June Native Wildflowers III

New wildflowers are blooming nearly as fast as I can keep up with them on these days of warmer weather, but before I move on to flowers that just started blooming, I need to show you the white flowers from last week.

I'm afraid that I have to start with a boast about the voluptuous look of Large Beardtongue (Penstemon grandiflorus), a native prairie bloomer that pops up here and there in single clumps.  I know that the common name doesn't inspire any daydreams, but the species "grandiflorus" name is quite descriptive.  The plump belly of this flower, almost one inch in diameter and 2-3 inches long, makes the popular 'Husker Red' penstemon look anemic by comparison.  Native Americans used the roots of this flower to treat chest pains, so this plant is its own remedy to the swooning gardeners who see it.  It usually doesn't transplant well, but notwithstanding, I had a clump of this in my border for a few years  before it finally petered out.  So, I must learn to enjoy it on the prairie wherever it decides it wants to grow. 

I once had a plant of this Prickly Poppy pop up in the native grass down by the pond, but it never appeared again for me until this year, when it popped up near the road.  Argemone polyanthemos is native to the prairie, but likes disturbed soil so it has become somewhat rare now that the buffalo aren't churning up the tallgrass prairie. The foliage is vicious, but has a beautiful gray-blue-green hue.  The Prickly Poppy  has bright yellow sap that is supposed to be useful to remove warts.  I'd love to figure out how to grow seed for this poppy so that I could keep it going in my garden and perhaps tame it.




Of course, yarrow is everywhere on the prairie, but occurs only in its white form in my vicinity.  This is Western Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), still beautiful, but not quite as colorful as I'd like so I don't invite it into my border.  In fact, I spend a lot of time removing it from my border.  Western Yarrow, however, is a dependable prairie forb during drought years, so I hope that some more colorful yarrow cultivars that I've recently added to my garden have the same trait.

Philadelphia fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus) is blooming everywhere in the prairie grass right now and it's tall enough to be visible at long distances.  The flowers are small, but usually perfectly formed white rings around yellow centers. The name comes from an Old English belief that it would kill or repel fleas.











 

I've already shown you a picture of the yellow Missouri Evening Primrose, but the white Showy Evening Primrose (Oenothera speciosa) is just as delicately beautiful.  Like the yellow species, however, the delicate look of the flowers of Showy Evening Primrose belie the aggressive nature of this plant.  It self-seeds in my borders, where I treat it as a welcome visitor at times, but I also give it no mercy if it pops up where I don't want it, like in the vegetable garden.  You have to walk the garden in the late evening or early morning to enjoy these flowers that close and hide from the heat of the day.

The Prairie Larkspur (Delphinium carolinianum), pictured at the right, is one of those seedlings that I've learned to recognize as it pops up and then avoid with the glyphosate nozzle.  It tends to like the moister areas of my garden beds, but it seems to be randomly distributed in small numbers over the prairie. In fact, it is a good thing that it occurs more rarely than, for instance, the Western Yarrow, because Prairie Larkspur is poisonous in moderate quantity to cattle when eaten either fresh or dried in prairie hay.

 

There are, of course, other blooms and foliage contrasts on the prairie, but I'll leave those for a post later in the week.  Hope everyone is enjoying my tour of the prairie forbs. 

Light from the Edge of the World

Although we've been talking about buffalograss and native wildflowers, I can't resist taking a day out to show you a sky shot.  Taken west, at sunset, from my front door Friday night.  I appreciated the "flashlight" beam from God, pointing out the leading edge of the oncoming storm that evening, but I was quite chagrined when the storm dissipated on my very doorstep with only a few random drops on the cement.  Similarly, Saturday night and Sunday were 80% chances for rain and I watched a storm moving in from Salina that should have gotten here around 1 a.m.    This morning, no rain and the chances had dropped to 40%.  We got about one-tenth of an inch around 9 a.m. and then nothing else.  Looks like the spigot is turning off for our usual summer drought here.

I gave up and watered the tomatoes and the new roses today.  I had thought there was still enough moisture in the ground, but yesterday I planted a 'New Dawn' and the soil was dry from the surface to the bottom of the hole.  More wildflowers tomorrow.....

Buffalograss III

So, for the person who wants to own one, what have I learned about caring for buffalograss lawns?  Who should have one?  How do you keep the weeds out?  What problems may develop?  What about watering?

As I've stated before, buffalograss is a low-maintenance grass, but not a no-maintenance grass.  When I first put it in, I followed instructions to wait until the average daily temperature was above 80F, I planted it in the correct concentration and then mulched it sparsely with straw to help conserve the moisture, and I kept it watered well.  The result was a thinly-covered piece of ground around the house that filled in pretty well by the end of the summer, but also developed more than a few weeds.  I controlled these by regular mowing in the first two years, but I didn't apply any extra water or fertilizer to the lawn.

By the third year, there were areas of the lawn that were unhappy and became sparse.  I wasn't able to find symptoms of disease as the cause, but resorted to applying a little fertilizer and watering these areas and even a dense-head like I am could tell that the grass loved the extra treatment.  So I've settled now into providing a nice bit of high-nitrogen fertilizer in early June, after the grass has greened and is growing well, at about half the rate recommended for a fescue lawn.  That seems to encourage it to keep a very dense, even turf appearance and helps it to be just a little more green.  And in the height of summer here, late July and early August, if we've gone several weeks without rain and the temperatures have been over 100F, then I have been known to give the front yard a little watering every other week or so. That keeps it from going entirely dormant and it will green up again quickly when the September rains hit.  Usually the right time to water is about when every one else in town is watering on a nightly basis and my co-workers begin complaining about their water bills.

