Hunter Hype

There lies a rose within my chest

A rose, crimson red and beating

In summer's heat it knows no rest

Steadfast 'Hunter', never fleeting.

I grow it, yet it stabs my hand

with prickles, fearsome sharp and many

Rugose the leaves, of health and grand

A simple rose, yet good as any

'Hunter'

The sparkling rose referred to in this miserable rhyme, of course, is the 1961 introduction by Mattock in the United Kingdom.  'Hunter' (sometimes called 'The Hunter') is a cross of the tetraploid orange-red floribunda 'Independence', and the light pink diploid cross of R. arvensis and R. rugosa known as R. paulii, or simply just as 'Paulii'.  'Hunter' boasts double-petalled bright red flowers of long-lasting color, fading at last to a deeper red-purple before falling from the bush.  He stands in the middle of my front house bed, about 4 foot tall, and in a rare winter has had a little bit of cane dieback, but the gorgeous red flower is worth taking that chance.  I fell in love with the idea of this rose after being introduced to it by Suzy Verrier in her 1999 text Rosa Rugosa.

Published and posted information varies widely on this rose and I'll add in my personal observations.  First and foremost, let me state that I've had this rose almost a decade and it took until this year to convince me that it really was capable of an exceptional display.  Some sources state that it lacks vigor, and for me it indeed struggled for several years, surrounded by Monarda and other perennials, and it seems to have suddenly decided to just grow over them and live in the sunshine.  Since then, the past three or four years, it has added bulk and thick canes, spreading out without growing taller.  Some references say the rose is prone to blackspot, and while I do see some yellowing and loss of the lower foliage regularly, I haven't seen the typical fungal appearance and I don't spray my 'Hunter'.   The fragrance is listed from "mild" to "strong," but I would agree with a "mild" rating.  Bloom repeat is sporadic throughout the summer, with three to four flushes over the season that never reach the bounty of the original flush.  

If you plan to grow this rose, be aware that it retains the thorny genes of the Rugosas and that this is one of the most wicked roses I grow in that regard. My 'Hunter' is well-placed, in the center of the bed, to prevent ruining trousers.  And skin.  And perhaps marriages.

Butterfly Addendum

Buckeye butterfly

Yumpin Yimminy, so many pictures, so little organization!  Yesterday, during my blog titled "Butterflies Are Free", I somehow missed these two butterflies in the picture files from the same day, bringing my one day total of identified butterflies to ten.

How could I have missed the Buckeye butterfly?  Bright orange and with all those blue eyes staring at me.  This one was sneaking an early sample of Achillea 'Moonshine'. 

Cabbage butterfly

It was probably easy, on the other hand, to miss the Cabbage White butterful, hidden among the Mockorange blossoms.  Looks a little bedraggled as well. 


Sorry, everyone, I'm appropriately remorseful at providing incomplete information yesterday.  Too many butterflies to count! 

Butterflies are Free....

Variegated Fritillary butterfly

Well, perhaps not free, but they are periodically plentiful at certain times.  I am a bad gardener in the sense that I don't pay a lot of attention under normal circumstances to the butterflies in my garden, although I do give occasional thought to selecting native plants and other plants that will attract them. 

Pipevine Swallowtail

The recent bloom of my 'Blizzard' Mockorange and 'Globemaster' Alium coincided to lure in the butterflies like.....well, like flies. The Pipevine Swallowtail at the left, however, preferred the hillside of Purple-Leaf Honeysuckle for its evening meal.  I took all eight of the different pictures within about 1/2 hour one evening.  Identifying them took much longer. 

Painted Lady butterfly

I'm not very good at identifying them, but I've made my best attempt here and I owe any accuracy strictly to a 1991 Emporia State University publication titled 'The Kansas School Naturalist, Vol 37, #4;  Checklist of Kansas Butterflies. Better experts like GaiaGardener (whose previous posts stimulated me to take a look at my own butterflies) will have to check my identifications carefully. 

Dogface Butterfly

The phrase "Butterflies are free, and so are we" is a line from the theme song to a 1972 movie that was also named Butterflies Are Free. It was one of the first movie roles for beautiful actress Goldie Hawn, memorable to a young teenager primarily for the glimpse of the panty-clad gluteus maximus of the then-young and still just-as-gorgeously-perky Ms. Hawn.  Beauty, indeed, exists in all creatures of God.

Checkered White butterfly

I suppose if you are going to visit a white Mockorange near two colonies of insect-eating Purple Martins, you would be best served to be mostly white yourself, invisible, as long as you stand still.

