My Old Friends

My old friend, I recall
The times we had, hanging on my wall
I wouldn't trade them for gold
'Cause they laugh and they cry me
Somehow sanctify me
They're woven in the stories I have told

                                My Old Friend; Tim McGraw

This 2004 Tim McGraw release, from the album Live Like You Were Dying, has been stuck in my head all afternoon, a so-called "ear worm" placed there by Mrs. ProfessorRoush after she had the utter audacity this morning to suggest that I trash my gardening shoes "because they stink up the closet."   

Setting aside the fact that the afore-mentioned closet is by the door to the garage, and that this is only one of two sets of my shoes in the closet, how could she possibly determine that they smell sufficiently bad as to be singled out to smell worse than the 45 pairs of her sandals, running shoes, exercise shoes, winter boots, and various others that share the closet?   Okay, okay, if you pick them up and smell  closely, there's a faint smell of mold or rot, but you practically have to be nose deep in them to detect it.  C'mon man, if you haven't been washed since the summer of '20, you might smell a little gamey too.

Mrs. ProfessorRoush isn't counting the emotional tie we (the shoes and I) have from the shared miles, the complete support of each other through rain and prairie fire, and the tons of earth and stone shoveled, nor does she value the ways a good shoe eventually mirror and mold the feet they protect.   These shoes started out identical to the 4 other pairs waiting in the wings (they're my go-to Amazon order for shoes), but the latter can never replace the memories.   Every torn stitch is a story told, and every scuff a battle fought and won.  They simply can't be replaced, not by newer, shinier shoes and not by the 2nd pair of my shoes in the closet, these made-for-the-garden waterproof clogs purchased 10 years ago on a whim and which hurt my heels if I wear them more than 5 minutes.

There are some topics, and some totems, that the wife of a gardener should just know to leave alone.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush should recognize that she has no more say over the condition of my garden shoes than over my choice of hoe or whether or not I'm going to spray weeds this weekend.   Silence and tolerance are called for here, not aspersion or defamation of a defenseless pair of beloved shoes.  With patience, eventually, they'll disintegrate, molecule by molecule, just like her gardening husband.  In the meantime, both shoes and ProfessorRoush can be washed, and although neither will look new, they won't look or smell any worse than this old set of Mrs. PR's sandals, will they now?  Birkenstocks, Smirkenstocks.

What will she go on to next, if I were to give in and replace these old friends?  My favorite gardening jeans with the hole in one knee?  My gardening cap? Tread lightly wife, for some bonds are simply stronger than marital ties.  The old sneakers fit me so well I don't even have to untie and retie them, I just slip into them now.  And this hat, well, it's just the perfect tightness to not fly away in the Kansas wind.  In the end, nothing should be feared more than a gardener with a good farm hat, comfortable shoes, and a shovel. 

McGraw's song lyrics, by the way, always leave me a little sad and angry anyway, so the continual replay of them in my head isn't helping the wounds heal today.  This song has always reminded me of a childhood friend, one who ran over the woods and farm with me from first grade through high school, and who died in his 40's due to complications from the Crohn's Disease he fought his whole life, shortly after this song was released.  I'm sorry, my friend, that I didn't see you as often as we aged, nor did I try enough to help carry your pain.  I pray now your pains have been washed away like the dirt from these shoes.  "From dirt, to dirt," is not as comforting to a old gardener, as it might seem, particularly when his shoes have been questioned.

Two Buck Roses

'Spanish Rhapsody'

It's been some time since I blogged about the roses, but I'm happy to report that most of my Rugosa's are surviving and show no signs of rose rosette at present.  And, I noted this week that a couple of my remaining Griffith Buck roses are in their second or third bloom stage and I believe it's high time to share them with you. 

I give you first, the delicate shadings of 'Spanish Rhapsody'.  I've blogged about her before, but she's too beautiful to ignore.   This year, I first noticed her blooming from the window of the kitchen, clear down yonder in the garden, where I could see this diminutive rose blooming its fool head off, defying an attack from last few remaining Japanese Beetles.   