Weed control is another aspect of buffalograss care that can't be neglected.  There are commercial herbicides that are labeled for use on buffalograss during the growing season, but I haven't used them.  Instead, I've been happy with a program of applying Barricade crabgrass preventer at the recommended time in early spring.  To control growing weeds, you can either burn the buffalograss each spring (see below), or you can spot-treat any weeds that green up (dandelions and other broad-leaf weeds) while the buffalograss remains dormant.  As long as you are sure the buffalograss is still dormant, you can use about any herbicide necessary, including Roundup.  Once the buffalograss greens up, I simply hand pull weeds or keep them mowed down.   As far as insect problems on buffalograss, I've never seen any.  My neighbor occasionally treats his buffalograss areas for what he was told was some chinch bug damage, but I'm not sure whether he actually has chinch bug troubles or whether it was just an excuse to sell him some insecticide.  He has a different variety ('Cody') than I do ('Tatanka') so it is also possible that I'm just too cynical about plant store representatives and  'Cody' is simply more susceptible to cinch bugs than 'Tatanka'.

And one last tip; buffalograss loves to be burnt annually.  When you think about it, that's hardly surprising since it evolved in the face of the frequent prehistoric burns that kept the prairie free of trees.  I believe that the removal of the dead understuff helps the grass to thicken up and it seems to green it up faster as well.  And the weeds that have started to grow simply hate being burnt and they disappear, never to be seen again.  Perhaps the positive effect on the buffalograss is merely a result of wiping out the competition, but I prefer to think that it is thanking me for recognizing its true nature and history.  Because buffalograss has a soul that you will recognize if you take it for your own.  As Todd Rundgren sang, "Like buffalograss, you crawled across my heart, oh like buffalograss wrapped yourself around my heart."

Striking Serendipity

For a brief interlude from alternating my buffalograss manifesto and some native wildflower pictures, but in line with the Native Prairie Weeks theme I've started, I thought I'd squeeze in a little serendipitous combination that is starting to "pop" out in my garden.  The picture below is a young start of a variegated 'Fiesta' Forsythia (Forsythia  x intermedia 'Fiesta), that has had its space invaded by a self-seeded Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa).  I started the 'Fiesta' a summer ago as a cutting from another larger specimen and I had placed it on the end of a row of lilacs, intending it to become a summer focal point against the dark green foliage of the lilacs.  I guess that stirring the soil exposed long-buried seeds and the Asclepias won the rapid dash to the finish line.  Over time, the 'Fiesta will be taller than the Asclepias and the latter will become an accent to the former, reversing the current imbalance in height.  Regardless, I don't think I could have picked a better plant to bloom and compliment the light yellow foliage and variegation of the 'Fiesta'.  Sometimes, maybe all the time, Nature knows best.

But doesn't it make you wonder?  That it would coincidentally be Asclepias, named for the Roman god of medicine and surgery (Asclepius) by Linnaeus himself, that would so often grace the garden of a surgeon?  Or that this combination, chosen for its pleasurable appearance by and presumably to God,  also is pleasing to we mere mortals who can only admire the genius of the natural world?

June Native Wildflowers II

Oh dear, a potential obstacle has developed that might affect my plans to leave areas of the yard unmown so that I can "cultivate" the native prairie forbs this year.  I was walking the back garden last night with Mrs. ProfessorRoush and the Primary Rabbit- and Snake-chaser, when Mrs. ProfessorRoush suddenly realized that I have been merely cutting paths through the back yard and was planning to allow most of the native prairie grass to grow for the summer.  She was, to put it mildly, neither impressed by my ecological correctness nor amused when I tried to change the subject by getting her to notice a new rose.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush seems to care less about the potential for beautiful prairie wildflowers than she does about increasing her potential for encountering snakes, mice, chiggers, ticks, and other natural creatures.  So, enjoy the pictures below, because I don't know how long I'm going to be able to let these plants bloom!



A yellow wildflower that is just now coming into bloom are my stalwart Black-eyed Susan's (Rudbeckia hirta) that self-seed through my back patio bed and over the prairie.  In fact, the pictured flower just opened and is the first of many to come this year.  I have a few of these every year, and they bloom dependably through July, but seem sometimes to get a little mildew and the stems and leaves are eaten occasionally by an unidentified insect pest. These cheery little guys seem to be more prevalent than normal this year.  I can understand the cause in the patio bed since I haven't yet mulched that bed this year, trying to encourage growth of the self-seeders, but I can't explain why they're increased on the prairie. 

The delicate, but drought-resistant, Missouri Evening Primrose (Oenothera macrocarpa) is always a welcome sight, as is the related white form of the Showy Evening Primrose (Oenothera speciosa).  These almost translucent flowers open at sunset and close by mid-morning, so the best time for viewing them is while dew still coats the grass.  They face upwards when they first open, allowing themselves to be pollinated by a night-flying moth, and then turn their faces downwards after pollination, hanging their heads in apparent embarrassment after the sex act has occurred.  I guess the flowers at the right were still virgins.

The not-so-delicate Buffalo Bur (Solanum rostratum) will grab you with it's prickly leaves and spiny calyces (burrs) if you aren't watching out carefully.  This nightshade family member, also known as "Kansas Thistle," thrives on disturbed ground and is extremely drought-resistant and an aggressive self-seeder.  At maturity, the main stem breaks off and the dry bush is blown around the prairie like a tumbleweed, scattering seed as it goes.