Virginia Lady butterfly

Some butterflies show signs of being the worst for wear, even though the season is early.  Battle-scarred and missing limbs, the goal of life remains the same; leave behind another generation, and you've done your duty for your species.

Skipper?

The identification of many butterflies seems to hinge on pretty small differences and sometimes, judging by the pictures posted on the WWW, it is important to know the regional differences in color intensity and patterns that may exist.  The "skippers" group defeated me in my attempts to identify the butterfly at the right.

Red Admiral butterfly

I am only a novice here in a foreign land filled by fairy-like aerial wraiths, but I will undoubtedly return again, lured by the ephemeral nature of the prey and the rich legacy of the field.  And maybe, just because I like being able to spot a brief blur and proclaim it "Red Admiral", a regal-sounding name if ever one existed.

Carefree Bloomer

'Carefree Spirit'

I promised this post to some visitors to my garden (well, actually they were captive relatives quickly lured into a stupor by my incessant babbling about the garden).  During a garden walk, they had described a spectacular rose bush growing in their neighborhood.  As we walked further along the garden, seeing all the roses who still retained a bloom or two, they added that it was a "simpler" rose with few petals, and that it was red, and maybe had a white center.  I took them, in time, to my 'Carefree Spirit' rose and they proclaimed it as the rose they had seen, although mine was much smaller at two years of age then the bush they remembered.







'Carefree Spirit' (MEIzmea) does indeed put on a spectacular bloom display, and she will continue to bloom freely throughout the summer.  Introduced by Conard-Pyle in 2009, her actual origin is a little confusing as she is listed as being bred by both Alain Meilland or Jacques Mouchotte (a breeder in the House of Meilland) in 2007.  Do I sense some Gallic discord in the House of Meilland?  She is also listed in helpmefind as the result of a cross between a 'Red Max Graf' seedling and a seedling of 'Pink Meidiland' X 'Immensee', and in other places as a descendant of 'Carefree Delight', a previous AARS winner.  If she really has 'Max Graf' and a R. kordesii seedling in her background, even my limited knowledge of rose hybridizing would leave me to suspect that the bush is very vigorous and winter hardy, and indeed she is completely winter hardy in my climate.  This is indeed a tough bush, surviving and doubling in size during a summer and winter of drought, and the glossy dark green foliage requires no spray against fungus or beast.  So far, even the deer have left it alone. In 2004, the All American Rose Selections group stopped spraying fungicides at its test gardens, and Carefree Spirit was the first (and still the only) shrub rose after that revolution of care to win the coveted AARS award (awarded in 2009). Thanks to God that the rose marketers have grown some sense about the characteristics the public desires in new roses, because roses like 'Carefree Spirit' may yet rescue us from 'Knock Out' hell. If my garden visitors can recognize and covet such a rose, then so will the public at large.


 My 'Carefree Spirit' is about three feet tall, and she is supposed to reach 5-6 feet at maturity.  She bloomed in the late group of roses in my garden, with 'Madame Hardy' and 'Chuckles' and 'American Pillar' to name some other late roses, so she's bringing up the rear of the first rose bloom and starring in her own time.  I will admit that her allure is entirely due to the bounty of her blossoms because 'Carefree Spirit' is scentless to my nose and she isn't thornless either.  Ah well, no rose is perfect.  Except 'Madame Hardy' of course.  And, my readers, let us please choose to ignore the closeness of the phrase "bounty of her blossoms" to "bounty of her bosoms" in English.  I'm an old man, love of roses can possible be taken too far, and I should be allowed my small literary illusions without comment.

Magic Number Four

Chipping Sparrow eggs?

It never fails.  Just today, on a day of vacation to work in the garden, I was puttering around as usual, all the while thinking "what should my next blog be about?"  It must be blatantly obvious by now that I could blog ad infinitim about roses, evermore adding one more to the list of roses I've discussed, but Garden Musings already is top-heavy with roses.  If roses were the only thing I ever wrote about, I'm afraid I'd risk alienating some readers.  Believe it or not, I do occasionally try to relieve the monotony here for those who aren't unwaveringly rose-crazy.


Like magic, the answer to my question lay in the 'Carefree Beauty' rosebush I had just trimmed.  There, deep in the heart of this stalwart rose, was a tiny nest, about 2.5 inches in diameter, with four of the cutest little sky-blue-speckled-with-black eggs I've ever seen.  After an exhaustive search through my field guides and the Internet, I believe these eggs are most likely those of a Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina).  It is a very common sparrow around here in the summer, and the nest placement, about 4 feet off the ground in a bush, is correct, and the eggs are distinct and resemble the available pictures on the Internet.  Thankfully, these eggs don't resemble one of the many sparrow species in this area that are light blue with lots of light brown spots or I wouldn't have been able to even guess at the origin.  I'll try to confirm the identity with a visual of Momma Bird in the next few days, but it is going to be difficult at best.  I've scared her off the nest a few times today, but haven't been able to discern anything but a quick brown blur darting into the nearby viburnums.
 


