Boxwood Issues

If you can handle the anger, frustration and disappointment of being a Kansas gardener long enough, you'll eventually receive the practical equivalent of a PhD in horticulture or plant pathology.  That wisdom, of course, comes in bits and pieces bestowed by innumerable little plants who came into your garden wholesome and happy from their nursery greenhouses and then exited from your well-intentioned care  in a brown and unhappy state.  Now, I'm not claiming that I am solely and personally responsible for all the plants that have expired in my garden despite or because of my efforts.  I'm certainly aided in that regard by ferocious winds, summer droughts, frigid winters, rabbits, deer, pack rats, and the occasional insect pest.  But when push comes to shove, I can usually point to a lack of knowledge or foresight that resulted in my abetting the actual criminals.

My hard-won garden lesson this year comes in the form of my front boxwood hedge, formed 8 years ago from twelve tiny plants of Buxus microphylla koreana 'Wintergreen'.  I planted this hedge around the curve of a driveway circle in front of the house to both define the circle when it was just a dirt and later a gravel path, and also to block a little Sha energy from the front entrance (some attention paid to Feng Shui never hurts).  These grew well for the first 6 years, but last year, in arguably the snowiest and coldest winter of the past decade, one bush in the center of the group had some stems which yellowed and died back. I wasn't sure of the cause, but a large snow drift did cover the center of this hedge for a couple of weeks in January, 2010, so I surmised it might be a little winter damage.  I treated it by some judicious pruning of individual branches and assumed new growth would cover the defect.

This year, after a second snowy winter, perhaps even colder than last, several of the center bushes have the same damage visible, as you can see from the pictures above right and below.  The picture below was taken just as the last remnant of another snow drift was melting, and as you can see, the damage is in the center of the hedge, right at the point where the highest drift occurred.  A little Internet research tells me that since it is unlikely that insect or fungal damage would occur only in the center bushes, this is probably just a classic case of winter injury to boxwoods.  Symptoms include yellowish, reddish, or colorless foliage, dead branches that occur particularly in the middle and apical parts of the crown, and loose bark or cracks in the stem, all of which fit my hedge.   Winter damage in boxwoods is exacerbated by allowing them to suffer in dry summers and  to go into winters without applying supplemental water, and I'm guilty of that since I haven't hand-watered these since 2005.  And it can be minimized by spraying with anti-desiccants in November and January, and my no-maintenance goals caused me to be guilty of that gardening transgression as well.  Guilty, guilty, guilty-as-charged.

Admittedly, hardy boxwoods are new to landscapes in the Flint Hills, and this hedge is an experiment to see if Global Warming has allowed us to shift climate zones.  After the severity of the past two winters, of course, I'm not sure that even Al Gore still believes in Global Warming.  I planted these because I like broadleaf evergreens more than conifers for Kansas landscaping, particularly since bagworms seem to be particularly plentiful in this area for gardeners who forego pesticides. I knew the constant cold dry wind in winter would be a challenge for the boxwoods, as would the full sun exposure of this area.  'Wintergreen' is one of the most cold-hardy of its cousins, as well as being the variety recommended to stay more green than bronze in winter so I thought I'd give it a shot. I also grow 'Winter Gem' and 'Green Mountain' in more protected areas as specimen plants and they seem to be doing alright where the wind isn't so dessicating and where the snow doesn't pile up.

So, for this hedge, instead of letting it grow au natural, unpruned, as I have in the past, this year I'm going to give it a second chance by pruning it to half-height, which will get rid of most of the damage and even out the topline.  I'll keep it watered better if it is a dry summer, but I refuse to stoop to spraying anti-desiccants.  the survival of these boxwoods is certainly dependent on thin ice, literally and figuratively.  Further bad winter damage in the near future and these babies get shovel-prunned in favor of something more resistant to the whims of Kansas.  Like a stone wall. 

Linseed Learnings

In a recent post I recommended the use of boiled linseed oil for the annual care of wooden tool handles and in doing so, and making sure I was conveying correct information, I got quite an education on linseed oil.  Here are ten facts about linseed oil that every gardener should know:

1. Linseed oil is actually flax seed oil.  I always wondered what a "lin" plant looked like.  Flax, I know. As an old man who hates burping  the fish oil recommended by the doctor, and who has been taking flax oil (also high in the Omega-3 fatty acids) instead, I think it's important to know that I'm preserving my arteries with the same crap that dries sticky and yellow on my wooden handles. Now the question is, should I, as a frugal gardener, save money and just drink from the $5.00 linseed oil can instead of buying the bottles of gel-caps?  Maybe the "do not take internally" text on the Linseed Oil can is a message in itself.

2.  The particular characteristic of linseed oil that makes it useful for our purposes is that it is a "drying oil" (along with tung, soybean, safflower, and poppy)  that polymerizes in combination with oxygen into a solid form.  It also shrinks very little on hardening and penetrates wood well. It is a traditional finish for gun stocks, cricket bats, billiard cues, and surfboards.