The strangely named Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius) is eaten by grazers and the mature seed-head resembles a giant dandelion showing a large white ball of plumed seeds.   The edible roots of Goat's Beard are reported to taste like parsnip or oysters (do those taste alike?) and the plant contains a milky latex sap that was chewed as gum by our prairie ancestors. 

 
 
 
 
 

 

Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattaria) is another oddly named prairie forb that comes in both white and yellow flowers.  We consider it a Kansas native, although the species is actually native to Eurasia.  The individual blooms are a natural artwork of color and form when examined closely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I've identified most of these forbs correctly so far in the last two posts, but I lose some confidence on the myriad of small yellow composite-form flowers that inhabit the prairie.  One of those blooming right now is (I think) properly named Prairie Groundself (Packera plattensis).  If I've got the name of this one wrong, I'm sorry.   This one can be poisonous to cattle, but is rarely consumed in enough quantity to cause a clinical problem.

 

 

 

 

   

And somewhere out there amongst the prairie grass, the Killdeer eggs are still incubating in the Kansas sun:

 

Leafsnap!

We interrupt this special series of local Kansas wildfauna to bring you a special announcement.

The local Manhattan Mercury ran/copied an Associated Press article tonight about a new Ipad/Iphone app called "Leafsnap." Using this app on your Iphone or Ipad, you can snap a picture of the leaf from any tree, preferably against a white background, and it searches a growing library of leaf images created by the Smithsonian Institution and returns a likely species name and information on the tree's flowers, fruit, seeds, and bark.

River Birch

I had only a few minutes before darkness tonight, but downloaded the app and it correctly identified a redbud and a river birch.

Did I mention it also collects the GPS where you snapped the picture and creates a "collection" for each user? That the eventual idea is that the app will be used by people everywhere to map trees in their area? That in the future the plan is for anyone to be able to locate a unique tree species in their local area?  At present, the app is just set up for New York, Washington D.C., and the northeast, but it allowed me to create an identity and correctly labeled my location in Kansas.  I am now ProfessorRoush on Leafsnap.

Imagine the same tool for insects, wildflowers, roses, fish....

Imagine the possibilities.....

Find the app on your local Apple appstore, or see it at http://www.leafsnap.com./  It's free.  And I guarantee it will bring back the Cub Scout, Brownie, 4-Her, or freshman biology student in anyone!



(PS:  I wrote this entire blog on my Ipad for the first time.  Except for the picture, which I could not get to upload to blogger from the Ipad either directly or through Photobucket.  I'll work on it.)

Buffalograss II

Buffalograss (Buchloe dactyloides) is described in the texts as a gray-green, fine-textured, warm-season grass.  Translation:  you're never going to get a dark green lawn out of this grass (so quit trying!) and it won't green up or start growing until the frosts end here in Kansas, usually around May 1st.   It is, of course, a major component of the short-grass prairie to my west and it thrives both south and north of the Flint Hills.  It is hardy from zones 3-9, and can be found growing naturally from Canada to Texas.

The native species grows 4-6 inches tall, with flowers that top the foliage slightly.  It is quite tolerant to drought and withstands some extensive repeated trampling by heavy quadripeds or bipeds. It is proclaimed as one of the "finest grasses for arid regions" in Greenlee's Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses. There are several breeding programs that are directed at decreasing the overall mature height and increasing the green-ness of this grass, in an effort to develop a perfect turfgrass that never needs mowing, but those goals are still just a far-off dream.  A major obstacle in the commercial acceptance of the grass is that this is a diecious species (with male and female plants), hence the formation of the flowers, and seeded varieties will always have the seedheads to mar (or improve depending upon your point of view) their appearance.  There are, however, female-only cultivars that can be established by vegetative plugs, sans flowers.  'Legacy' seems to have the lead in plug-grown varieties, while 'Bowie' is the up and comer for seeded types.*

Whether or not the flowerheads and subsequent seedheads offend your aesthetic senses tells a lot about the inner gardener in each of us.  Some gardeners will trim their buffalograss lawns at the first sign of a flower (usually these are old men with carefully trimmed topiary scattered around their gardens).  The same group will fertilize their buffalograss on a weekly basis in an effort to give it that "deep-green" look.  These people should not have started a buffalograss lawn in the first place.  At the other extreme are Birkenstock-wearing wild-eyed environmentalists (BWWEE) who think that the blue-green hue of the grass and the yellowish-brown seedheads were the carpet of the Garden of Eden, and who are prone to doff their clothes without warning and stretch out au natural on the sun-warmed buffalograss.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush tends towards the former and I must admit my sentiments lay towards the latter, so there is a bit of a marital clash on that point, thankfully limited to telling me to get off the lawn and go get some clothes on.  Lauren Springer-Ogden, touts buffalograss as a lawn in her book  The Undaunted Garden, and recommended placing small spring bulbs in the lawn to brighten up the beige appearance after winter.

A big advantage of a buffalobrass lawn, in my estimation, is that you can forever give up overseeding or patch-seeding.  Buffalograss spreads from rhizomes as you can see from the picture at the edge of my blacktop at the right, and it will fill in bare spots within a season if minimally cared for.  I've had large areas develop sparse grass in my buffalograss lawn, especially when I was learning to care for it, but they are easy to entice the grass to fill in with a minimum of treatment and fertilizer.

By the way, you may be wondering, is it "buffalograss" or "Buffalo Grass" or "buffalo grass?"  I don't care and the sources I've looked at all are different.  The latter two don't look right to me, so I'm sticking with buffalograss.  Just don't call it buffalograss to an Aussie, because they will think you're talking about St. Augustine grass.