Killdeer nest

I also found yet another Killdeer nest today while mowing, also with four eggs.  Why does four always seem to be the number of eggs for birds in Kansas anyway?  This new nest was placed almost exactly where another brood was raised two years ago, on a hillside in very short grass.  I would never find these nests if the Momma wouldn't try to lure me away, feigning a hurt wing.  Today's Momma didn't even bother with that;  she just sat on the nest and fixed me with a baleful eye while I mowed around her.  For the life of me, I don't understand why they don't nest in the taller grass that I never mow, in this case just 10 feet away, but I suppose they have their reasons.  I think they're pretty gutsy to lay these eggs on the almost bare ground.  The wider view below will give you a better idea of how exposed these eggs really are;  the eggs are in the center of the picture.  It must be a tough life to be  Killdeer chick.

Gallicandy Pink

'Gallicandy'

Yes, I'm aware that you may have a little difficulty deciding that the picture at the right is a rose, not a big wad of bubblegum, but that's only because of the pink bubblegum coloration of this aptly-named Hybrid Gallica.  This is 'Gallicandy', one of Paul Barden's creations growing in it's second full summer in my garden.

'Gallicandy' (or ARDtuscoth) was bred by Barden in 2003, according to the information on helpmefind.com.  She is currently about 3 feet tall and around, with a mature height expected of 4 to 6 feet.  The third of my Barden hybrid gallicas to bloom, she seems to have a sparser bloom than the others ('Marianne' and 'Allegra'), but she also has a longer bloom period, over one month and still going.  Of course, that all may change as she gets a few more seasons on her.  I'm hoping, at the least, that at mature size she blooms more freely, if not as long.

Blooms are very double and approximately 3.5 inches in diameter.  The bright pink color holds well, barely fading over more than a week in the Kansas sun.  Fragrance, to my nose, is moderately strong, not as strong as 'Allegra', but not mild by any means. This is not a bush I'd want to tangle with because it is armed to the core with prickles, but I think she'll make do well with a light trimming every year.  The foliage is medium green, matte, and clean, with no blackspot visible despite my principled non-spraying.  She has held up well to the winter cold and winds of Kansas and she survived last year's drought without extra water after August. 

I'm not going to say yet that 'Gallicandy' has won over my heart as a favorite yet, but she has got potential.  Even in this first year of bloom (she didn't bloom as a small band last year), her overall production is equal to better known Gallica's like 'Charles de Mills' in my garden.  And anyway, where else can I find a rose that looks, for all the world, like it's producing big wads of pink bubblegum?

America triumphs over Knock Out!

Along with many other rose lovers, particularly along with those who like "old" roses, I occasionally go into a funk about the state of the rose industry, curse the day Bill Radler first thought about producing 'Knock Out', and mourn the loss of inventory at the local nurseries.  If you're not familiar with the issue, this link, titled "The Rise and Fall of Our National Floral Emblem", explains it pretty well.  The article was originally in the American Rose Rambler in 2010. 

The outlook has been particularly depressing this year as I wander the local stores and see only Knock Out's and shrub roses.  Two prominent local nurseries, who were faithful up until this year, stopped carrying Hybrid Teas, Floribunda's, Grandifloras, or Climbers at all.  It is as if  'Peace' and the AARS awards never existed.  Even the cheap container roses at the big box stores look more decrepit and lonelier than normal, mere memories of the roses I love.

But yesterday, on a trip to Home Depot to buy some spray paint, I found hope amidst despair.  I was wandering by the garden center roses (I still can't resist) and couldn't help but hear a woman exclaim, "Look at this 'Knock Out', Tom."  What a great color and so full of petals!"  "Oh, and it has a great smell too!"  

There, among a great sea of single-flowered  'Rainbow Knock Out's and 'Knock Out' itself, this shopper had spied a single misplaced plant of large-flowered climbing rose 'America', and recognized it for its uniqueness among the heathens.  Although I'm not a fan of 'America', Mrs. ProfessorRoush loves the rose, always has loved it, and I grow it although it struggles here in Kansas.  In fact, I've lost a couple in tough winters, but my latest has held on four years and, trimmed like a shrub, seems to be vigorously protesting my attempts to restrain it.