3.  In Europe cold-pressed linseed oil is eaten with potatoes and Quark cheese (a bland type of cheese).  The "hearty taste" of linseed oil supposedly offsets the bland taste of the cheese.  That means that a really terribly bland meal is made to taste like cardboard and is now considered edible.

4.  Linseed oil is water-repelling, but not water resistant.  Water penetrates a linseed oil finish in minutes and water vapour bypasses it completely.  Garden furniture treated with linseed oil may develop mildew.

5.  Linseed oil is a common carrier in paints, puttys and varnishes due to its drying properties.  Okay, no surprise, everybody knows this one already.

6.  Linseed oil was once used commonly to bind wood dust and cork particles into linoleum, a floor covering invented in 1860.  The use of real linoleum has declined as more durable PVC floor coverings have been developed.

7.  Linseed oil used to be boiled to cause it to begin polymerization and oxidation, thus making it thicker and shortening drying time.  Today most "boiled linseed oil" products are a combination of raw linseed oil, petroleum-based solvents, and metallic/catalyst dryers.  Modern boiled linseed oil is not edible, so stop chewing on the handles of your garden tools. 

8.  There was a National Linseed Oil Trust, formed in 1885 and based in St. Louis, that protected "linseed" interests in the United States.  It was dissolved in 1920 under charges that it violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.  As I read the history, essentially this was a linseed oil "cartel" that was accused of colluding to raise linseed oil prices.

9.  The polymerization of Linseed oil is an exothermic reaction, which creates a cascade of  heat buildup and make linseed oil-soaked rags particularly likely to cause spontaneous fires.  Always. always spread these rags out to dry before disposal and never just throw them into a trash can wet. 

10.  The primary world producers of flax seed  are Canada and China.  The United States was fourth in production in 2007 and almost all of the crop is from North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana.

So, that's the short story of linseed oil.  Now that I know more about it, and have learned that it is one of the worst protectants of the natural oils against water, I probably need to choose something else to protect the handles of my garden tools.  Tung oil, for example, is more resistant to water, doesn't yellow with age, and would be a much better choice as a protectant.  But that brings up a whole bunch of other questions about using local versus imported substances (not many Tung nut trees are raised in the US) and the environmental effects of growing flax in mass quantities and on, and on.  Being a world-conscious consumer is so exhausting.

Spring?

Well, it was almost Spring.  For a moment.  We've had a few days in the last few weeks where it was warm enough that I had a decent start on cleaning up the spring beds.  In fact, Saturday I cleared the last bed adjacent to the house of the debris of fall and it is ready for mulch as soon as the last of the daffodils break through.  Then, yesterday, this:

Just God's little way of reminding me that Spring doesn't officially begin until the vernal equinox; March 20th, 2011, at 7:21 PM EDT.  I fear not for the daffodils, but it probably doesn't do the new red poppy foliage any good.

Shrubs for Your Soul, cont.

  Continuing with an earlier post (also published in a new online gardening magazine titled Toil the Soil at Bestgardenblogs.com) discussing early flowering shrubs that are well-adapted for the Great Plains.  Suggestions 1 through 3 were for  Forsythia sp., Magnolia stellata, and Lilacs, and we continue now with:  

'Arnold Red'

Honeysuckles:  Honeysuckles are great performers in Kansas gardens, and I’ve seen decent success with either bush-type introductions such as Lonicera tatarica ‘Arnold Red’ (blooming in late April in this region), or with the more vine-like and later-flowering Lonicera japonica cultivars such as ‘Hall’s Honeysuckle’. I grow the latter on a woven-wire cylinder-form trellis and it can always be counted on for a bright display in mid-May just as hummingbirds arrive in the area.

'Arnold Red' Honeysuckle

'Hall's' Honeysuckle

Lilac 'Josee' in front of Viburnum 'Nannyberry'

Viburnums: Visitors to Kansas gardens often seem surprised that many Viburnum sp. are among our most stalwart spring shrubs, and it is often perplexing to me to find that many experienced gardeners don’t believe that viburnums, as a group, tolerate full sun well. Take it from me that many species of viburnum tolerate the worst August sun that Kansas weather can throw at them. The viburnum season starts for us with fragrant offerings from Viburnum fragrans ‘Mohawk’ and Viburnum juddii, proceeds through the Viburnum lentago ‘Nannyberry’, and Viburnum opulus ‘Roseum’, and then finishes with the Viburnum dentatum cultivars such as ‘Christom’ and ‘Synnestvedt’, all flowering in their own special times and in their own ways.

  

'Coles Red' Quince

Quince: Chaenomeles japonica, or Quince, cultivars such as the older ‘Texas Scarlet’ and newer varieties such as ‘Coles Red’ bloom in late April in Kansas gardens, and these shrubs are all so well-adapted to our climate as to be almost rampant in their growth habits. I have, in fact, grubbed out several of these shrubs who overgrew their anticipated bounds. Many local landscapes count on these shrubs in late April to shine briefly for a week or so and then to fade into green, undiseased obscurity as the summer and fall move ahead.