Somewhere out there, this grass will continue to grow in acceptance despite the clamor of all those who want us to grow fungus-ridden Kentucky Bluegrass here in the arid Plains.  I'll never forget standing in line behind a priest several years ago at a very large and well-regarded local nursery in Topeka and listening to him ask a clerk about how to start a buffalograss lawn.  His thought was to decrease the mowing and care needed by the volunteers of the church, a worthy goal in my estimation.  The know-it-all clerk told him that it was too wet in Topeka to grow buffalograss(!) and what he really wanted was a K-31 fescue lawn and she proceeded to sell him a large bag of K-31.  And here I was behind him, just dying to blurt out that I had a buffalograss lawn, and a decent one in my eyes, just a scant 50 miles west.  I kept my own counsel, but a small part of me has always hoped that the clerk's soul shriveled up a bit at her act of buffalograss denial in front of the priest.  

June Native Wildflowers I

In yesterday's blog, I related that most of my yard is native prairie that I mow regularly, usually in portions on a every other week rotation.   This year, I'm trying to leave certain areas unmown, primarily so that I can enjoy the prairie forbs that pop up in those areas.  The flowers aren't as dense-packed as you might see on a calendar photograph, but there are enough of them to enjoy.    Many of my intentionally neglected areas are strips on the hillsides that will serve a dual purpose (other than for my aesthetic satisfaction)  as rain gardens to slow down and clean some of the runoff from heavy rains.  And of course, the unmown areas offer a third, selfish advantage;  they decrease my dreaded mowing time.

I decided to show you some of the June wildflowers blooming in these areas because of my initial excitement over a patch of Purple Poppy Mallow (Callirhoe involucrata) right next to the circle (okay, teardrop) driveway.  I've been mowing around it for several years while the Poppy Mallow blooms, then cutting it off again a month or so later because the blooming ceases in about a month and because a month is all I get before Mrs. ProfessorRoush starts to complain about the disheveled mess and forces me to cut it.  We are not entirely in marital agreement on our appreciation of the "natural" state of lawn.

The Purple Poppy Mallow blooms brightly and gloriously for quite some time during the summer and loves the hot dry summers of Kansas.  The blooms close each evening and don't open up till late morning, so if you take a picture or pass by a group in early morning, like the one on the left, it just looks like a patch of overgrown weeds and you might look at it and side with Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  Three hours later, this is a river of bright purple, a floriferous masterpiece, and nobody would have the heart to mow it off.  

Another forb that has been blooming in the prairie for several weeks now is the Blue Wild Indigo (Baptisia australis).   This one also comes in a light cream form (a different species, Plains Wild Indigo or Baptisia bracteata ) that usually blooms first and has already spent their beauty this year.  I enjoy the dark, black rattle-ly seedpods that form on the dried up stems of these plants, but saw my neighbor chopping off the blooming false indigo this weekend because he doesn't like the seedpods.  There's no accounting for taste, but at least he has a better appreciation for the fact that the sap of this plant turns purple when exposed to air. 

Throughout my garden beds, one native prairie plant that I recognize as a seedling and allow to self-seed wherever it wants is the Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa).  I've been amazed how often they pop up in a perfect place for display and that's good because they are nearly impossible to transplant anyway due to deep taproots.  These orange beauties have just begun to bloom and they will brighten up their areas for 6 weeks.  I now have 10 different self-seeded butterfly magnets in my garden.  They are all tough as nails, impervious to wind and weather and insects, and as drought-tolerant as you'd ever want.

Hidden in the prairie grasses, if you look hard for it, will be light-pink-purple bristly flowers of the Catclaw Sensitive Briar (Mimosa nuttallii).  What looks like flowers are actually the overpowering pink stamens towering above the tiny flowers.  Touch the stamens and they fold up into a small ball instantly.  Catclaw is an important indicator of prairie health as it disappears in overgrazed areas.

I've got loads of wildflowers to show you, so look for posts II and III later this week;  I think we'll do the yellows, and then the whites on different days.

Buffalograss Brief

All this time I've been blogging and I've never really written about my buffalograss (Buchloe dactyloides) lawn.  I'll try to rectify that situation right now, as well as provide (perhaps in part III) a few tips for the gardener who wants to own one.  And I think, while I'm writing about this great native grass, I'll just declare these next couple weeks "Native Prairie Weeks" on Garden Musings and also write a few blogs about the native wildflowers that are beginning to bloom in my yard. Stay tuned, friends.

If you are building a house out on the Kansas prairie, planning for a buffalograss lawn makes simple sense, as well as having a  certain nostalgic charm.   I mean, it's Kansas, right?  Pictures of buffalo over the prairie in the movie "Dances with Wolves" should be running through your mind.  In fact, my "lawn" now has a split personality, with the immediate 30 feet or so surrounding the house a named commerical buffalograss variety and the other 90% of my lawn is, or at least was, mown native prairie.  I've noticed over the years that as I keep the prairie area mown down, more and more native buffalograss has moved in, to the point where about 30% of the grass everywhere is buffalograss.

But what kind of buffalograss did I want, and how to plant it?  Many new buffalograss varieties are established by the planting of plugs, and I had little patience or energy to plant hundreds or thousands of plugs in my landscape.  Fortunately, a search located Stock Seed Farms of Murdock, Nebraska, a retail outlet that specializes in native prairie flowers and grasses.  At the time, they offered 'Cody' and 'Tatanka', two seeded varieties of  buffalograss developed by the Native Turf Group in association with the University of Nebraska.  'Tatanka' was supposed to green up a little earlier, so I chose that for the lawn of my immediate house, and my neighbor chose 'Cody'.  Establishing my lawn was a breeze.  The ground was already cleared, and I simply waited for mid-June, seeded it, threw down a little straw for a light mulch, and began to water.  Up came the buffalograss, and by the end of the season, I had a decently dense buffalograss lawn.