In a flash, I think my fellow shopper has shown me the future of roses.  It's not that the American public innately prefers the likes of  'Knock Out' and the Drift roses and other landscape roses.  It is that the rose industry made prima donnas of roses, commercialized them, branded them, weakened them, and cheapened them.  Perhaps it is a good thing that the AARS winners are being shunned.  Mostly, they sucked.  Blackspotted, cold-sensitive, thorny-caned monsters, we are not rejecting roses, we're rejecting what they have become.  We're rejecting novelty color and bling for dependability and health.   'Knock Out' is popular because anyone can grow it south of Zone 3 without care.  The fact that 'Knock Out' has no fragrance, simple blooms, and a mild color doesn't matter.  What matters is that 'Knock Out' is healthy and doesn't die.

So now, I'm thinking differently.   The breeders and nurseries have simply been taught a lesson.  Yes, there will be a period of turmoil in the rose-growing world.  In the interim, hard-liners, like myself, will turn to smaller specialty mail-order nurseries and the public will just have to put up with they're offered by Big Box.  But after that period of time, breeders will again improve the flowers and add scent back to fair rose, and increase the numbers of petals while keeping the rose bush healthy.  And we'll have new roses that we love.  Different roses, but better roses for it.  And the rose industry will rise again.  We won't forsake the rose for marigolds and snapdragons.  The world is not that crazy.

Showoffs!

'Carefree Spirit'

The last few roses to bloom for me are streaking into full display right now, so I thought I would take a few moments this morning to look through this year's pictures and identify those roses that I think really made a spectacle of themselves this year.  Not those roses that just bloomed well and often, but roses who literally bloomed so freely that you "couldn't stick a finger into them without hitting a bloom."  There were several of those, and it also struck me that most of the overachievers are also peaking right now, later blooming than most of their cousins.

'Carefree Spirit' is a relative youngster, in its 2nd full summer for me, but already it is living up to its promises. Carefree blooming and with a willing spirit, those are traits we all love in a rose.






The biggest overachiever in my garden may be my miniature climber 'Red Cascade'.  I took this picture this morning and its quality suffers as the eastern sunrise gives it an unnatural orange tint, but take a gander at a rose that is very well-named; a waterfall of bright red flowing over the limestone blocks.



'Red Cascade'

'Ballerina'

Hybrid musk 'Ballerina' is a timeless rose and provides me a more pastel-colored vision to salve the burns on my cornea, but she is still blooming like a champ right now.

'Jeanne Lavoie'

It is not so unusual for classy blooming miniature  'Jeanne Lavoie' to have a first bloom as flush as this one, but once again, she proves that she is a beautiful lass and a workhorse in the garden.  Five feet tall and growing, she should top that trellis by next year.

'American Pillar'

I always look to rambler 'American Pillar' to finish out the show for the first bloom cycle, and again this year, it isn't disappointing me.  This picture, taken this morning, reflects the fact that I didn't properly trim it and tie it up this year, but, regardless, this monster of a rose certainly has its ostentatious side.

'Hunter'

Among the more double-flowered and larger-flowered roses, I have to give special recognition here to red 'Hunter' on the right and bright pink 'Morden Centennial' below, both of which are now fading.  'Hunter' stands proudly among the young Monarda seedlings in the picture, and 'Morden Centennial' is now far past bloom, but they bloomed their heads off in their own times just to make me happy.  Both are always dependable roses for me but their early exhibition this year was more spectacular than I remember ever seeing either of them.  Thank you, girls, for adding a special splash to my rose season!  

'Morden Centennial'

As I scroll through my photos, there were many other well-blooming roses this year, the expected visual bounty from roses such as 'Champlaign' and 'Chuckles' and others, but the roses above were the cream of the crop in my rose parade.  What roses outdid their usual beauty for you this year?  What roses were your showoffs this year?

Snakes Ahoy!

One never knows, do we?  Last Friday started out as a normal day, but it certainly ended with a bang.  After my workday, Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I slipped away for a bite to eat, and then she went on home to walk our ancient Brittany Spaniel while I stopped back to check on a resident doing a surgery. 

I can testify that Mrs. ProfessorRoush was entirely normal when we parted, but twenty minutes later when I pulled into the garage, I was met at the door to my car with a disheveled, shouting caricature of my wife and a very excited Brittany.   At least I think it was my wife for she was moving so quickly her outline was blurry.  It seems that on their walk, they had encountered the first of this summer's snake denizens.  

