Confusion and Mass Hysteria

French Lilacs blooming in September?  Syringa hyacinthiflora?  I'm not talking about new, fancy reblooming lilacs, mind you, I'm talking about as lilacs as old-fashioned as old-fashion gets.  This is exactly what we should expect of 2020, of course.   As best stated by Dr. Venkman in Ghostbusters (played superbly by Bill Murray), "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"  What's next?








I had watched nervously as this lilac, 'Maiden's Blush', suffered from an attack of drought and mildew in early August and lost all its leaves.  Many of the other lilacs in the same row did just fine, shiny dark green foliage standing up to the worst of summer.  I had even, at one point, taken a picture of the National Arboretum's 'Betsy Ross', three doors down, which looked just as pristine and healthy in August as it did in May.   Since 'Maiden's Blush' had retained its tight, brown buds, I was only a little worried, but I really had no doubt that it would come back next year, tough as a prairie hedge apple tree.  I was certain right up until it rained in early September and this poor, confused relic opened those buds into new light green growth worthy of spring.   Nothing is certain in 2020.

Ever more concerning, today my precocious little beauty bloomed, offering two diminutive panicles of light lilac color and perfect fragrance, a gift to September that should never occur.  I fear greatly for it now, this twenty-year old lilac, fear that it will not be able to muster enough growth before October to allow it to survive into spring.  This unnamed cultivar of Syringa vulgaris beside it (pictured at the right) also lost its leaves early, but has so far had the sense to pack it up for winter, no real sign of breaking those buds.  Still, I appreciated the gesture, the fragrance of lilac in the middle of September, even as a dying gift from an old garden friend.

There's nothing I can probably  do for 'Maiden's Blush', but even so I'm going to try.  If a simple lilac bush can break all the rules of nature, I can break my own rules and spray these young leaves for mildew and fertilize the bush right now, hoping to give it the best chances I can to form more new buds for spring before the frosts steal its strength again.  New buds, I pray, for the spring of 2021 when we all hope this wacky world rights itself and normality returns to the garden and our lives.   

Summer's End, Spring's Promise

I was mowing yesterday, wilting on the John Deere seat in the summer-like high 90's temperatures and seared by the blazing sun, but the garden was whispering to me a different story, a story of nearby endings and further beginnings.  Hot though it was, the lightened foliage of the garden hinted everywhere at change, lush deep greens of spring and summer yielding to the lighter yellow-greens of fall at a frantic pace.  These warm days will doubtless soon end, the summer of 2020 passing away at the speed of dying light. 








Clues of change are evident everywhere I look now; roses on their last legs, like 'Snow Pavement' pictured at the left, blushing deeper pink with the onset of cooler night air and hastening her hip formation, seeds and stored life created to bridge past the long cold days to come.  Other rose hips turn red and vibrant, tempting animals to consume and spread the seed, enticement enhanced with color, sugars, and vitamins as rewards for service.  Who cultivates whom?  The plant enticing the birds and mice to distribute its genes, or the fauna that benefits from consuming the fruit? 




We are perhaps biased by Linnaeus, captive to his branching diagrams of phylogeny.  Is the intelligence really in our higher branches or is the higher intelligence in the roots predating our arrival?  Or maybe my thoughts are just influenced today by a recent read of 'Semiosis', philosophy and ecology disguised in the veil of science fiction.




This is the time of goldenrod and grasses, seedpods and tassels everywhere in the landscape of the deciduous climates, each grain a bid to the future.  Even as I mow, this red Rose of Sharon fades in the foreground, blistering under the sun while the goldenrod behind it gathers and reflects the yellow sun, relishing its highest moment.  I despair at the loss of these delicate August flowers, unrelieved by the few that struggle to blossom, false idols of beauty in the midst of a dying landscape.  The goldenrod, too, will brown and pass on, leaving behind its brittle stems and summer's growth.


I couldn't ask for a richer tableau than these last clusters of 'Basye's Purple', and yet with their glory comes sadness at their hopeless future.  A few more fleeting weeks of moderate temperatures and one night all the new pointed buds will inevitably be silenced in a freeze, the annual slaughter of innocence by ice.  I grow tired and discouraged, the gardener reflecting the weary garden, a summer of toil behind and colder days ahead.