For the gardener contemplating a buffalograss lawn, I've three important things to tell you right off.  First, I love my buffalograss lawn and wouldn't trade it for the world.  It doesn't need to be mowed as frequently as most other turfgrasses, and I rarely give it extra water except in the worst of Kansas summers.  If you like the fine texture of bluegrass, then you'll be amazed at buffalograss.  My children have always loved the feel of walking on it barefooted; soft and very dense.  Yes, it fades in the fall to a nice buff brown color, but the color is very even-toned and pleasant, and your mowing ends with the first frost.  I also love how it fills in bare spots;  no over-seeding or spot-seeding necessary, just apply a little more water and fertilizer to the area and soon the buffalograss will fill in. 

Secondly, if you're going to grow a buffalograss lawn with the intent of mowing less frequently, then I recommend that you should obtain the agreement of any spousal units beforehand.  I probably wouldn't mow my buffalograss at all, except that She Who I Must Obey (Mrs. ProfessorRoush) doesn't like the seedheads which pop up about every two weeks;  so of course I'm on a two-week mowing schedule.  Still, that's twice a week for about 5-6 months, much less frequently than a cold-season grass would require.

Lastly, while a buffalograss lawn is  LOW maintenance, it is not NO maintenance.  To keep its best appearance, my lawn has taught me that it does like to have some fertilizer and a little help keeping the broad-leaf weeds and crabgrass out.  It doesn't require watering often, but it can use a little water if the summer heat of July and August go on a little long while the rains stay away.  And it responds enthusiastically if you burn it once in a while.  But I learned my lessons well and a former turf grass expert once told  me that I had the best stand of buffalograss he'd ever seen.  I won't say that I actually crowed, but a peacock would not have out-strutted me at that point.

I'll discuss the species Buchloe dactyloides in Part II and provide some tips and some specifics on buffalograss care in Part III.  In the meantime, visit the Stock Seed Farm site link above and view the propaganda there.  I warn you, it will suck you right in, particularly if you read it on a sunny 95F day when you've just mowed your fescue for the third time this week.

Missing Eden

Yesterday evening, making my nightly rounds through the garden, I came upon a full-blown mystery.  Several days ago, I had noticed that the bi-colored Meilland rose 'Eden Rose '88', also known as 'Pierre de Ronsard' or by its patent name, MEIviolin, had begun to open up its blooms for me.

'Eden Rose '88', 2 days ago, rain damaged,

You should be made aware that, although I've grown this rose for a number of years and although I've given it a prime south-west facing spot, I've just never been strongly impressed by this rose.  It may have been named "The World's Favorite Rose" byWorld Federation Of Rose Societies, but it just doesn't perform that well here in Kansas.  Oh, no doubt, I love the fully double bloom form with its creamy-white petals delicately ringed in pink.  But the bush itself has had no vigor or hardiness for me, dying back to the ground each winter despite my efforts to protect it.  And the canes of this rose seem weaker than most to the Kansas wind.   It was, in fact, the first rose to teach me to pinch off new basal canes before they reached a three foot height, less they be split at the base by a strong gust. It is supposed to be a short climber, reaching eight or nine feet tall, but I've never seen it top three feet before the wind or winter prune it back.  And finally, it is quite susceptible to blackspot late in the season, losing most of the dark leaves overnight if I don't keep my eye on it.  It often forces me to break my non-spraying ethics.

'Eden Rose '88' today, nipped in the bud

But, back to the current puzzlement, I noticed last evening that every single half-open bud of this rose had been clipped off overnight.  Not clipped off as if it had been properly deadheaded to the next outside-facing bud, but just the buds themselves had all been removed; at least all the buds that had been in the process of opening.  Even more perplexing, right next to 'Eden Rose '88', the plump buds of  'Prairie Star', 'Cuthbert Grant', 'Ballerina', and 'Louise Odier' were completely untouched, as was, upon further inspection the rest of the roses in my garden.  And worse yet, the next day the entire rose was trimmed down to about 6 inches, except for the 3 foot tall single cane at the right.

Why, pray tell me, did some wicked creature of the night single out 'Eden Rose '88' for its palate?  I cannot believe, as She Who I Have to Humor (Mrs. ProfessorRoush) hypothesized, that this rose was that much sweeter to the tastebuds than any of the others. I think that's about as likely as someone or something taking offense that 'Eden Rose '88' was actually introduced in 1987, a modern cross of 'Danse des Sylphes' and the pink and white climber 'Handel'  with 'Pink Wonder Climbing'.  Or something taking offense that the same rose-breeding family introduced another rose named 'Eden Rose' in 1950, a pink rose not to be confused with the modern climber.  There were no tracks in the area to help identify the fiendish culprit, so unless we are to blame a freakishly large hovering hummingbird, I am at a loss to even guess at a possible motive or suspect.  I did take the precaution of applying my standard deer repellant in the area (see this post).  I should take the destruction as a sign and spade prune this rose once and for all.  But there's just something about this rose......something that only an insane, crazed, night-pruning monster could love.

Golden Celebration

If there has been a bright spot in this rainy May of rose floriferousness failures, it has been the way that the English rose 'Golden Celebration' has begun to grow on me.  I've never been a great fan of the English roses, but this year I would be hard pressed to tell you why.  'Heritage' has always been a standout in my front garden, but after 'The Dark Lady' sulked for several years, and 'Mary Rose' dwindled in the shade, and 'Benjamin Britton' failed to wow me with color, I was less than enthusiastic about adding more of that tribe to my garden.  This year, all these and more have perked up to be the stars of my garden, perhaps not coincidentally in a year where May has been as cold and rainy as the British climate they were bred and chosen for.  Could it be that simple?