Variegated Weigela

Weigela:  I was always jealous of a neighbor who had a beautiful specimen of Weigela florida ‘Red Prince’, which always shone like a spotlight beside his front door, until I realized that just about any gardener can grow Weigela in the Flint Hills. Lately, I’ve been partial to the variegated form (pictured), whose white flowers make a different statement against their pale green and white foliage than ‘Red Prince’ does against its dark green clothes. Occasionally, Weigela will take a little extra water in the heat of the Kansas summer, but it is well worth it to carry a bucket or two at a critical moment if the reward is this early display next spring.



Philadelphia lewsii 'Blizzard'



Mockorange:  Finally, I believe no Kansas or Midwest garden is complete without a specimen or two of Mockorange to perfume the air in May. Philadelphia lewsii ‘Blizzard’ makes a 6 foot tall tower of blinding white flowers every spring in my garden, but visitors have been known to swoon with range of its dangerously strong scent.

'Marie Bugnet'

As an unabashed rosarian at heart, I can’t simply end an article recommending flowering spring shrubs for Kansas without rounding out the spring season by mentioning a few early shrub roses for the area. Without fail, the first rose to bloom in my garden every spring is the Rugosa hybrid ‘Marie Bugnet’, a white, disease-free shrub that reaches about 3 foot in both height and width in my garden. ‘Marie Bugnet’ is followed a week later by the dependable prairie pioneers of ‘Harison’s Yellow’ and ‘Therese Bugnet’, and then the whole rose season ushers me finally into summer. Soon, another growing season moves along, from June promise through August doldrums to November quiet. And I’m left as I am now, in the depths of Winter gloom, waiting for the Spring shrubs to soothe my soul.

'Therese Bugnet' (pink) and 'Harison's Yellow' (yellow)

Prairie Joy

I believe that one of the most under-utilized roses for Midwestern and Northern climates must be "Prairie Joy," the bright pink, double shrub rose introduced in 1990 ('Prairie Princess' X 'Morden Cardinette') from  the Morden Research Center in Manitoba Canada.  Although many sources list it as being in the Parkland series, the Ag Canada publication Winter-Hardy Roses (2000) lists it as belonging to the "Other" series and states it was the first hedge rose released from Morden. I obtained it over a decade ago from a source I've since forgotten and I've only seen it growing in my own garden.  And I'm tellin' ya that y'all don't know wat'cher missing, y'hear?

'Prairie Joy', 1st bloom cycle

She's taller in my Flint Hill's garden than her reputation, growing in a nice vase-like shape for me about 6 feet tall by 4 foot wide with tall, strong single canes. She's listed at being about 3-4 feet tall by 4 feet wide by Ag Canada, so the hot Kansas summers seem to benefit her growth.  Ag Canada also states that her general form is "round," but she is definitely a dense vase for me. What Ag Canada got correct for Kansas was the arching nature of the bush: she sprawls over her neighbors unless you tie her up.  My tendency has been to tie the long canes together in Winter so they don't whip themselves to death. I let her sprawl a bit early in Spring so that more flower buds are produced along the canes, and  then I tie her back up in the middle just before flowering to tidy up for flowering.  And what a show she gives.  This is a rose that blooms in repeated cycles for me, with later cycles of bloom almost as prolific as the year's first.   In the interest of full disclosure, Ag Canada, in a colder climate, lists 'Prairie Joy' as having a good first flush with only sporadic later blooms. You can see proof that I at least get a good flush of repeat bloom as the daylilies bloom in July in the picture below.

'Prairie Joy', 2nd bloom cycle

'Prairie Joy' is pretty thorny, and as I said, she likes to bend over and grab passersby, so you'll want to tie her up if she's near a walkway to make her behave.  The luminous medium pink color blends well with most other hues except the purplish-pink rugosas, and the color fades slowly to light pink.  She blooms in clusters of 1-6 and the blooms average 40 petals.  After a bloom flush, the petals fall so clean from the bush that you'll think there has been a wedding in the area.  'Prairie Joy' has dark green leaves that are very resistant to powdery mildew and blackspot.  I never spray her and the leaves stay on in the heat of the summer clear to the bottom of the bush.  She is very winter-hardy as well; Zone 3 according to most sources, but Zone 2 according to Ag Canada.  Another plus for this bush is that there has been absolutely no suckering or spread beyond her nice vaselike form.  Her fragrance, to my nose, is mild and sweet.

So, my fellow rosarians, you may not live on the prairie, but take a chance on 'Prairie Joy'.  She is not only good for cold winter nights, she can bring you joy in the hot summer sun as well.

ToolTime

Before the end of  weary Winter comes, before the annual rite of gardening known as Spring cleanup begins, all Midwestern gardeners should take advantage of this idle time of their discontent to perform needed maintenance on their gardening tools.

This Spring, one of my long-procrastinated chores was finally accomplished.  Before I trimmed my first rose cane, before I lopped off my first apple branch, I removed the ten-year-old, nicked, moderately rusted blade of my Felco #2 pruners and replaced it with a clean, sharp, brand-new blade.  What, you don't have a Felco pruner?  You fell for the cheap K-Mart Martha Stewart anvil pruners or the quick-to-dull Walmart Fiskars? And you call yourself a gardener?  Shame on you.  Yes, I know the Felco pruners are more expensive initially, but being able to purchase and change the blades is one of the reasons you buy Felcos. Now I've got an essentially new pruner without having to purchase one and my Felcos will be good for another 10 years.  The blades, by the way, are readily available on Amazon.

