Burn Casualties

ProfessionRoush had a fine spring day for a nice neighborhood burn yesterday.   My neighbors and I marshalled our energy and the considerable mobile fire-fighting forces arrayed amongst them and set off on a dew-covered morning to clear the prairies of weeds and invading alien plants through the ritual spring burn.   With almost no wind, the dampness from the recent rains, and a beautiful sunny day awaiting us, we were blissfully at ease to hold a nice burn.

And then, everything changed.  I believe the first mistake was that the fires were going so well, ProfessorRoush's neighbor opened his first beer before we were on the downside of the day.   Early alcohol is always a bad harbinger of things to come.   And fairly early on, after all the tasks were assigned and the backfires started to protect the distant neighbors and greater Manhattan from our exuberance, we received a call from the county that burning had been banned for the day (after we earlier had permission for the burn).  A little too late for us, the forecasts had changed to show brisk winds later in the day.   

We had completely burned the perimeters and I had safely burned around my garden and moved on to help a neighbor by 11:00 a.m.   The last neighbor's 20 acres took us almost as long as the other 140, with extra care taken as the winds were rising and we had a horse barn and arena to protect.  And then I looked up about 2:00 p.m. to see smoke coming from my back yard.

Unbeknownst to me, a little fire had made it into the grass mulch near my grapevine lines earlier and a helpful neighbor had put it out.   But, a little prairie-burning tip here from an old guy here, if fire gets to your mulch, whether hay, grass or bark, there's no putting it out.  You have to isolate the area to bare ground and let it burn itself out.  Hidden beneath a dampened cover of mulch, that little spark festered and bided time until the wind rose.

And then it scooted across the mown back yard and made it across the close-mown grass into one of my rose beds mulched with straw.  It's the bed on the right in the picture at the top.  Thank Heaven's grace, it was only one because I told Mrs. ProfessorRoush that if it was all of them, I'd have bulldozed the backyard and been out of the gardening business.  I'm not ready or spiritually willing to start completely over again at this stage.

I'm not worried at all about the grass between the house and my lower beds.  I had been contemplating burning it anyway because it had been 4 or 5 years since the area last burnt.  In 2 weeks this area will be beautifully green and I'll post another picture then to show you.  The daylilies and perennials of the burnt bed will regenerate.  And a couple of roses in this bed had already died or were ill from Rose Rosette and needed cleaning up.    There is enough Puritan in ProfessorRoush's soul to place considerable faith in fighting evil by burning.  But I'll mourn a little bit for 'Banshee' and Marianne' and "Chateau de Napoleon' until and if they regenerate.   Time will tell and life goes on.   Maybe I'll learn a new cure for Rose Rosette disease if one of the sick roses regenerates in fine shape.

And....I'm Caught Up.

Just like that, a perfect weekend of weather, and ProfessorRoush has caught up with spring.   There's always something magical about Easter weekend that brings the spring garden together.   Early or late, the plants seem to follow Easter's timing and so, evidently, does ProfessorRoush.  

Other than a few hours low of 25ºF one morning this week, spring has been a lamb this year, gradually warming up to today's 82ºF high and full sunshine, with few frosts or, even worse, late snows to set the plants back.  My Star Magnolia (Magnolia stellata) bloomed perfectly this year, not set back once by the weather and I'm already missing its warm scent.   All of the bulbs are up and out, with daffodils at their peak and the beautiful blue Scilla siberica and blue and white Puschkinia scilloides pictured above and the grape hyacinths to the left have delighted me for a couple of weeks and are just beginning to fade.  Both the Scilla and Puschkinia self-seed and spread here, and I now have Scilla in most of the beds around the house after planting them in only two little spots.  Thankfully, Scilla is easily controlled here, an unusually well-behaved and hardy plant in my garden.   Most plants that thrive in Kansas are rampant thugs, seemingly surviving on an overwhelm-and-kill-the-neighbors' philosophy.

To catch up this weekend, I purchased, transported, and spread over 70 bags of mulch bark in front and back, cut down all the ornamental grasses, fertilized everything  already green including over 100 daylilies, put up new Purple Martin houses, mowed around some early fast-growing edges, cut down the decrepit last-years-thrip-stricken Emerald Gaiety euonymus and sprayed them so they could rejuvenate, removed a 3-year-old dying Japanese maple from the front, spread another dozen hay and straw bales as mulch, sprayed the columbines to prevent Phytomyza aquilegivora (leafminers), planted 50 new strawberry plants and set up the system to water them, and probably did a few smaller chores I can't even remember. 