Described as pink and yellow and stippled at helpmefind/rose, she appears only pink to me this year, although I believe I've seen more yellow from her in the past, such as my blog from 2016.   The pictures at the helpmefind linked site show this is one of the more variable roses, with lots of different appearances across the US.  'Spanish Rhapsody' was bred by Dr. Buck in 1984.   

'Spanish Rhapsody' has survived since 2015 in my garden, but she is always much smaller for me than her advertised 4 foot height.   I don't know that I've ever seen her more than a couple of feet foot tall and wide.  Blooms are of moderate size, about 3 inches around, and start out nicely tight like a Hybrid Tea and then the semi-double blooms open quickly to some golden stamens.   I pray every season that she remains resistant to Rose Rosette Disease.   Certainly, she seems immune to blackspot and powdery mildew.  'Spanish Rhapsody' has a little dieback in my winters.

'Prairie Princess'

The other rose I'd like to introduce today was a "take a chance" rose that I acquired sometime in 2021, another Griffith Buck rose that was a surprise find at a big box store.  When you find a rose with "Prairie" in its name, it's either a Buck rose or a Canadian, generally, and so I took a chance on 'Prairie Princess', and she has lived up to my expectations.    

'Prairie Princess' is another short-statured rose,  but with a little more "junk in the trunk" compared to 'Spanish Rhapsody, meaning that she is a little broader in the middle  She starts out light pink, really just a blush pink, and fades over time to white.   Helpmefind/rose says that she should be salmon pink and 5-8 feet tall, so I'm wondering if I've got a mis-named rose here.  One commenter at that site suggested she looks like 'Morden Centennial', but my rose looks more like 'Morden Blush'.  Who knows?

This rose was bred early in Dr. Buck's program, prior to 1967, and introduced to commerce in 1972, but I would not have guessed it from the form or disease tolerance.  I don't know what has kept her hidden or out of main commerce.  About 2 feet tall and wide, she has good winter hardiness, better than 'Spanish Rhapsody' in my climate.  Disease resistance is still excellent as you can see from my un-cared for specimen with grass growing all around it.  She seems to be a floribunda in form, flowering in clusters, and rarely is without flowers.   I can't fault 'Prairie Princess' for beauty and she's Rose Rosette free, two years running so, I guess "one pays his money and takes his chances," but this time it paid off.   

The Bee-holders Eye

Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder.   Well, at least maybe someone once said it.  ProfessorRoush certainly can't take credit for the ungainly phrase, obviously espoused as an argumentative gauntlet to those who hold that there are objective standards for beauty upon which all living creatures would agree.  Such arguments often trend to discussions of symmetry and purity and perfection, and inevitably dissolve into fisticuffs and sometimes wars that involve hollow wooden horses, and I know better than to blunder into such an argument  in my garden.

Take, for example, my impressions this morning during the weekly chore of making the grasses and weeds all conform to one height.  I would have said that the most beautiful view of my garden this morning was at the corner of the bed pictured above, where Hibiscus 'Midnight Marvel' dominates the view with massive bright red blooms, accentuated by the pink-purple panicles of the neighboring Buddleia 'Buzz Raspberry.'   I've spoken before of my admiration for 'Midnight Marvel', a reliable and iron-clad perennial that makes its own statement in the garden, but I have said little about 'Buzz® Velvet,' the only remaining Buddleia of my garden, still reliably returning while others eventually withered or outright died in their prime.   I'm not fond of the color of this buddleia itself, but beside the cardinal red of the hibiscus, it certainly adds to the scene, doesn't it?

The bees of my garden however, honey and bumble alike, do not agree with my assessment, as they were busily buzzing over volunteer natives, the Argemone polyanthemos, or Prickly Poppy, growing nearby and they didn't touch the hibiscus or buddleia.   Every delicate white (papier-mâché, as Wikipedia and the French refer to it) flower was being visited nearly continually by one species or another, and a continual symphony of bee noises was evident even over the noise of the nearby idling lawn mower.  This is the very reason that I allow this ungainly and thorny plant to grow randomly in my garden; for the selfish reward of happy bees and the illusion of my own contribution to bee survival.