There are, of course, other annual chores necessary to ready your garden tools for spring, but I accomplish many of these in the fall before putting the tools away for a winter's nap.   Lawnmower blades should have been sharpened and motor oils and air filters changed, and other lawnmowerish mechanical parts greased.  The handles of wood tools should have been coated with boiled linseed oil to protect and waterproof them for another season. No, not vegetable oil or regular unboiled linseed oil, you should have used boiled linseed oil because the latter is thicker and dries faster.

Hoes should have been sharpened and the new sharp edges protected from rust by a thick coat of axle grease.  Electric fences should be fortified and raised and perhaps connected to a lethal high-voltage transformer to deter deer and rabbits from stealing the bounty of your future garden. Hoses should be inspected for leaks and washers replaced in the hoses and connectors to prevent leaks.  And the gardener should begin a late-Winter physical conditioning program to prepare for the eventual aches and pains induced by early Spring cleanup.  I've long felt that one of the good aspects of sporadic good weather in the Midwest was the fact that gardeners have a few days of activity, and then a few days off to heal, gradually increasing the activity level and naturally conditioning the gardener.  It must be much harder for gardeners in Alaska where the weather finally gets nice on July 1st and then all your work has to be done before it turns too cold again on August 1st.

I used to watch my maternal grandfather smear grease over the surface of his plows and every other sharp tool he owned every Fall, and now, forty years later, I know why he did it.  In fact, if you do just about anything you ever saw your grandparents do to prepare for Spring, you'll likely be on the right track.  And buy a pair of Felco pruners.  Your rose canes will be grateful.

Wheelbarrow Schlemiel-barrow

Listen carefully.  I'm about to divulge my best, most-useful, most-fabulous gardening secret.  Wait for it....wait for it....

Get rid of your wheelbarrow. 

Wheelbarrows are medieval, cumbersome, unwieldy, often heavy, monstrosities that should be banned from gardening circles and left to muscular, sweaty construction crews.  Literally, although there is some evidence that the Greeks and Romans may have used something similar, the best evidence is that the wheelbarrow became popular during the dark Middle Ages of Western culture.  As far as I am concerned  it should have been left there in the Middle Ages. 

I don't own a wheelbarrow anymore.  I've had two in the past twenty years; a typical steel-bodied, one-wheel contraption, and a two-wheeled plastic cart.  Both suffered from the same problems in my eyes; limited payload sizes, a strong tendency to tip over on uneven surfaces and with large loads, tiresome to drag back up the Flint Hills after emptying, and finally, they just took up too much storage space.  I threw the last one out when it fell off its designated wall hanger and banged into my shin.

Instead, for the past five years, I've been happy using a simple flat bedsheet to collect all my spring garden debris.  The particular bedsheet I use, pictured at right, is an old one, in fact it was a wedding gift for us 28 years ago, our first set of married sheets.  Once retired from use for slumber and other indoor activities, it has been variously used over the years as a frost cover for plants, and as a dropcloth for painting walls and staining decks before it was requisitioned as a load-bearing device. In fact, it could still be used for most of  those activities without sacrificing its usefulness as my substitute barrow.  My "sheetbarrow."      

There are a number of advantages to a sheetbarrow, not the least of which is that you don't have to lift the load except to gather the forward three corners and angle them up a bit.  In that regard, it still functions as a somewhat flexible Class II Lever (I'm sorry to introduce Physics 101 into the subject).  The ground supports all the weight of the load and the energy to overcome the friction of a fairly smooth cotton surface against the smooth grass is substituted for the energy of bearing the weight of the load, to the benefit of my lumbar vertebrae.  It stays where you stop, never trying to continue downhill in an accelerating fashion. It won't tip over a heavy load and smash your toes.  It is light to carry back uphill after you dump the load and dumping the load is a simple matter of "flipping" the sheet. And it folds (or crumples) compactly for easy storage.      

Now, it's true, you could purchase a reinforced plastic tarp or an expensive, heavy cansas tarp and accomplish the same task, but an old bedsheet is lighter, and doesn't make the irritating crackly plastic noises of a store-bought tarp.  The stain and paint residue has left my bedsheet stiff in places and may have welded the fibers together to improve the material strength, but I've only got one small hole in it after five years of Spring use for all kinds of materials, including vast loads of thorny rose trimmings.  And perhaps it is true that the sheetbarrow works exceptionally well in my circumstances because I garden on a hill and deposit all the wastes at the bottom of the hill so that I'm always moving the weight downhill over a smooth mown grass surface.  But I can pile a lot of material, including limbs, on a bedsheet that I couldn't fit into a wheelbarrow and I've never had the bedsheet smash one of my toes. 

