Gardening Away

ProfessorRoush was away from his garden this week, key time lost in the prime, "not-too-hot and not-too-cold" spring clean-up period, but I was gardening frequently in my mind and occasionally taking a little sojourn from the conference I was attending to visit better environs.  Can you guess where I was from the picture at right?

Well, if that wasn't a big enough clue, how about this picture at the left?  Better?  The first is the front entrance of the US Botanical Gardens conservatory building in Washington DC, the second, of course, the US Capitol building, the latter taken a few short hours ago as I was wasting time after the conference and before I had to skedaddle to Reagan International.  I'm writing this from the airport at the moment, hoping to finish before my flight.


Spring is earlier here in DC by a week or two from Kansas.  No cherry blossoms here yet, but this Star Magnolia (left) on the south end of the Capitol building was in full bloom, and there were a number of other early magnolias shivering but trying to open (right).

I highly recommend a side visit to the US Botanical Garden if you can tear yourself away from Arlington, the monuments, and the Smithsonian.  Years ago, I was able through sheer luck of timing to attend a great peony lecture by Roy Klehm at the USBG, and this week, the Garden is highlighting its orchid collection (right).





A wander around the USBG is a pleasant change from the cool damp Washington spring.  I was tickled at the inventiveness of the USBG staff in placing "dinosaurs" into the foliage of their Primeval Garden, and I re-acquainted myself with old friends like this enormous Angel Trumpet in the Southern Exposure Garden (right).  I even took the time to search out a non-flowering Titan Arum on display in the Tropics area of the Garden (below, the spotted trunk with the umbrella canopy).  According to one display, the USBG has 24 specimens of the corpse flower in its collections, a wise move since the rare bloom of each draws visitors like flies to its flowers.

Titan Arum

Open 10 a.m to 5 p.m. every day including weekends and holidays, the USBG Conservatory is a often-missed but indispensable stop for any gardener visiting DC, and you should also not miss all the outdoor gardens surrounding it.  Right next to the US Capitol, 365 days a year; find it, walk it, and enjoy!

Grape Vines and Checklists

'Reliance' before pruning

Saturday, Leap Day 2020, was moderately windy, but otherwise a marvelous day on the prairie, February fleeing into the past with sunshine licking at its heels.  Another warm Saturday for Bella and I is now behind us and the aching to get outside ProfessorRoush got good and achy.  My garden muscles need a little bit of training yet this season.

I had some errands to run in the morning, so it was nearly 1:30 p.m. yesterday when I ventured outside.  I immediately realized that cleaning the front bed was not going to be feasible in the high winds, so I turned to other spring chores.  First and foremost was washing out the garage floor to remove the tons of mud carried in from the gravel road this winter on the cars.  There were actual dry mud piles stuck to the garage floor at each tire, and I removed a full three gallon bucket of soil from the floor before I turned the hose on the floor to wash out the rest.  I had it all done before Mrs. ProfessorRoush arrived home from her own errands, and nearly 18 hours later my loving spouse has yet to notice or acknowledge the improvement.  Next time I just wash the side where my car sits!

'Reliance' after pruning

I had been eyeing the asparagus patch for several weeks, knowing that I need to remove the dead growth, and that is where I turned next, readying the patch for those first green sprouts.  Next, I decided to check pruning the grapes off of my springtime bucket list, since pruned twigs won't blow into my eyes in the wind.  You can see the "before and after" shots here, this old massive 'Reliance' grapevine visibly relieved from several years of unpruned growth. 'Reliance' is our favorite grape around here and this vine produces well, at least during years I pay proper attention to it, 

One of ProfessorRoush's many failings is that once I rouse my slothful soul to start a project, I really hate to stop before I'm done, so I didn't prune the 'Reliance' and call it a day, I pruned ALL the grapes.  We have about 8 living vines, and you can see another line of vines I attacked with pruneers in the final picture, now readied for the rapid growth of early summer.  In my renewed determination to garden right or give up, I promise to make sure that this year they get sprayed at the proper times to prevent mildew and other fungus.  But that will be much later on in the year and today beckons right now, predicted to be warm, sunny and windless.  Garage, check. asparagus bed, check. Grapes, check.  Maybe I'll get another crack today at finally cleaning those front beds. 

(Not) Killing Peonies!

A few weeks ago, on a partially random internet purchasing foray, I came across How Not to Kill a Peony; An Owners Manual, a 2018-dated paperback by a fellow Hoosier, Stephanie Weber.  Consistent with the wonders of modern shopping, a simple "add-to-cart" click made sure that I wouldn't forget it, and I included the book in a recent order of other items.