My 'Golden Celebration' is beginning its third year in my garden and it is quickly becoming the blooming apple of my eye.  It is about three foot tall and wide now, completely free of blackspot to this point, and it blooms like a cup-shaped sunbeam in the midst of the dreary rain-soaked garden. Yes, very double 3-4 inch flowers bend over with each rain, but a little sunshine perks up them back up to face the sky.  That bright golden-yellow color, reminiscent to me of 'Graham Thomas', does not seem to fade from bud open to the fall of those hundreds of notched petals.  One reason for my change in heart about this rose is its fragrance.  I knew 'Golden Celebration' was a fragrant rose, but I had occasion to compare it this week against 'Variegata de Bologna' and 'Madame Hardy'.  To my immense surprise, there was no contest.  'Golden Celebration' now gets the prize for the strongest fragrance in my rose garden, a heady fragrance like  fruity tea.

'Golden Celebration' (AUSgold) is a 1992 introduction by David Austin but it was slow to cross the Atlantic. It is supposed to mature at four feet tall and I expect it to reach that height this year.  This child of 'Charles Austin' and 'Abraham Darby' seems to be cane hardy here in Zone 5b and I saw no dieback at all this past winter.  I've never grown 'Charles Austin', but this specimen of 'Golden Celebration' seems much more vigorous and hardy than 'Abraham Darby', of whom I killed several before I gave it up as a lost cause.  Right now, as 'Golden Celebration' takes its rightful place as a star in my garden, the only drawback I can see to it is that I planted it too close to an own-root start of 'Double Delight', which it threatens to overwhelm soon.  I'll undoubtedly move the 'Double Delight', since I now can't risk losing 'Golden Celebration'.

Addendum 6/4/12;  I feel obligated to add that in July of 2011, and now in June of 2012, Golden Celebration has proven to be somewhat susceptible to blackspot and may not be suitable in a non-spray garden.  The lower leaves have dropped and a fair portion of the foliage is affected.

Rose Season Called Off

wah-wahnt...wah-wahnt..wah-wahnt...We interrupt your regularly scheduled garden blog for this important weather announcement:  There will be no regularly scheduled finale to the garden rose season in the Flint Hills because of inclement weather, botrytis blight, wind, and general calamity.

I declare the drought here officially ended as of last night, but I also entirely give up on the roses this year.  Every time recently that we have had a few days of sun and something approaching a normal blossom was starting to open, either the skies or the north winds opened up their attack on my garden and put the kibosh on every rose that was in the process of developing a bud.

As of noon yesterday, we had received 11.14 inches of rain since January 1st, 2011, and we were still 1.6 inches behind average (although that was better than the 5 inches we were behind at the start of May).   Forecasters predicted a 30% chance of rain for Manhattan during the day and evening of June 1st.  During the day, two small showers came through and my two rain gauges (one near the house and the other in the vegetable garden), registered a respectable 0.4 inches of rain when I emptied them at 6:30 p.m.  Then, about 10:00 p.m., a lightning storm and downpour started that continued through 4:00 a.m.  I woke up several times during the storm, checking to see if we were under a tornado warning and believing we had successive bands of rain moving past.  At 3:00 a.m., I was considering investigating the exact length that comprises a "cubit" in case I had need of it.  Unusually for this area, it was not successive fast-moving bands, but a single tropical storm that formed and sat on us all night long.  The radar picture above, captured courtesy of my new Ipad2, looked almost exactly the same during the whole night.

This morning, my rain gauges both registered 4.7 inches of rain.  Since they are only 5 inch gauges, I don't know if we that is all that fell in the past 12 hours or whether the gauges filled at some point and the additional drops coming in were splashing out more then they added.  So the 5.1+ inches of rain I recorded should put the area out of the drought, at least temporarily.  The yard and beds are sopping wet and my anticipated roses are hanging down limply off their stems.  Such is the life of a rose-nut in the Kansas Flint Hills.  In the next few weeks I'll post a few more rose blogs, but the best pictures will have to wait for the second wave of the remonant roses.  If, and only if, they don't bake in the July sun.

Turning on the news this morning, I almost felt guilty for planning this blog after finding out that Springfield Massachusetts was hit by a tornado last night.   Killer tornados in Massachusetts?  Good grief, what's next?  A tidal wave in the Great Plains?

Charlie Brown's Daylilies

I think just about everyone is aware of the iconic cultural image in the Peanut's cartoon strip where Charlie Brown cannot resist trying to kick the football held by Lucy, who pulls it away from him every time.  From now on, when you think of Charlie Brown with footballs, think of me with daylilies.

'Lady Betty Fritz'

 I am well aware that most daylilies are some shade of orange, despite what we want them to be.  Years ago, I read and took to heart the excellent summary of daylily colors by Cassandra Danz in Mrs. Greenthumbs, where she translates daylily color terminology for neophytes from "melon," "peach," and "deep red" to "orange", "light orange", and "looks like orange from a few feet away" respectively.  I don't really mind orange daylilies.  And I do believe that the red daylilies are starting to really look red, and there are some excellent purple daylilies out there, even though they do not stand out well in a dark green border in the garden. But, unlike the 200+ roses in my garden and numerous irises that I can identify on sight, there are very few daylilies I can differentiate.  The whites all look alike, the purples look similar, and I have no hope for the apricot-melon-oranges.