So rummage through your closet, grab an old bedsheet, and give it a try.  You may not agree that it performs quite as good as I've advertised, but I believe you'll find it an improvement over your typical hardware store wheelbarrow offering.  If nothing else, the memories evoked by the old sheet may keep a smile on your face as you trudge down and back from the debris pile. 

Witch Hazel Kool-aid

One of my many, many pet gardening peeves (which should be differentiated from the many pets that peeve me in my garden), is the manner in which the fiendish ghouls who create plant catalogues enlarge and enhance an otherwise insignificant flower until the catalogue reader (i.e. the gardener) is compelled to grasp frantically for the phone and credit card and purchase a dozen for their garden. Every Midwestern gardener who has ever drooled over a plant catalogue in the depths of a cold, snowy Winter could name at least one, if not several, horticultural mail-order firms that are notorious for the practice. Closeup, voluptuous pictures of Hybrid Tea roses are moderately tolerable, but the act of magnifying tiny asters or honeysuckle until  the gardener feels that he or she could utilize the flower as a scented and comfortable spare bedroom just isn't fair.  Heck, even the surface of male bovine manure looks interesting when viewed at a microscopic level, but it is still male bovine manure when viewed in normal size.

 I give you, as evidence of my dissatisfaction, the Witch Hazel. Witch Hazels are hailed as the first blooms of Spring in many areas, flowering boldly on leafless stems in late winter. Each flower has four slender strap-like petals that are always pictured everywhere as the most glorious, showy flower in all of Creation. Every gardener just has to grow one in our gardens, right?  Especially those gardeners who haven't seen anything but mist and snow and ice for the past three months?  For years, I indulged in the fantasy of adding one of these scented beauties to my garden so that I could advance Spring forward into Winter and enjoy the simple beauty of natural flowers without resorting to artificially forcing bulbs or flowering shrubs. Pictures such as that at the left drew me in; enormous, frilly, impossibly delicate, bright blooms that look as if they would cover your hand. I was told time and again that Witch Hazels were difficult to grow in Kansas, and in support of that wisdom, I admit that I have yet to find a surviving specimen in a public garden in this area.  But I couldn't call myself a gardener if I didn't at least try.  In fact, I failed the first time I attempted to overwinter an expensive specimen, but I'm now into my fourth year of survival of a 'Jelena' (Hamamelis x intermedia 'Jelena'), and I couldn't be more disappointed at the reality of the bush.

  

Garden writers are no better than garden photographers in describing that reality for us.  The late Henry Mitchell, in One Man's Garden, stated "Nothing equals the hybrid Asian witch hazels for delight in late January-February-early March, depending on the weather....Usually, as in the variety called 'Jelena', they are orange-bronze in effect and surprisingly showy."  Showy?  I, for one, loved Henry Mitchell's writing and use of language, but he failed me this time. If you, the reader, will think back really hard, you'll realize that you have never seen an entire, whole Witch Hazel bush pictured in bloom in a book. They are pictured in toto only as an example of nice fall foliage color. The real reason the blooms are always pictured in closeup is that in reality they are only 1-2 cm long and are practically invisible from 3 feet away regardless of the bright color. The same flower, without cropping and enlargement, actually is better represented by the picture at the right, a sad and impossible standard to worship, even for a winter-starved gardener.  If one has to use a magnifying glass to view a flower in the garden, the overall landscape benefits of the plant are dubious, at best. 

So, I don't know how many of you grow Witch Hazel and would agree with me, or how many have swallowed the Kool-aid whole and feel that I'm just a crotchety old gardener who expects too much and gripes too loudly.  But I submit to you that if we are all being truthful with one another, we would admit that Witch Hazel wouldn't be worth growing if it bloomed in June instead of February.  And in full disclosure, I am suspicious that my Witch Hazel is not actually 'Jelena'.  The blooms of my bush are more yellow than other pictures I've seen of the variety, and up till now the fall foliage has been uninspiring.  The most likely explanation is that I was sold a mislabeled plant and didn't obtain the variety I sought.   Which brings up another pet peeve.....

Shrubs for your Soul

For all those gardeners who haven't happened upon it, there is a new online gardening magazine titled Toil the Soil at BestGardenBlogs.com.  For the first (and free!) issue, I wrote an article in it about Plains-adapted flowering shrubs for MidWest gardeners titled "Shrubs for the Soul."  I thought I should post the text and some of the pictures here as well on my own blog, since the clickable pictures should be better quality here.  It may take a couple of parts:

Shrubs for the Soul:  Plains-adapted flowering shrubs for the winter-weary Midwestern gardener.
 

 Imagine that it is February 1st, 2011 and the biggest winter storm of the decade is throwing snow and ice at your windows and creating six foot high drifts around your shrub roses. You are a gardener in the Kansas Flint Hills who hasn’t seen a single sprig of green plant life for 2 months and your soul aches for any sight of a cheerful spring bloom. You are also an amateur writer who is trying to choose a topic for a new garden magazine and you’re under a short deadline. I’d be willing to bet my entire mail-order plant budget that eighty percent of you would choose, under those circumstances, to write about the spring-flowering shrubs that your heart pines for. The other twenty percent might write about either starting seeds indoors or about forcing spring bulbs, but I’m a conventional kind of guy, so I’ll stick with the cliché.