Scotophis obsoletus, Western Rat Snake

As I listened and tried to calm Mrs. ProfessorRoush, all the while wondering if the garage and car windows were going to shatter from either decibel level or pitch, I understood clearly what detectives and FBI agents are up against when they discuss the unreliability of eyewitnesses.  If I had taken Mrs. ProfessorRoush's account as gospel, this particular snake had coiled up to a height approaching ten feet, threatened to strike at my Brittany with bared fangs, and then chased them out of the yard. 

I know that I've led many of the readers of this blog to believe that I'm also scared of snakes, but that is not entirely true.  Yes, I don't care to have them pop up at my feet or strike at my shovel from underneath a perennial I'm transplanting, but my panic episodes at such times are temporary and only rarely results these days in running clear past township or county borders.  I have been so desensitized by the number of reptiles on the Kansas Flint Hills that I certainly still jump, but then I calm down while I'm waiting for gravity to reacquaint the earth with my feet, and I rationally determine the type of snake and the relative danger to my garden visitors (pet or human).

This particular snake was (is) about a six foot long and 2 inch diameter Western Rat Snake, Scotophis obsoletus (or is it Elaphe obsoletus? Or Pantherophis obsoletus?), and it is a constrictor, not a biter.   I did not, as counseled by Mrs. ProfessorRoush, "get a shotgun and blow it to smithereens."  I have a strict species-ism hierarchy in my garden, hating rodents more than snakes, so I welcome any of the latter benign hunters.  Additionally, I have yet to see a poisonous snake in my garden and I have theorized that if a nice, big rat snake is clearing out the hunting grounds, I have less chance of hearing a rattle next to my feet as I trim the roses.  A snake this big will also occasionally catch and give a rabbit a love hug, so this guy may even help me to raise some lettuce this year.  Besides, according to my references, the Western Rat Snake has a home range of approximately 30 acres, so I'm not very likely to see him again soon.

All of the proceeding thoughts weave a nice rationalization, but it doesn't wash at all with Mrs. ProfessorRoush, who prefers all slithering insects and reptiles to be in the process of decay.  Not even the chance for fresh lettuce can dissuade her, and I now have some work to do to restore my gardening knight in shining armor image at home.  C'est la vie.   

Chuckles for Joy

'Chuckles'

I've been wrong, wrong, wrong.  Wrong about the garden worth of 'Chuckles', wrong about the breeder, and wrong about just about everything to do with this rose.  Grown on me, it has, and become one of the stars of my garden.

I believed for the longest time, right up until I began to research the rose for this blog entry, that Chuckles was a Griffith Buck-bred rose.  But it isn't a Griffith Buck rose, 'Chuckles' was, according to www.helpmefind.com, bred by Roy Shepherd in 1958.  How did I get it so wrong?  In this case, there is a perfectly simple explanation.  I swear that I'm innocent, Your Honor.  I purchased my 'Chuckles' from www.heirloomroses.com, where it is listed as a Griffith Buck rose.  It is not, however, listed as a Buck rose on Iowa State University's website or anyplace else.  Heirloom just has it wrong.  'Chuckles' was bred from a seed parent cross between 'Jean Lafitte' and 'New Dawn', and the pollen parent was 'Orange Triumph'.

She's also not a shrub rose, as I previously thought, she is classified as a Floribunda.  I can see that now, the profuse bloom and intense garden presence of the bush. 'Chuckles' is a continuous bloomer in my garden, rarely without a few eye-catching blossoms.

What I haven't been wrong on are all the parts that are dependent only on my eyes.  'Chuckles' is a low growing rose, about 3-4 foot tall at maturity in my garden, and almost 6 feet in diameter. The blooms are mostly single with 4 petals, but they are large in diameter, almost 4 inches across. The blooms are an eye-searing hot pink, a color that I did not like initially, but one that I've developed a taste for.  Each bloom also has a bit of white at the center, and they come in clusters, with new blooms, older blooms, and buds all visible in the same cluster as you can see in the picture above.  Stamens are golden on new blooms but fade quickly to brown.  There is little to no fragrance to the rose, but, then, nobody's perfect.  The bush is perfectly hardy here, in 5A/6B, and it is probably hardy far to the north since I saw it listed on a website named "LandscapeAlaska".  I never spray her for blackspot or other fungal diseases.  Look at that perfect foliage above;  glossy, dark green, and unspotted.  She's at peak right now in my garden, and has come into her own in this, her 6th year in my garden.

Most importantly of all, 'Chuckles' is one of the most aptly named roses of rosedom.  Anyone in her presence can't help but be cheered up by a single look of those bountiful bright pink and white blooms.  If I were to design a garden for a depressed friend, 'Chuckles' would be a necessity.  Heck, all of us could use one or two 'Chuckles' in the garden to cheer us up from time to time.