Yet, I cannot resist some naive impulse that allows me to believe the fantastically colored pictures on daylily plant tags.  Yesterday, Hemerocallis 'Lady Betty Fritz', pictured at the upper right, bloomed for the first time in my garden..   Although admittedly it is a first bloom on a small plant, it bears little resemblance to the fantastic coloring on the plant tag, as reproduced to the left, nor to pictures one the web.  Nor to the description on the back of the tag; "flowers ivory with a red eye and double-red gold edge above a green throat."  Now, I don't know about you, but I would call the eye "maroon" or "deep purple-rust", not "red."  And the "double red-gold" edge is barely present.  And there is no ivory that I can see.  I purchased this one at a reputable nursery, so I don't think it is merely mislabeled.  And I don't think that I've misplaced the plant;  it is one of only three new daylilies I've planted this year.  The bloom size WAS very large.  But I can only conclude that daylily describers are all just imaginative Lucy's.

I've been taken in again and again, long enough that I suppose I'm beyond hope for learning the lesson.  At least the local annual Hemerocallis Society sale, where I buy most of my daylilies at cut-rate prices, throws the fans on tables labeled "orange", "yellow" and "pink", and so I'm less likely to be disappointed.  I just need to stay away from catalogues and fanciful plant tags.  Perhaps a local Daylilies Anonymous would be helpful.  Anyone else care to join?

A better KnockOut

All of you know that I pretty much despise the wildly popular 'Knockout' rose, right?  No surprises there for any regular readers.  Well, I'll show you a rose that, if we must have a rose whose primary purpose is to bloom and bloom for landscaping enhancement, has 'Knockout' and its relatives beat to shame.

That rose is 'Champlain', a 1982 Canadian rose of the Explorer series, named to honor the founder of the city of Quebec, and touted everywhere for its continuous flowering habit by everyone who grows it.   In fact, it is the third longest blooming rose of the Canadian releases.  I have two, one in full sun in a long border in the garden proper and a shaded one in my front landscaping near the house that has only a northeast exposure.  The latter also has a tree to its immediate east, so it might see direct sun 4 hours a day in the summer and barely at all in the winter.  Both bloom their heads off, although I have to admit the one in the sun does have a more continuous bloom pattern.

'Champlain' is a healthy rose, free of mildew and almost free of blackspot (I see a little on them in humid August every other year and they lose some lower leaves).  Flowers are bright red (a much better red than vivid pukey off-red 'Knockout'), are 6-7 cm in diameter, and have 30 petals.  There is an occasional white streak to the petals as you can see in the second picture.  'Champlain' is a complex hybrid of a cross between 'R. Kordesii' and 'Max Graff' on one side and a seedling from' Red Dawn' and 'Suzanne' on the other.  It seems to be easy to start from softwood cuttings because that is where my 2nd plant came from.  Hardy to Zone 2, it has never had any dieback here in zone 5.  Canadian climates do have some dieback as noted in Robert Osborne and Beth Pownings Hardy Roses.

In front, part sun 

So how many ways is 'Champlain' better than 'Knockout'?  Let's see, better color, better hardiness in the far northern climes, and likely a more continuous bloom.  I'm actually going to count weeks this year for the 'Double Knockout' and 'Champlain' in my garden to determine the latter once and for all.  'Champlain' has a better shrub form, with thinner canes than the hybrid-tea-like gawky canes of the original 'Knockout'.  But most importantly, both my 'Champlain's have grown to three feet tall and wide and have NEVER been pruned.  Never.  Not a single cut.  Around here, many commercial places trim their 'Knockout' to the ground each year, or at least trim them to keep them within reason because it can get to be a six foot bush when left alone.   'Champlain' seems to reach an "adult" size and then just stop growing.  How cool is that?  Heck, even Martha Stewart approves of it.

In back, full sun

Sadly, although it is listed in Ag Canada's Winter-Hardy Roses as having a little fragrance, I can detect none with my middle-aged male nose.

I point out that single drawback solely in hopes that not all of you will choose to grow this nearly-perfect landscape rose.  If 'Champlain' was grown everywhere by everyone, I'm sure that I wouldn't like it nearly as much.  I'm peculiar that way.

Evasive Maneuvers

Well, since Connie at Hartwood Roses has been distracted this week with a resident mockingbird and now a vacant nest, I feel I should gamely (chuckle) follow that theme and show you my own avian close encounter.

Mama Killdeer looks angry!

Again this summer, the long straight lines of my lawn mowing pattern have been interrupted by an intractable Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) who has insisted that her nest be placed in my front lawn in the short grass.  I thought I would avoid the problem this year by leaving a few areas unmowed on the fringes of my mowed prairie grass yard, but evidently the shorter grass is the preferred habitat.  I first spied this little dinosaur remnant staring at me as my mower edged closer and closer.  She is definitely give me a beady-eyed stare.

Killdeer feigning a broken wing amidst the buffalograss

As you get closer to their nests, those of you who know about Killdeer know that they will try to lure you away by pretending that they have a broken wing, hoping the stupid roaring green predator (I mow with a John Deere tractor) will ignore the nest and go after the injured bird.  They have a pitiful cry as well (the "vociferus" species name), just in case the broken wing wasn't enough to lure you in.  If you follow them, they'll stay just far enough ahead to keep you coming on, away from their nest, until they decide that enough is enough and demonstrate that they can fly quite fine, thank you.

If you notice where the little harlot started her dance, you can get a visual treat and see her clutch of (usually) four eggs laid in a small depression in the ground, camouflaged by their shell pattern and surroundings, but without any other protection. Once I find the nest whose position the parent betrayed to me, I give it a wide berth with the mower.  No sense in having smashed eggs or mangled little chicks on my conscience on top of everything else.  And anyway, Killdeer primarily consume insects, including grasshoppers, caterpillars, and other pests.  The more Killdeer I have around, the healthier my garden is.