And yet, mowing further, I'm encouraged by hope, buds of tomorrow hidden deep in the shrubbery.  The fuzzy promise of Magnolia stellata tells me a different story, that spring is just around the corner and life is waiting, ready to bloom with vigor and fragrance, seeds of another spring hidden from the eyes of winter.  I rested well last night, tired by the sun and work and quieted by the Star Magnolia, dreaming of her heavy musk and waxy petals, calmed by the sure knowledge that the Magnolia believes there will yet be another Spring.

Let There Be Columbines

Last night, letting the vivacious Bella out the front door for her evening attempt to apply liquid fertilizer to the buffalograss, I was taken by surprise to see a previously-barren corner turned green.  This particular corner of my front border is almost entirely shaded with the house and garage on the south and west sides, and it was previously occupied by a boxwood, whose massive overgrowth and cat pee stink every spring right outside the dining room finally induced me to eliminate it in April.  You can see the stump of the boxwood at the upper center of the picture below.

Earlier this summer, I had tried to replace the boxwood with a rather expensive willow, one which promptly got eaten by rabbits or pack rats or some other such ravenous rodent and then, encased in chicken wire (too little, too late) its fragile regrowth shriveled in the late June heat.  Resigned, I decided to wait until fall to try it again, and I promptly put this space out of sight and mind for the summer that has past.

But here, last night, I found that the dry sterile mulch had brought forth baby columbines!  "Behold," the Lord said "Let there be columbines, and there were and it was good."  Well, columbines and a couple of thistles, which might not be so good, but I can take care of that bristly interloper. And a common dayflower or two which will take a little more effort to eliminate.  I'm still grateful for the gift, however.  All that time that the boxwood grew and dominated the area, these seeds collected and hid in the mulch and waited until the day they could grab enough sunlight and nutrients to grow.   A miracle of three-lobed glory.

I'm thrilled to see the columbines.  You know that I'm partial to the self-sown blue and purple columbines that dot my front landscaping, and I can't wait to see what these bring next year. There is no chance whatsoever that I'm going to scratch these out.  Next year, I'm going to have a sea of columbines and the joy of a wave of blue to ride into a new gardening year.

Unsettled Skies

This morning, as I was walking from the bedroom to let Bella out, I glanced out the southern windows of the house, seeing dawn slowly bringing the landscape to life, and noticed that the tree branches were swaying.  Pleased that a predicted cool morning would also bring some cool air into the house, I opened the garage door, stepped out, and was greeted with this odd sight of a column of pink blessing the hills to my west amidst a gray sky.

I turned around to look at the rising sun and, of course, it was there shining as always, ready to wake the earth and all its inhabitants in Manhattan, Kansas.  The breeze, however, was still shifting and I could only conclude that a either completely unpredicted but likely gentle rainstorm was upon us from the northwest or that aliens were beaming up my neighbors in a pink column of happiness.




The answer of course, was available on my phone radar app, and just as I downloaded this image, the sky began to growl as well.  Not thunder, not visible lightning, but an audible low growl.  I sedately followed Bella as she bolted for the house from her morning mid-squat stance.  Bella is afraid of thunder, but rain is always welcome to me and I am ever pleased when I don't have to defend against an alien horde before I've had breakfast.

Unsettled skies have been the norm all summer, likely a metaphor for society's woes this year if I were only bright enough to connect it.  Unpredicted showers, winds that sweep across without a storm behind them, clouds come and gone without warning.  I really shouldn't complain because, thankfully, there has been enough rain to keep the grass growing all summer, it has never reached 100ºF in Manhattan yet this year, we haven't had a single tornado warning in the area all season, and fall is clearly on its way.


It unnerves me, however, after years of watching the local radar and weather patterns, to see the skies tossing about in disorder.  The other night, I watched two rainstorms as they split around us from about an hour to the north-west, one gentle moving to the east and south, the other, a nasty little blob of purple, moving forcefully south-west.  I commented to Mrs. ProfessorRoush that, in all these years, I had never seen that happen.  Storms don't move to the south and west here and I watched it with some trepidation until it was obvious it wasn't going to change direction.








I'm not unhappy, however, about the beautiful skies of this summer and I'm thankful for every morning to wake with the sunrise.  The panorama above is my view to the south three mornings ago, sun rising in the east, storm moving in from the west.  The panorama below is my north view just moments later, unsettled skies from the west moving back to the gentle protective light from the east.  Who couldn't feel comforted by skies like these?  Well....me.