Allegra

Hybrid Gallica 'Allegra'

Of the several Paul Barden-bred hybrid Gallicas that are entering their second full summer in my garden, I believe that pink 'Allegra' has my vote for newcomer of the year.  She's at full bloom, right now, and I'm quite impressed by the durability of the blooms in the Kansas wind and sun.

'Allegra' (ARDjoy) was bred by Paul Barden in 2000 and introduced, according to "helpmefind" by The Uncommon Rose in 2004.  I find the bloom of 'Allegra' reminiscent of the superb 1816 Alba 'Konigin von Danemark', with a similar shade of pink and the same neat button-eyed and quartered appearance, but much larger bloom size and with a better fragrance.  'Allegra's very double blooms are every bit of 4 inches in diameter and it has an incredibly strong Gallica scent to my nose, among the strongest of rose fragrances in my garden, right now second perhaps only to 'Madame Hardy' and 'Madame Issac Pierre'.  In its second year of age, it is 2.5 feet high and around, and I expect it will reach its advertised mature height of 4 to 6 feet easily. It was fully hardy last year in my garden and has no blackspot or mildew presently visible.  Look closely at the clean foliage in the pictures if you don't believe me.

A few more blossoms of 'Allegra'

Many of my garden roses were affected by the recent cold and damp nights and left with discolored, pale, or balled-up blossoms, but impressively, 'Allegra' seems immune to the weather and has provided me with a number of perfect blossoms.  According to Paul Barden's website, I can expect four to six weeks of bloom with flowers opening sequentially on inflorescences, so a long bloom phase is yet another positive note for 'Allegra'  Paul also hinted that this rose doesn't hit its stride until it is several years old, so I can only imagine the beauty to come next year.  A cross of Gallica 'Duchesse de Montebello' and St. Swithun (a pink David Austin/English rose), 'Allegra' reportedly does not sucker like it's Gallica ancestors and for that, I'm thankful because I grow tired of rooting out Gallica suckers in my rose beds.

I'm always interested in the origin of the name of a rose and 'Allegra' is an excellent example of why the written notes of rose breeders are so often a treasure.  I speculated, from knowledge buried deep with my musical training, that 'Allegra' would denote a rose that bloomed or grew, as the dictionary indicates, "with a light and lively tempo", but Paul Barden's website notes that he named the rose "to honor a dear friend of mine who fell in love with this rose when she first saw it."  And thus, a rose was named.
'
 

Stealthy Garden Ninjas

Recently in my garden, I've noticed occasional evidence left by large furry rats with white tails.  These incursions into sacred territory seem to have increased during the recent dry spells.  Although I have seen no more footprints, I have noticed an increasing frequency of tender rose buds nipped off just before they bloom, and always from the same bushes.   I am also aware, as an enlightened modern man, that special cameras, called "game cameras," exist for the sole purpose of identifying the nighttime marauders and improving, for hunters, the rate of harvesting them.  I put all these facts together a couple of weeks ago and decided that it would be nice to know exactly the who, what and when of the perpetrators visiting my garden at night.  Sort of like having a night watchman without all the overtime pay.

Alongside installing such a camera comes a little trepidation.  What if I find that some hitherto unknown creature is drawn by the beauty of my roses?  Perhaps female Sasquatch are harvesting the roses to brighten up the cave or brush pile they live in?  Such pictures could make me rich at the same time as scaring the bejeesus out of me.  What if I find evidence of a mountain lion, rumored and occasionally spotted within Kansas and Nebraska, prowling in my backyard?  Such knowledge would completely spoil my plans for a nighttime-highlighted "white" garden bed. 

All such fantasies aside, it seems that I've been punked by whatever devious creatures exist on the prairie.  If I am to believe the evidence, the only creature visiting my garden in the past two weeks is me.  Well, me and maybe the neighbor's dog.  I've got 169 motion-activated pictures taken over a span of 2 weeks and from two different locations in my garden, and I appear in almost all of them.  There are also a number that are absent of mammalian life, likely initiated by wind moving the plants, or cloud movement or, in one case, a nighttime lightning flash.  It is either that or I'd have to conclude that the deer can sneak around my garden in ninja suits, performing snatch and grab operations before the camera can activate. 


