Seasonal Shifts

'Morden Sunrise'

Yes, friends, it's that time again.  That cursed time of time change, Daylight Savings to Standard, welcome to the world of waking at 5:00 a.m. while your body thinks it's 6:00.  That world.  ProfessorRoush wishes a face-melting pox on all the mealy-mouthed politicians who promised that last year was the last time they would confuse our biorhythms and increase our statistical chances of heart attacks and car accidents in the next week. Oh, wait, another promise from the same people who promised us 2 weeks would "flatten the curve" and save us all from COVID?  More's the fool, me.

'Heritage'

My garden has seasonally shifted color and mood as well.   Two weeks have taken me from the last two roses pictured here on October 17th, to completely bare trees and the tans and umbers of autumn.   It seemed like it was overnight, one sudden drop into the mid-20ºF ranges and the world died, trees suddenly bereft of leaves who seemed to have come to their senses and dropped en masse, morphing their supporting structures from clumps to skeletons before I could prepare to mourn the change.  I'll bet the spider on this 'Heritage' was just as dismayed as I am.



 

'October Glory'

However beautiful the maple, it's a hard moment for a gardener to go from the sunny tones of 'Morden Sunrise' to the purple-red of 'October Glory' without warning.  This red maple is the only colorful tree still holding leaves, the strutting rooster among a few oaks clinging to leaves the shade of mud and dust.  I can turn from the computer and see it out the window, there in full sun, a beacon calling from my yard to the horizon.

Euonymous alata

The only match for the maple is my burning bush, Euonymous alata, who finally, after all these years, is reaching the potential that I saw for it.  This bush has been in its spot for two decades but never before this colorful, usually stripped of its leaves by winds and rodents before I can notice it.  It beckons me further into the back yard, calling me to its side, where the subtle oranges and yellows of the viburnum beside it on the right promises more subtle pleasures.

I'm resigned to winter, waiting for the first snowfall, already tired of the lack of life in the garden.  And yet this morning I planted hope, hope in the form of these bulbs and corms, small patches of color to march with Spring as it returns.  These crocus and puschkinia are now planted on either side of the driveway entrance, where they'll be noticed if the prairie winds don't pulverize their petals before they can appear.  It's an act of faith, this planting, for I planted a like number of crocus in the same spot last year, only to see just a few poor specimens survive to bloom.  Perhaps the waxy puschkinia will do better is the heartless prairie winter.   My garden, an experiment in patience, continues.....      

Garden Gone

Friends, ProfessorRoush apologizes that he has been gone from the garden and this blog for so very long.  There is no grandiose excuse, no mealy-mouthed explanation for it, so I'll spare you the diatribe.  The facts are that September came, the drought deepened, and my garden and I stopped interacting.  Until yesterday, I hadn't mowed the entire garden for at least 5 weeks since it wasn't growing at all, a long stretch broken only by occasional swipes around the driveway and roadsides where the ground gets extra runoff, and I'd been waiting for the first frost to finish things off.   Finally, last week, we got that first frost in spades as we hit 22º on our first night below freezing since...well, since I can't remember last spring.

Yesterday, as a result, was a massive day to catch up with my garden and I did it all;  mowing the occasional spikes of grass that disturbed the otherwise smooth lawn, bush-hogging the taller prairie grass that I allow to grow as "rain gardens" in the summer, trimming, draining hoses, and just generally making everything look "in ordnung."  I'll miss the reddish hues of the tall prairie grass if we ever get rain, but it was browning quickly this year and I don't like to give the pack rats and mice any more room to thrive near the house during the winter then I have to.   I just finished repairing 3 downspouts where pack-rats had chewed through the nonmetal drain pipes and I don't need any more.