Here in the Flint Hills of Kansas, shrubs that can survive our cruel, arid Zone 5B winters, flower reliably in the soggy clay abetted by the April and May downpours, and then hold on steadfast through the hot dry summers, are indeed few and far between. Some spring shrubs counted on for the earliest displays in some regions of the country, such as the Witch Hazels (Hammelia sp.), need more acid soils to thrive than we can usually provide in the Flint Hills. I have, for instance, a specimen of ‘Jelena’ witchhazel in my garden and it is seen seldom enough in the area that most gardeners who visit either ask what it is or express surprise to see it. Those shrubs that do thrive in our soil and climate, however, are the pillars of Kansas gardener’s hopes in the Winter and provide the restoration of those gardeners’ souls each Spring. Eight intrepid shrubs that are well-equipped for the Kansas and Great Plains climate are:

  

'Meadowlark' Forsythia

Forsythia sp: Everyone with any gardening experience in the MidWest knows that Forsythia is going to be on this list, so we might as well get it over with early. Many varieties of Forsythia grow and perform very well here, and in fact, Manhattan, Kansas and the surrounding towns are pretty well covered in early April with the pastel combination of yellow Forsythia shrubs and pink Redbud trees. Some varieties of Forsythia can sustain damage from the more extreme winter temperatures of the Flint Hills, so it is useful to search out and plant the hardier varieties. Forsythia x int. ‘New Hampshire Gold’ (USDA Zone 4-8) is a mounding, arching shrub to about 5 feet tall that has reliably flowered every spring for ten years in my current garden. I tend to prefer the less brassy yellow tones of the newer Forsythia ovata ‘Meadowlark’, however. ‘Meadowlark’ has a taller and stiffer form to about 6 feet tall and the blossoms are much larger and showier than ‘New Hampshire Gold’. ‘Meadowlark’ was developed in a collaboration between the Arnold Arboretum and the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station and is widely proclaimed as the hardiest of the forsythias (Zone 3-8), with buds resistant to cold damage to -35®F. Variegated Forsythia varieties, such as ‘Fiesta’ are planted here in hopes of a better display in the off-flower seasons, but they often suffer damage when fully exposed to the hot prairie sun and buds are not as reliably cold-hardy as the varieties previously mentioned.

Magnolia stellata

Magnolia stellata: One of the earliest flowering shrubs in my garden is Magnolia stellata, the Star Magnolia. I know that some gardeners in other zones or climates might think of this magnolia as a tree, but it definitely remains shrub-sized everywhere I’ve seen it in Zone 5. . I have cultivar ‘Royal Star’ which grows to around 10 feet, but other larger M. stellata cultivars are also available. But, regardless of ultimate size, this beauty is a god-send for early fragrance. I’ve never been particularly excited about the smallish 3-inch white blossoms against the bare branches, not like I am with some of the larger and more colorful magnolias, but the Star magnolia more than makes up for it in scent production. The survival of this one has encouraged me to try a few other of the hardier magnolias, including ‘Jane’, one of the “Little Girl” hybrids from the U.S. National Arboretum, and Magnolia acuminata ‘Yellow Bird’, a recent introduction from Monrovia. Both are reportedly hardy to at least Zone 5 but they are too young to be certain performers in my garden.

Syringa sp: Lilacs of all species and types are well-adapted to the alkaline soils of the Kansas Flint Hills and are cold-hardy far beyond our region. They bloom early in April in Zone 5, and sometimes the earlier blooming cultivars can be burned by a late frost or even dusted with snow. Although the hundreds of Syringa vulgaris cultivars all do well,  Korean lilacs and newer cultivars such as ‘Josee’ also thrive in the Kansas sunshine.  And the scent!  What would the scent of a Kansas spring be without Lilacs? 



Lilacs 'Wonderblue', 'Yankee Doodle', and 'Annabelle', left to right

the next week or so, I'll post the rest of the article, including a discussion of honeysuckles, viburnums (yes, in full sun!) and mockoranges.  But not right away, because I've got other things to touch on first!

Healthy Prairie Harvest

One of the first Griffith Buck roses I ever grew, and still one of my most cherished roses, is 'Prairie Harvest'.  I've mentioned her before in this blog, but she deserves her own little moment alone in the spotlight. In fact, for Midwestern gardeners who seek out the Buck roses, 'Prairie Harvest' is a "must have" rose.  Hardy yellow roses are difficult enough to find for Northern climates, let alone hardy yellow roses that are also ironclad healthy.  'Prairie Harvest' is one of my healthiest roses and the light green, glossy foliage is a nice contrast with that of the Rugosa clan.  I never spray fungicide on this one and the perfect foliage holds on through August with minimal leaf loss, little blackspot, and no mildew.