I'm going to keep moving the camera until I locate the secret path of invasion.  Until then, for those who also think this sounds like a good idea, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.  These game cameras are relatively inexpensive now and take good quality pictures, both daytime and nighttime, without flash.  They have the added benefit of adding automatic information to the picture;  date, time, temperature, and phase of the moon. There's an intense feeling of anticipation every time I remove the flash memory to view the pictures, a hope of surprise and discovery.  It might be really neat to focus this on a bird house or nest or something more dependably interesting than a random garden path.  And it would be useful to identify which garden tour visitor is taking cuttings from your treasures, or which neighborhood child is using your back yard as a shortcut from school to home.  Depending on your garden activities, you'll at least get some nice candid shots of yourself working in the garden, because you quickly forget it is there.  The latter lapse of memory could also, if you think about it, be the danger of having it around, again depending on what nongardening activities you enjoy in your garden.       

Morning Blush Bomb?

I've got a beautiful rose blooming for the first time, and these long-awaited blooms meet their promises, but I'm going to leave the jury out for deliberation on this rose: It's just too early to tell about 'Morning Blush'.

Now mind you, I've got no complaints about those blooms. The three-inch blooms, three of which are shown here, are just gorgeous. The white centers vary in diameter, but at least in my climate, there is a lot of blush pink on the ruffled petal edges, making this "New Alba" rose superior to the old bicolored Alba 'Leda' in that regard. 'Morning Blush' (or SIEmorn) was bred by Rolf Sievers in 1974.  She may, according to at least one source, have a scattered later bloom and she will grow to around six feet tall at maturity. 

 The rose is very hardy here and shows no blackspot worth noting at the present time.  I found the Internet to be a bit confusing regarding the fragrance of this rose, with one source claiming it has strong fragrance and another (the nursery where I obtained my band) saying that there was no fragrance at all.  I am straddling the fence in between those extremes, but right now I would say it has only a  moderate fragrance . A cross of 'Maiden's Blush' and 'Hamburger Phoenix' (the latter a red, climbing, remonant R. kordesii hybrid), 'Morning Blush' has very few thorns and very arching foliage. 

In fact, it is the arching foliage, and the blooming habit, that makes me question the garden worthiness of this rose.  The canes are indeed arching, and in fact are spread about in a very haphazard fashion, making it appear less like a bush than a large leafy thorny spider.  On my two season-old plant, about three feet tall presently, the blooms are only appearing on the first year's canes, so there are sporadic blooms held near the ground, but seemingly no blooms or buds on the canes that rose up higher at the end of last summer.  If that pattern holds, then I won't be keeping this bush because the low blooms are barely visible, despite their beauty.  Surely, this rose, described as a prolific bloomer, will not hold its blooms so closely to its bosom next year and will reward me for patience.

Pleasing Profusion

'Alchymist'

I blogged yesterday that my garden had exploded with roses and I thought that everyone deserved at least a little peek at the bounty therein.   There were 170 rose bushes blooming when I counted yesterday.   'Alchymist', with a rainbow of colors in one bloom, leads the way into my scenery and provides the hook for my readers to take a peek.  'One of my two 'Alchymist' is blooming the best and healthiest I've ever seen it, so I'm reaping the rewards from deciding to trim this stiff-armed climber into a bush form.

My front bed (below) is alive right now with color all over from the roses, irises, peonies, and a weigela.  I took this picture as I was taking prom pictures of my daughter yesterday evening.   The roses seen are (left to right), cheerful tricolored 'Betty Boop', scarlet 'Hunter', yellow-orange 'Morden Sunrise', and cardinal 'Champaign' in the shade at back.

My back patio bed is a string of shrub roses.  Just barely blooming, at the top, are white 'Madame Hardy' and pink 'Fantin Latour', with the more profuse pink flowers of (back to front), 'David Thompson', 'Carefree Beauty', 'Prairie JOY', (not Prairie Sunrise'), 'Zephirine Drouhin', and 'Jeanne Lavoie' stealing the show.  Oh, and a deep red 'Dark Lady' at the bottom by the pot.

'Variegata di Bologna'

My main formal rose bed (below), which contains almost 50 roses, simply boasts roses too numerous to name, but it is a wave of color.  Front and center in the foreground is towering 'Earth Song', with a shaded bright yellow 'Sunsprite' beneath its feet and a 'Garden Party' to the side.  However, every year I await one special rose from this bed, the scrumptious 'Variegata di Bologna', pictured from yesterday at the right.

I can't show everything today, there are just too many roses out there in the garden proper, but I'll leave you with a taste of the bed I call my "rose berm".  This was my first shrub rose planting, and the west end of the bed, seen here, has a number including (roughly left to right) 'Linda Campbell', 'Iceberg', 'Double Red Knockout', 'Harison's Yellow', 'Souvenir de Philemon Cochet', 'Hawkeye Belle', and (in the foreground), 'Rose de Rescht'.  Yes, you didn't read it wrong, I have a 'Double Red Knockout' front and center despite my ranting about them.  Nobody's perfect.