I was certainly not going to be stupid and argue with the bees over their perceptions of beauty today, as my photographic interruption to their gluttony had already upset the buzzing minions and I suspected they were forming ranks and preparing to counter my intrusion and biased human opinions.   No, I removed myself from the battlefield, ceding the question of beauty to their ageless wisdom.  Heck, I even somewhat agree with them, for the pure white of the Prickly Poppy is certainly as beautiful and perfect in its own way as the red Hibiscus.   Beauty in the compound eyes of another.

Both myself and the bees, however, would have been in philosophic conflict with the Japanese Beetles who are still plaguing my garden and dining on their own candidates for "beauty", the roses and early crape myrtles.  I sprayed the roses again day for beetles, praying that the bees stay on the Prickly Poppy and don't try for any rose pollen.   I will spare you a photo of the vile fornicating beetles today, and instead merely show you how close the Prickly Poppy is to 'Buzz Raspberry' and 'Midnight Marvel' in this bed.  I apologize for the poor tonal quality of this picture taken in the full late July sun of Kansas and for the crabgrass and weeds visible, but sometimes beauty is hidden by its environment and a little lighting and makeup can make all the world of difference in a photograph as well as in person.

What's Wrong With Dark?

'TimberCreek Ace'

ProfessorRoush is gravely disappointed in both mankind in general and in the thousands of electronic engineers who design our modern appliances and circuits and he has a question.   Why, oh why, does every thing that plugs into a wall need to shine at night?  I mean, quoting our aged President, "Cmon man!"  Is mankind, long established as the primary predator on the planet, still that afraid of the dark?   I know the light-emitting diode (LED) was a near-miraculous invention and it puts out a lot of light compared to its electricity use (9 times more efficient than an incandescent light source), but does everything have to have one?   Efficient or not, they still use electricity.   And they're plain irritating when they're just randomly stuck onto electronics.

'Black Stockings'

I woke up early and wandered on a still-pitch-dark night into my living room and kitchen this morning (the rooms are roughly contiguous) only to realize that I could quite clearly navigate by the indicator LED that turns on when the TV is off (of all the stupid ideas), by the two LEDs on the wifi extender, by LEDs on two kitchen safety sockets (if I wanted to know if they were powered, I COULD plug something into them), and by the clocks on the microwave, double oven, and an undercabinet radio.  Of yeah, and by the lighted panel on the refrigerator (lest I not know which button makes ice or water) and from the "Clean" notification on the dishwasher (Mrs. ProfessorRoush had run a load).  

'Night Embers'

A similar problem exists in our master bedroom, where each of three surge protectors have LEDs to assure me that everything is okay (one glows from both a switch and a blue light by the USB connections), the satellite cable system has a small red light to let me know it is OFF (it has both a white and blue one when it's ON), and a bedtable alarm clock glows orange.   This is in addition to the fact that opaque blinds are insufficient to block out the light pollution from town that floods the room and that the previously mentioned alarm clock projects on a ceiling so I can know the time without turning over.   I never use the alarm by the way, blessed with an internal clock that is always running, even away at conferences.  This year we at least eliminated one light source; a Vizio TV with an LED that turned on when the TV was off.

Unknown, but dark

It is no mystery to me that the number of sleep-deprived people is growing rapidly and why we are all ready, between our various tribes and political groups, to tear down civilization.   For goodness sake, I beg you, join me in the revolution to eliminate LED's on "off" electronics in the bedroom and to turn off street lights and other polluters outside.   Please engineers and politicians, give us back our dark nights, so we can sleep properly and deeply, albeit perhaps troubled still by dreams of saber-toothed cats and cave bears. I'm willing to chance it.

'Vatican City'

By now, Dear Reader, you've realized that I'm just on a rant and this blog entry has nothing to do with the somber dark daylilies pictured here.  In my defense, without the labels, I'm not sure anyone could tell the first four apart anyway.  I'm sorry for luring you into a rant with false pretenses of daylily pornography, but I had to get it off my chest.   Also, I need to correct a previous blog error in that this last daylily is 'Vatican City', not 'Popcorn Pete' as I said recently.   It's still pretty, even though it isn't perfectly dark, isn't it?   And now I'm really done because I just used 5 variations of "it" in the last sentence and I've obviously spent my anger and I'm fresh out of writing talent for the day.  Good Night!