A young, two year old 'Prairie Harvest'

Although the foliage IS spectacular, 'Prairie Harvest' is my favorite of all the Buck roses because of the blooms. Unlike many of the Buck-bred roses, these hybrid-tea style, 4 inch blooms hold their form well, not quickly opening flat or showing their centers as many of the Buck's are prone to do. The rose is fully double with 40-45 petals, and quick to repeat, with continuous single flowers and floribunda-type sprays throughout the summer and fall.  But it is the soft-yellow color, more potent in the center and fading to white on the edges and as it ages, that makes this rose stand out for me.  The yellow-white blend of the newer acclaimed floribunda 'White Licorice' reminds me of this rose. The color mixes well in the garden, not like the gaudy pink of 'Earthsong'.  It also has a nicer, neater bush form than 'Carefree Beauty' (one of its parents), and it is just as healthy and hardy here in my Flint Hills garden as either of these other well-regarded Buck roses, solidly cane-hardy in my Zone-5 garden.  In fact, the overall form of this rose is far better than most modern hybrid teas, with a nice vase-like four foot tall by three foot wide shape at maturity.



Prairie Harvest was released in 1985 and is officially classified as a shrub, although I would have said it is closer to the Grandiflora clan in its overall form.  The Iowa State University website on the Buck roses describes it as "barium yellow," whatever that is.  To me, this rose is honey-yellow, fading at the edges to white, and in cold weather it may have just a touch of blush pink at the edges.  The fragrance is moderate and sweet, described as "fruity" by some with noses who are undoubtedly more discerning than mine.  Both the yellow center and the fragrance undoubtedly are from 'Sunsprite', a Gamble Fragrance Award winner and the second parent of  'Prairie Harvest', but in my garden, as much as I love bright 'Sunsprite', 'Prairie Harvest' is by far the healthier and hardier of the two.


'Prairie Harvest' with a little Fall blush

I'm sorry to finally write this post, because I know it'll send half the rosarians reading it into a frantic search for a source for this rose, but sometimes, just sometimes, everyone needs a little nudge towards perfection.





Visitors in the Mist

Sometimes, God gives us little miraculous gifts to lighten our load for the day.

That is the only way I can explain it.  I was walking the treadmill yesterday morning at 6:30 a.m.  It was a misty, cold morning, in the Flint Hills, about three days after the last snowfall.  Another sad day towards Spring without being able to work in the garden.  I glanced up at the window to see movement in the garden.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear but four hungry deer feeding in my back garden?  I rushed upstairs in an instant and grabbed my camera to capture the moment.  I'm sorry for the quality of the pictures, but what can I say?  It was still dark, I was using a zoom lens and handholding the camera, and I woke up fifteen minutes before my fine motor skills were tested.  Not to mention that I had been exercising seconds before. 

Now, some gardeners would be outraged or dismayed at seeing four deer carefully selecting their morning menu from the gardener's larder, but sometimes, as a Darwinian gardener, I'm willing to allow my soft-eyed neighbors a little charity.  That is especially true when I know that the weather has been nasty and the pickings are probably getting a little thin on the prairie right now.  And when I know that the howling of the coyotes last evening was likely unnerving to these guys and may have driven them out of the bottoms.  Besides, most of the stuff I really care about is either surrounded by woven wire or buried deep beneath the snow.

Anyway, this little guy seemed to think that my Clematis paniculata was particularly scrumptious.  It is brown and likely will die back a little with the cold winter anyway, so what do I care?

I drew the line at this one, however, when it nibbled at my sole witch hazel, which is just beginning to bloom.  I suspect that the scent of the witch hazel may really have been what enticed them up to my garden.  Shortly after this, I thought I probably had enough pictures and chased them off, using the camera flash as a substitute for a muzzle blast.

My anti-deer defences are at minimum effectiveness this time of year.  I normally have little problem with deer in the area.  Well, at least after one group "trimmed" my new apple trees down to bare stems years ago and I learned to keep fencing around all new trees for several years until some stature is obtained.  Thankfully, the deer mostly leave my treasured roses alone due to my second defensive tactic.  Along with the fencing cylinders around trees, the defensive measure I use successfully in the rest of my garden is a proprietary secret brew that I use to "mark" my territory boundaries frequently during the spring and summer.  Forget whatever you have read or heard about hanging soap or human hair in the trees or purchasing lion or wolf urine at $50/ounce to repel deer.  I utilize a natural substitute that's readily available nearly every morning, biodegradable, very inexpensive, and almost 100% effective.  It even has value as a source of nitrogenous fertilizer if it is not applied too heavily.  Production of the substance is by the most natural and organic means and I am able to brew a new batch nearly every morning.  I believe it is more potent if the anti-deer application takes place while one is picturing a good venison steak or perhaps a deer head mounted over the fireplace.  Unfortunately, my secret ingredient is difficult to apply in winter and the little guy at the left is telling me what he thinks of my efforts to repel him in this coldest of winters.

Only one other person knows about my secret deer-repelling elixir, that is unless the neighbors have been rising early recently. That person happens to be my spouse, who once again proved her tolerance of a slightly-eccentric husband by responding to the news that there were deer in the garden with the command "You need to start peeing in the garden again."

And I shall, just as soon as it warms up a little bit out there.