I was intrigued yesterday by the contrast between the 9/11/2022 photos (above) that I took of a clump of native dotted gayfeather (Liatris punctata) in the back and its appearance yesterday (right and below left), now mature and ready to spread seed through the garden.  I would have mowed this whole area earlier, in fact, but I held off just to let this clump mature, because I want it all through the backyard grass.  Nothing attracts butterflies like gayfeather, so you can just consider this my gift to future generations with colorful wings.  I'm hoping the whirling blades of the bush-hog spread it over the entire area and covered it with grass mulch for best germination.

Dotted gayfeather, appropriately for Kansas, is a member of the Sunflower family.   Drought-tolerant, its tap root can reach down 15 feet for water, and it doesn't transplant well as a result.  You have to cultivate it where you find it, wherever God and the winds decide to plant it.  It is flavorful to cattle, so I don't see it bloom in my pastures, just in the protected areas fenced away and allowed to flourish.  And roadsides in areas that aren't mowed by the road crews.

Other than these ramblings, my fall has been a kaleidoscope of spectacular sunrises and sunsets.  I've taken a number of pictures of shining examples of both over the past month, always intending to share them on the blog but never quite sitting down to it.   So I'll leave you, today, with my back yard this morning at sunrise, yellows and tans and browns and russets all blending into the horizon, and all neat and clean from yesterday's mowing.  While several trees are already bare, you can see the yellow cottonwood stand out tall and, to its left, a shorter red oak beginning to brighten up the view.  Soon enough, it will all be white, so I'm going to covet the colors as long as I can.

Fine Firmament

 ProfessorRoush is going to make an unusual post this evening.   A post nearly without words.

On August 29th, I noticed the light change in the windows at sunset and sensed a special moment rushing into my life.   I'll let the firmament of my western and northern views speak entirely for itself through completely unedited pictures and time-lapse movies.  I took all these over a 10 minute span with my iPhone as the sun set in the west and the wind roiled the clouds.   Click on the movies (the last 4).   Make them full screen.  Don't forget to breath; I don't want anyone passing out from the sheer beauty.

My Blue Heaven

Gardening is, alas, a long series of regrets, hopes dashed, and dreams dimmed.   ProfessorRoush, for instance, remains Meconopsis-less, the Kansas climate rendering him completely unable to grow the Himalayan Blue Poppy (Meconopis betonicifolia) he has desired for so long.  My shriveled soul aching only for a blue flower to match the blue sky, of Kansas, I am forever blocked by 100ºF days and arid surroundings from Meconopsis.

There is, however, Morning Glory to partially fill the void, in this case what are possibly now-wild offspring of a 'Heavenly Blue' (Ipomoea tricolor) I once planted, or it may be the Kansas native Ipomoea hederacea who snuck in as a pretender among the seedlings. I kind of lean towards the native species as the actual imposter here, but perhaps solely because I've been watching too much 'Homeland' on Netflix and have spies on my brain.  It's a little garden intrigue that keeps my interest alive in the waning days of summer and I don't wish to spoil it by resorting to botanical identification.  And so I cultivate the mystery alongside the rest of the garden.

Whatever it's true identity, however, these blue blossoms are otherworldly in the early morning, shining from the shade (here at right) and much less audacious in the bright sunlight (below left).   The sky-blue color does match the Kansas sky and it evokes the calm id, the quiet soul of the poet.  All the while draping itself over every other living thing in sight.  At times, it seems tempting to stand still for a moment, and the gardener himself may disappear, finally part of the garden rather than its master.  Watching the hummingbirds visit these flowers, I wonder if I, just once, could become the visited, if only a prop for the interplay of bird and bloom.  

 I know I shouldn't let this vining villain proliferate freely among the daylilies and roses, but here and there, I stay my weeding, allowing small seedlings to become smothering carpets, to smooth the garden structure into an untextured vista of green and blue. The daylilies don't seem to mind, exhausted as they are from their July rush to bloom, and the roses regardless return each spring.  Morning Glory needs no water, it demands no care, it asks only to be allowed to grow wantonly without interference or intervention.   And each August I indulge that request, letting sun and earth bring forth blue, and harvest pleasure in the process.