The photos above and left are of my now cleaned and mulched back bed from two sides, spoiled only by the serpentine hose I used to wet down the mulch (high winds are forecast here for Tuesday.  The prairie is still brown, but you can see the life beginning in my garden beds.  Notice the daffodils blooming here and there, the clumps of daylilies frantically growing, and the peonies coming up?  I can hardly wait for this coming week.   Sometime in the next two days, I'll entertain you with pictures of my 'Ann' and 'Jane' Magnolias, both just coming fully into bloom, and maybe, just maybe, 'Yellow Bird' will show it's pretty face this week.   The several days of recently warm weather has the entire garden growing on steroids right now, with redbuds, lilacs, and tulips all starting to break bud out there as I write this.  My soul is on vibrate mode, excited for a so-far normal spring.  

Commence Operation Daylily

Here in Kansas, the weather seems to be turning, and when the wind stops blowing for brief instances of time, ProfessorRoush can get outside,experience fresh unmask-filtered air, and see what he's been missing all week as he drives into work in darkness and comes home too tired to visit the garden.  As you can see, my Magnolia stellata burst into bloom on Friday, the first spring shrub to show up this year.   The petals are a little brown on the edges and that alluring musky fragrance is barely detectable in the nippy air, even without the mask, but it's a sure sign that spring has arrived. 

I was able to take advantage of a productive few hours on Saturday, the sun just warm enough to allow me to shed a coat and the wind just quiet enough to let me pile up some debris, so I frantically attacked the back bed, ripping out the dry remnants of peonies and daylilies.  Those piles build up quickly, as you can see to the right, but only two trips with the sheetbarrow down the hill to the burn pile and they were gone.  

This bed, as you can see, now looks much more tidy, as tidy as I'm ever willing to make it.  I'm not a fanatic about picking up every stray strand of debris; the Kansas wind and God will do the rest.  But it is clean enough that the fully-blooming daffodil clumps that live here in a full southern, unshaded exposure now look much happier in their upgraded surroundings, reflecting back the sunshine in their cheery yellow faces.

As soon as the bed was cleared, I also executed a long-held plan to fill this area pictured to the right with daylily divisions from other areas; the most beautiful daylilies of my garden.   Formerly, this area held an overgrown and suckering bayberry bush that never caught my fancy, and a struggling lilac that the bayberry had strangled nearly to death.  Resolving last year to fill it with daylilies, I had staked out the best of my daylilies as they bloomed, the larger clumps all over the garden that were ready for division.  Twenty or so divisions later, an equal number of holes dug, a little water sprayed around, and the deed was done.  You can see one of the staked daylilies in the picture above.

Why daylilies, you might be asking?   Well, an old gardener, like ProfessorRoush, is also a wise gardener.  The fleeting gardening whims and indiscretions of my youth are far behind me, set aside and subdued by the realities of sore hands and thighs and a hundred scars.  To be a wise gardener, one becomes a simple gardener, and no plant creates beauty and requires less care on the Kansas prairie than a daylily.  Plant them, watch them bloom, and each year  it requires only a few seconds of the removal of dead debris and they're renewed again, a cycle of gracefulness and self-sufficiency that I can't turn down.  As I age with my garden, I turn to daylilies more and more often to provide color and carefree joy in the hot Kansas sun.  I'll show you this area again, later this summer, so we can enjoy the "fruits" of my labor together.

I'll Take It!

This is how Spring arrives in Kansas; not slowly, surreptitiously, slinking into sight, but with a sudden screeching shout of "Here I am!" and "Hello, it's me again!"   I was thrilled last evening, arriving home just before sunset, to glance out the back window and see this bright yellow face turned up towards my window, welcoming me from winter into heaven.

Three short weeks ago, it was -17ºF one morning, the ground rock hard and unnurturing, the air as dry and crisp as a potato chip.  Two Saturdays past, I got outside for the first time this year, spread a little straw down where the mulch was thin, trimmed a couple of fruit trees, and prayed for warm weather.  Last Saturday, I officially kicked off the gardening year, weeks behind, clearing two beds, spreading more straw, and protecting the just-growing ornamental onions from ungulate nocturnal predators. But still, Spring I felt, was but a distant dream.

This week, however, the temperatures rose rapidly into the 70's for several days, the daffodils shot up from nothing, and lilac and forsythia buds swelled.  With colder weather forecast tomorrow, I didn't expect to see anything actually BLOOM, but there was my garden, faithfully feasting on the sun's rays and defiantly leading the way to a new season.  Not to be outdone by their taller, brasher daffodil friends, the sky-blue scilla, left here, and crocus, below at right, were also blooming near the path, leading me to happiness with every step.

The next four days are colder and rainy, but I don't care.  That thawing ground out there is bone dry and could use a week of rain.   I'm renewed now, confident that somewhere, just around the corner and another week away, Spring waits for me.  I'll meet you there soon, my friend, loppers and Hori-Hori in hand, heck-bent to feel the damp earth in my hands and the sunshine on my face.