First Dates

Although I'm a gardener who likes to write, up until I began blogging I was terrible at keeping a gardening journal.  That statement probably raises in your mind the question of whether or not a blog qualifies as a journal, but for the sake of argument, and to ease my conscience, we're going to pretend that it does.  And for clarity, I intend "terrible at keeping a journal" to mean that I was inconsistent at it; I refuse to comment about it or worry about whether an English language fanatic is reading my writing, lest it stifle my output.  Sometimes fools trudge along where wise men fear to tread.

I previously started out each year with good intentions, fast out of the gate, but I normally faded at the first turn.  Each year for at least a decade and a half, I have written down the dates that those first few garden species come into bloom and then peak at the bottom of my computerized plant inventory.  There will usually be a few other random loose notes about something here or there, but after a few weeks my notes trickle off and disappear.  Thus, while I have an excellent idea of when the 'New Hampshire Gold' forsythia first bloomed each year, and when the Rugosa rose 'Marie Bugnet' first bloomed, I have no idea when the Hydrangea paniculata bloomed, or the crape myrtle or the Rudbeckia hirta.  From these notes, I can tell you that my snow crocus, recently blogged on, is right on time, with the earliest I've ever seen it bloom on February 22nd, and the latest March 9th.  Forsythia usually peaks around the 20th of March, but I've sighted the first buds as early as March 6th and as late as March 29th.  Twice, the bright red 'Great Scarlet Poppy', or 'Iranian Poppy' (Papaver bracteatum) has first bloomed exactly on my May birthday.  

Even when I've made an effort, there are long periods when I cease to enter anything, usually due to depression about the garden's progress.  In 2004, I entered nothing between April 27th and June 1st except to note on 6/1/04 that it was official that May ws the windiest May on record in this area of Kansas, averaging over 10 MPH continual wind.  And in 2007, my entries simply ceased at the very hard and very late freeze around April 19th which put an end to the spring flowers that year and threatened all the young plants of my garden.

I have also defaced my Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers guide (authored by Doug Ladd and Frank Oberle) with the dates when I observed the first blooms from a number of native forbs on the tract of land we own (see the sample page pictured above).  In fact, it may reveal a small megalomaniac streak buried deep within my psyche, but I always secretly hope some of those records survive to be used by a future naturalist to document climate changes, just as Thomas Jefferson's garden notes have been used by biologists of the 20th Century.  Mr. Jefferson and I have little else in common, but at least I take some comfort in the fact that his garden notes were also sporadic.  For now, during the 15 or so years that I've been keeping records, I can tell you that I'm unable to conclude anything about global warming or cooling in the Flint Hills, except to say that the native plants follow the general average temperatures of the year pretty well.  The earliest noted bloom of Blue Wild Indigo (Babtisia australis) in this area was on 4/26/04, one of the hottest years on record in Kansas, while in the more recent and cooler years I've found them around May 10th.  In fact, the date I noted for the first bloom of this plant in 1996 (the first year I recorded it) was May 10th, exactly the same as it was last year in 2010.  Maybe if I can keep this up for a hundred years, we'll at least know if Global Warming has affected Kansas. 

Stylish Blogger Award

Sherry, of her blog If Only Sweat Were Irrigation, was kind enough recently to bestow on me the Stylish Blogger Award.  As a garden blogger, I'm thankful that at least a few others are reading and enjoying the blog and I hope I can live up to those expectations.

According to the guidelines given for the SBA, I must a) link back to Sherry's blog (see above), b) give seven facts about myself and c) pass the award on to other bloggers that I consider deserving.  So, in that spirit, my seven disclosures are:

1. I hate Spirea in all forms and colors.
2. My writing interest goes way back, encouraged by a 4th grade teacher who gave us brownie points for writing poems and then by a pair of very dedicated high school English teachers who essentially created an advanced English curriculum specifically for me, long before "Advanced Placement" classes became common.
3. I got hooked on Old Garden Roses because of a book by Thomas Christopher, In Search of Old Roses.  It's an addiction I'm unable to break.
4. I'm a Taurus, earthy and stubborn.  Anyone surprised?  What's your sign Baby?
5. As a young boy, aged 6 or 7, I would paint the wooden fence posts around the farm all afternoon for a 60 cent book.  My mother should have been jailed for violation of child labor laws.
6. As a teenager, I used to chuckle at my father planting flowers around the house.  It seems that he got the last laugh.
7. If you'd have asked me when I was 17, Kansas is the last place in the USA I would have told you that I was likely to move to.

And I would like to nominate two bloggers that I follow every day for the Stylish Blogger Award.  I found both of them through the gardenweb.com rose forums and they've become friends I've never met.   The first is Connie @ Hartwood Roses who writes a really nice, varied blog about her greyhounds and her home and her roses.  Oh yeah, and she runs a mail-order rose plant business.  The second is Paul Barden @ Paul Barden's Roses.  Paul is a rose hybridizer extraordinaire whose knowledge of rose breeding is far beyond anything I've ever heard of or encountered, and I suspect I've only seen the surface so far.  I expect Paul to someday end up being spoken of in the same breath with Austin, Moore, Buck, McGredy, Kordes, and other legends.