropriate every possible dollar for their own pet projects and needs. 

In our callous daily existences, we don't often emotionally feel the tragic loss of a unique species of rainforest frog, or the potential extinction of a subspecies of rhinoceros, but you CAN come to K-State and experience with me the last years of the American Elm.  Echoing and borrowing the sentiment from an excellent essay by astrophysist Dr. Adam Frank that I read this week, I would say that the Earth will survive, but the Elm may not.  The Anthropocene HAS arrived and we should perhaps better start to contemplate that our time is measured, just as the elm's.   

The Cutting Edge

ProfessorRoush is not an innovator.  He has not, does not, nor will not ever claim to be an early adopter of technology.  Yes, in the early 1980's I took to computers like a duck to water, but as a moderately dexterous manual typist (and "Kelly Girl" for approximately 2 days before I found more manly employment), computers were simply a convenience and a logical next step to a logic-inclined mind.  And so it is that it has taken me all these years of gardening to purchase am actual Hori Hori, a so-called Japanese gardening knife.

My garden knife itch has been half-formed for years, curiosity capturing the crusty gardener's conscious thought, but took full force this spring, and I began a search for a proper Hori Hori knife.  Locally, there was little to satisfy my thirst, only plastic-handled half-creations or mass-produced garden butter-knives to be found.  On-line, of course, the possibilities became endless as I sorted through sheaths and steel alloys and sharpnesses.  I became self-educated on tangs and enraptured by rivets.  Heft and handles were considered with heavy import.

Ultimately, I chose the Truly Garden Hori Hori knife for $26.38, although this design looked similar to many others (Duluth Trading, LifeWell etc) which are all likely of Chinese manufacture.  Comprised of 420 stainless steel, it has a full tang for strength, hardwood handle, and three rivets (many have two) for strength.  It is marked both in inches and millimeters, has a curved surface for easy plunging into soil or enemy, and has both a sharp edge (very sharp, as advertised) and a saw-toothed edge.  It came with a massive leather sheath and a free diamond sharpener, bonuses that seemed worth the extra few dollars above the $19.99 nylon-sheathed offerings.

My only question now is, "What took me so long?"   In just a few weeks, it has become my constant gardening companion, constantly sheathed at my side like a sword on a Crusader.  Plunge it into the soil next to the weed, even into my rocky soil,and a simple twist of the sharp edge towards the weed stem delivers most of the root into your hands.  The curved surface has made it useful as a planting tool for transplants.  I've used it as a short machete on thistles, to saw small limbs, prune new shrubs and to cut packages and twine and cable ties at abandon.  I haven't yet needed the measurement markings, but I suppose they will save me a walk to the barn the next time I have a need to measure something in the neighborhood of 6 inches long.  Its weight and balance are perfect, solid strength symbiotically matched to exquisite sharpness.  My only complaint is that, as a lefty, I'd like the sharp side and the saw-toothed side reversed.  

I was picky about my choice of a Hori Hori because I was thinking of a provenance, a hand-me-down designed to reach future generations.  I can already tell, however, that this one won't be passed down in mint condition, but with that wonderful patina of use that proclaims its real value.  The heirloom will have to be my other garden knife, a rose pruning knife with a rosewood handle, also of full tang and three rivets.  I purchased it years ago and it has gone unused beyond occasional covetous fondling and oiling.  It never became the rose grafting knife that I intended, I suppose because my hands and gardening are more suited to dirt stabbing than fine pruning.