I've read several garden-oriented books this winter, but none better than this one.  Ms. Weber wrote a simple and entertaining narrative of her experiences growing and selling peony divisions in Indiana, the rural Indiana of my boyhood home, and she is true to the frank and plain spoken nature I expect of Hoosiers.  Early in the text, she detailed the important factors she used to choose among varieties of peonies for growth and sale, and then related how she and her husband planted 1200 peonies of roughly 40 different varieties in 2006 on a half-acre of good Indiana farmland  to create a "drop-in" peony nursery.   TWELVE HUNDRED PEONIES!  Now that, my friends, is taking a leap of faith reminiscent of Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade!  Well, except for the Indiana placement of the nursery, because I'm well familiar with the productivity of northern Indiana soils.  Borne in them, you might say.

'Red Charm'

How No to Kill a Peony is a delicious, straightforward, and sometimes snarky 98 page read that quickly brought me to understand the many useful things I never learned about peonies from Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall's massive Peonies sleeper.  Ms. Weber quickly explains why heirloom P. lactiflora peonies flop, describes the contributions to peony genetics of each of the 4 major species that led to modern peonies (including the contribution of red pigments from P. officinalis), and she sprinkles valuable information on planting, care, harvesting, and storing peonies through the book.  Every important fact about growing peonies is covered, and covered in straightforward fact.  And the most important advice?  Plant peony varieties that don't flop!  Who knew?

'Scarlett O'Hara' in 2019

 As a testament to its engaging prose, I read How Not to Kill a Peony in a single setting, learning more in an hour about how to choose between peonies than I did in my previous lifespan. As a testament to its entertaining nature, one need only skim section titles such as "How Floppers Infiltrated the Landscape,"Days in May That Cause Dismay," and "The Importance of Eye Candy."  There are hundreds of beautiful peony photographs, and lurid descriptions of popular varieties.  Popular 'Red Charm' receives a proper promotion, and 'Prairie Moon' gets her due attention. Coral-colored 'Flame' is described as "like the quiet, nerdy girl in your math class who you one day realize is gorgeous."  Red single 'Scarlett O'Hara', one of my personal favorites, is "a sleeper, like a granny car with a turbo engine."  Bicolored 'Mister Ed' "has been on acid since the 1950's."

Need I go on?  For early and experienced peonyists (a self-coined term that sounds vaguely lewd and improper but it is the best I can think of), I've never seen a better presented "How-To" that will help you grow peonies that are the envy of the neighborhood.  Now, darn it, where did I leave that Song Sparrow Farm and Nursery catalog?  I just don't have enough peonies in my front yard....

Gardening? What's That?

Like an exile without a country, ProfessorRoush this week was a gardener without much of a garden.  Cold brisk weather and a little snow combined to drive me to indoor gardening, the latter a topic for the future, but I wandered outside a little here and there just to assess the premises.

And to feed the donkey's!  Several weeks ago, I occasionally began supplementing Ding and Dong's forage of the remaining stubby prairie with a little store-bought grass hay and they've quickly become accustomed to these little treats, hanging out on the weekends where I'll see them if I come out.  They've also come to expect apples during these visits, and yesterday seemed quite disappointed when I only showed up with hay, sending me a disdaining donkey look as only these apple-starved pair of prima donnas could.

Western Slender Glass Lizard

In a traipse around the back yard, I also came upon a new prairie citizen, at least new to me.  I think this frozen creature is not a snake, but a Western Slender Glass Lizard (Ophisaurus attenuatus) missing the end of his tail as they often do.  They are named because their tail breaks off easily to aid in escape from predators, but I'm going to have to concentrate to make sure I don't remember this as a "grass" lizard rather than "glass" lizard, being a prairie creature and all.  In coloration and skin pattern, he resembles the skinks of this area, but this guy was about 2 feet long and didn't have legs.  I don't know what he was doing out of his burrow laying upon a layer of snow, but I'll bet he regretted that decision.  In fact, I wasn't sure if he was alive or dead, but I was not about to bring him inside and warm him up to find out, possibly subjecting both the unaware innocent lizard and myself to the wrath of Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  I lifted him carefully with a snow shovel, carried him over to a straw-mulched bed, and placed him beneath a 6 inch layer of straw on the unfrozen ground.  There, he'll either be safe from hawks and other predators and thaw and survive, or he'll join the straw as eventual compost.

The only moving creatures in the garden beside the donkeys, Bella, and myself seem to be the ever-present deer.  I checked one of my new trail cameras yesterday and I'm quite happy with the results.  The pictures are much better quality than my previous camera, the shutter speed is faster and catches more animals, and the deer don't seem to notice the new camera around, or at least they aren't coming up to be nosy about the red light coming from it.  I expect a lot of more "candid" shots over the next few months, although many will not be perhaps as risque as the deer in the background which is depositing some fertilizer near my 'Yellow Bird' magnolia while in the view of another white-tailed voyeur.  I've even already captured a snap of a coyly cantoring coyote (below), the first that I believe I've gotten with a trail camera.   My garden seems to have a better night life than it's gardener!