Killdeer nest on bare ground

Killdeer can have two broods a year, and both the male and the female incubate the eggs and rear the young, so I really don't know if my pictures are of a male or female (I thought it would be rude to lift her tail to check).  In a couple of weeks, these eggs will hatch some chicks who will appear to be composed primarily of legs.  They will leave the nest behind within a couple of days to seek shelter in taller grass, so unless I watch them close, I'll see eggs and then see nothing, just a little tuft of dead grass on the lawn to tell me where they used to be.  Nature waits for no gardener.

Buck's Golden Princess



Rosa 'Golden Princess'

Now that we've had a day of sunshine, I can't wait any longer to show you my two-year-old toddling princess from the breeding program of the late Professor Griffith Buck.  So, without further ado; live from the Flint Hills of Kansas and having barely escaped drowning and freezing to death; the slightly rain-damaged blossoms of 'Golden Princess':

'Golden Princess' seems to be a little-known output from Dr. Buck, but I believe she deserves better recognition.  The earliest official description I have from an often copied, old type-written font sheet, is that she is a yellow-blend shrub rose of 1984 vintage.  The current Iowa State extension website describes the rose and its coloring in dry terms as "The large, ovoid-pointed buds of pale aureolin yellow (RHSCC 12D) open to double (30-35 petals), cupped, open. 4-4.5 inch blooms of deeper aureolin yellow (RHSCC 12A) tinted spinel red (RHSCC 54A) on petal edges, and finishing pale spinel red (RHSCC 54C)."  I suppose that if you have a Royal Horticultural Society Colour Chart, you could make probably some sense of that cold scientific description, but suffice it to say that the picture at upper right is accurately hued, and the rose is essentially a yellow-cream-golden blend fading to pink and almost red at the edges.  For those who like golden-yellow-peachish-orange blooms such as Peace and Alchymist, this rose is a "must grow." 

'Golden Princess' blooms all summer in clusters of 1-5 and the blooms have a moderate degree of fragrance.  The rose survives here in Zone 5B Kansas with some tip die-back noted both years that I have grown it, but the semi-glossy, dark green foliage is iron clad during the growing season and requires no spray for disease.  Parentage was a little hard to come by, but is listed on the Elko County, Nevada, Rose website and on helpmefind as "Hawkeye Belle (seed) X (Roundelay X Country Music) (pollen).  I don't know how those writers know that, so take that information with a grain of salt.  Regardless, as a shrub, 'Golden Princess' is small, only about 2 feet tall and 1.5 feet wide beginning its third summer for me, so it is perfectly suited for a small garden.  As the only drawback that I can see, it has large tan thorns that are a bit on the wicked side when it comes time for Spring pruning.

Give her a try for a manageable shrub rose of startling beauty.  Did I mention that the best part of this rose may be the just-opening buds?

A Little Whitewash

We've now had 6 inches of rain in the past 6 days, the weather has turned cold again, and my  roses, at peak bloom, are drowned and misshapen.  You can stop now, God, and I promise I'll stop complaining about the lack of rain around here for awhile.

But I will take advantage of the lousy weather and lack of decent rose pictures to slip a little gardening tip into the blog.  I've written previously about obtaining some nice glass cloches last January that I was, and am now, immensely proud of.  They served me well through a frigid winter and a cold and unpredictable Spring here in Kansas until a few weeks ago, when the weather hit the 80's.  I found then that some of the new roses were getting a little bit "burnt" in them.  And no wonder, because I found later that a clear glass cloche in my garden, at an ambient air temperature of 81F on noon of a clear sunny day, has an interior temperature, measured by my soil thermometer, of 140F!  Time for the cloches to come off, but the weather has been so variable, and with night temperatures reaching into the 40's, that I really didn't want to keep them off, nor did I want to be running around every day and night covering and uncovering them.

So, when the rose leaves began to fry a little, I got it into my head that I could whitewash the cloches, just like K-State does its glass greenhouses.  I did a quick search around town for some plain old whitewash, thinking that a little "shading" would improve the problem, and came up empty.  So I turned to the Internet, the modern Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and came up with a simply made whitewash formula.  After coating the interior of the cloches with my homemade whitewash, as shown above, the interior temperature on the same sunny day was only 98F, a vast improvement and survivable by the roses, particularly during weeks like this, where the high temperatures have been in the 70's recently, the nights in the 50's, and it has rained for days.

Remember fellow gardeners, cloches are just mobile greenhouses and whitewash does wonders for the plants under the glass.  The formula, cut down to a small, manageable amount, is below:

3 parts hydrated lime

1 part salt
8 parts water

If you substitute the word "cups" for "parts" above, it will make about a half-gallon of whitewash, which goes a long way, so you can cut it down if you need less (that's why I converted the recipe to "parts").    Be careful to mix in small amounts of each ingredient slowly, so that the powdery lime doesn't just clump up and become hard to stir. It was recommended to let it sit overnight, but I used it immediately and it seemed to work well. It's fairly watery when mixed, but remember it is a wash, not a paint.  I did use a paintbrush to slop it on the interior of the glass, though.  So nice to "paint" and not worry about how much I drip on the ground!

Picture This entry for May

My entry to Gardening Gone Wild's Picture This contest for May is below:  The iris 'Victoria Falls,' with its throne revealed after a walk up the velvety-blue corridor and the cellular structure of the cathedral awning above.