  I hope all your rose days to come are as happy and contented as mine are right now!

Marvelous Marianne

'Marianne'

My roses exploded yesterday.  Completely exploded.  Rose bushes that had not opened a single bud the day before were covered with blooms.  And along with that profusion of blooms, the first of my long-awaited Paul Barden Hybrid Gallicas, 'Marianne', made her opening debut, the belle of  yesterday's ball.

'Marianne' (ARDgoldeneyes) has had a tough life out here on the prairie, as you can guess from the pictures of these blooms that each show a little wind-storm damage.  She was planted in the fall of 2010, so the rose bush that you're seeing has really had only a single summer's growing season, and a hot, dry one at that.  Early on during the spring of 2011, some marauding animal or the relentless prairie wind broke off the single cane of her band and I thought I'd lost her, but back she came from the roots, fighting for her life.  She's about 2 1/2 feet tall right now, and a little wind-beaten from recent weather, but demure and beautiful nonetheless.  At mature height she is supposed to be a 5 to 7 foot tall rose.

'Marianne'

These blooms on the young 'Marianne' are approximately 3 inches across on the first day, and I expect as the bush matures, the blooms will stretch a little larger.  They are very double (advertised as 40+ petals, although I haven't counted) and as delightfully fragrant as their Old Garden forefathers.  The blooms, as you see, range from a blush white to the more expected peach tones and it will be interesting to see what the Kansas sun does to their coloration.  'Marianne' is not a very thorny bush, polite to my bluejean legs as I pass by, and she shows no sign of blackspot or petal loss at present.

'Marianne' bush, 2nd year

'Marianne' was bred by Paul Barden in 2001 and introduced in 2005.   She seems fully hardy here in Zone 6A (the former 5B), having survived one rough snowy winter as a band and also last winter's dry but mild temperatures.   If you are looking for more information about her, the best source is undoubtedly Barden's own website entry about 'Marianne'.  There, he writes "This Hybrid Gallica is a robust rose, as one might guess from a glance at its parentage. It has, in my opinion, inherited many of the best traits of each parent; the wonderful vigor and coloring of 'Abraham Darby' and the bloom form and disease resistance of 'Duchesse de Montebello'."   It is rare and delightful in rosedom to get so much good information straight from the breeder.

Myself, I would only add that 'Duchesse de Montebello' is one of my favorite OGR's for Kansas and I had high hopes for 'Marianne'.  Hopes that were fulfilled with my first sniff of the first blossom.

Purple Power

'Purple Pavement' has been given its time on Garden Musings, but there are many roses out there in rosedom with deeper purple hues, and a couple of them have started blooming here in Zone 6A.  Among the purples, I grow the Old Garden rose 'La Reine' (right) currently blooming its head off, and the newer purple floribunda 'Rhapsody in Blue' (bottom left), just coming on.  Both are the "most purplish" ever, a hypercolorful  phenomenon that I feel is occurring in all my pinks and purple roses this year.  I don't know if it is the result of the hot March/cold early April/hot late April weather here or something else, but the colors of many roses all across town are much deeper this year.  I'm not complaining, mind you.

'La Reine', in 2005

'La Reine'  is an 1842 Hybrid Perpetual bred by Jean Laffay.  In my garden, this is a stiff upright bush of perhaps 5 feet in height.  It is an almost thornless rose and sports a very double flower about 4 inches in diameter, and it does rebloom once or twice during the year.  Some pictures on the web show it as pinkish-purple, and others as more purple like my picture this year, and you have to be careful to differentiate this rose from the shell pink bourbon 'Reine Victoria' when you search for it.  Pictures on the web show 'La Reine' in shades from pink to purple, and I've got pictures from 2009 that show this same bush in carmine-pink, and from 2005 (left) with pinkish-purple tones.  I much prefer the deeper purple of this year's blooms.  If these seasonal color enhancements hold true, I can't wait to see 'Charles de Mills' and 'Cardinal de Richelieu' this year!

'Rhapsody in Blue'

'Rhapsody in Blue' (FRAntasia) is a newish shrub rose bred by Cowlishaw in 1999 and introduced into the United States in 2007.  This semidouble rose opens flat with a  nice smokey-purple color and yellow stamens, but I am so far underwhelmed by the (lack of) vigor in the bush and the slow bloom repeat.  It reportedly grows to almost 8 feet in some areas, but it has yet to top 2.5 feet tall in my garden, partially due to extreme winter dieback in several of the 4 winters I've grown this bush.  What the heck, I'll give it a few years, now that I'm 6A and not 5B, and see how it does over time.