Gathering History

ProfessorRoush hasn't read his way completely through a gardening-themed book all winter.  I've picked around at several, picking them up for a few pages and putting them back down, but none of them grabbed my attention.  Until recently, that is.

The winner of this year's ProfessorRoush Winter Gardening Reading award goes to Ms. Diane Ott Whealy, for her portrayal of herself and her family in Gathering; Memoir of a Seed Saver.  Those who don't recognize the author may be more familiar with her as the founding "mother" of the Seed Savers Exchange and the wife of Kent Whealy, the founding "father" of the movement.

Gathering is a memoir that I didn't want to put down once I got hooked.  Part biography of the Whealy family, part history of the formation and growth of the Seed Savers Exchange, it chronicles the farm and lifestyle that became the forefront of current efforts in heirloom seed preservation.  The early nomadic lifestyle of the Whealy's as narrated in the first few chapters made me a little worried that I was really going to enjoy it.  Diane spent some time early on talking about the 1970's and '80's, and this is the first time I've read a book that talks about events in my lifetime that make the 1970's sound like they were ancient history.  That realization can be quite a blow to an old gardener.  But things took a turn around the time of their move to Missouri and the founding of the Seed Savers Exchange, and then got exciting during the purchase of Heritage Farm.  About this time in the text, recipes and descriptions of heirloom vegetables and apples started to fill the pages and it all took life before my eyes.   In past years, I've ordered some of the very varieties from Seed Savers that Ms. Whealy describes, and her stories of saving those heirlooms bring their tastes right back to my palate.  If you want to try some of those varieties yourself, the new digital catalog of the Seed Savers Exchange is here.

Gathering was published in 2011 and I'm not sure how I missed it until I found it last month on the shelves of the local Half Price Books as a used copy.  During my own pre-gardening years and before Seed Savers were a household name, I probably drove past Heritage Farm scores of times as I traveled around the Midwest, but now I've got to schedule a special trip to visit.  Anyway, if you're ready for a story of hard work, perseverance through difficulties, acceptance of life's twists and turns, and single-minded pursuit of a dream, then pick up Gathering and it will surely keep you reading.  The good recipes you'll find along the way are just icing on the 'Moon and Stars' watermelon.

     

Souvenir du President Lincoln

'Souvenir du President Lincoln'

ProfessorRoush is mildly late at observing the fabricated President's Birthday holiday, but since the importance of that holiday has dramatically decreased from the separate observances of Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday during my elementary school days, I don't feel overly guilty about it.  Truth-be-told, I'm kind of anti- all the little Monday holidays, anyway.  I never saw the point of anything other than Memorial Day and maybe Veteran's Day, but the rest just kind of interrupt my work flow and seem superfluous.  Heck, I had to work on President's Day this year, so what was the point? 


You can always choose to honor President Lincoln, however, by growing a healthy red Bourbon rose named 'Souvenir du President Lincoln'.  He was bred by French breeders Robert and Moreau in 1865, the year of Lincoln's assassination. I have a little trouble, myself, calling him red since he is more of a magenta-pink in my garden, perhaps showing a little fuchsia overtone from time to time.  In fact, there is some broad acceptance in the rose world that the rose currently being sold as 'Souvenir du President Lincoln' is not the original, which was indeed described as dark red, purple, or almost black.  The impostor stands, however, with no rival;  all the complaints about this rose differing from early descriptions may be accurate, but no other rose has stepped up as a candidate for the correct original.  This current one will also not be mistaken for the more modern deep red Hybrid Tea 'Mr. Lincoln', but he has just as strong a fragrance as its modern cousin, and a  blossom that is far more double, with about 80 petals packed into a cupped bloom. 

My 'Souvenir du President Lincoln' is entering his third full season in my garden, provided, of course, that it survived this long winter as it did the previous two.  Last year, as a two-year old, he gained some height, but his straggly nature seems more suited to being a pillar rose than a garden bush.  My specimen has several thick and long canes that grew to about 5 feet high and then proceeded to flop.  It is a very narrow bush, all legs and no torso, hoping only to find something to lean against.  The foliage is matte-surfaced, and grey-green, and the rose suffered from some moderate blackspot over last summer.  Definitely a Bourbon by nature, 'Souvenir du President Lincoln' is often described as an alternative to 'Madame Isaac Pereire, but in my garden I think MIP is by far the more vigorous bush and has a stronger fragrance. 

It has been so long since I've written about a rose that it almost feels unnatural, a bit too "in-your-face" to a winter that has surely not yet released its grasp on my snow- and ice-covered fields.  I hope I'm not tempting fate by thinking about summer roses during a minus zero morning.   

 

Bye Bye Bye, Boltonia

As I have decided not to regrow a seemingly marvelous particular perennial next year, or at the very least decided to move it out of my sight and out of mind, I believe that I at least owe the plant a parting blog. Oh Boltonia, my lovely, I just couldn't take any more.

I spent the late summer of 2012 driving to and fro near a fabulous specimen of this plant at the parking lot entrance to the KSU gardens.  Shining and thriving in the midst of the drought and 100° temperatures that August, it was unlabeled at the time, but I suspected its identity after running across it here and there in plant catalogues. I had long read about the drought tolerance and hardiness of this perennial, and I decided it was time to give it a try, especially since it was almost the only plant in flower during that fiery August.

Boltonia asteroides, the White Doll's Daisy, or False Aster, is a native perennial to this area of the country and the Eastern United States.   It is an erect plant, with blue-green foliage, growing from 12 to 60 inches tall according to references, and its cheery little daisy-face is always bright and happy just as a daisy-face should be.  Hardy to Zone 3, and blooming at the very best time for it to be noticed in the garden, alone in August and September, it is even listed as "clay tolerant."  What more could I ask for?

Well, I could have asked for it to grow less vigorously.  My Boltonia, planted in 2012 and having its first full season in 2013, became a rampaging monster, 6 feet tall and 4 or 5 feet wide, cascading and smothering every other plant in the vicinity, which included a struggling 'Dragon's Blood' rose and my beloved 'Vanguard'.  This, despite the lack of soil enhancements and without added water. Yes, the flowers are gorgeous close up, but farther away the plant just has the appearance of a white cloud.  And no reference ever suggested that it might need support, although I later learned that the Missouri Botanical Garden suggests cutting it back by 1/3rd in late spring to early summer to reduce plant height. 

Boltonia asteroides is a nice, dependable perennial, but I'm banishing it this year from my garden.  I might still give it a chance to survive among the tall grasses at the periphery of the garden, however. Borrowing lyrics from "Delilah," the classic hit by Tom Jones (a favorite crooner's of my mother's during my childhood),  I could also sing;  "My My My, Boltonia.  Why Why Why, Boltonia?  I could see that plant was no good for me. But I was lost like a slave that no man could free.  Forgive me, Boltonia, I just couldn't take any more." 

Unlike Sir Thomas John Woodward (Jones), though, women probably won't be throwing their hotel keys at me while I sing.  It's a pity, but gardening just has no star quality.

Bella

If this long winter has had a bright spot, it has been inside the house for us, not outside.  Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to Bella, the new daily companion of Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  She's 8 weeks old in these pictures, but we've had her 4 weeks today.  Our recent empty nest syndrome was hitting Mrs. ProfessorRoush hard, but I think we've got it licked now.  Or at least we're being licked to death by our "cure" for the empty nest syndrome.

Bella is the offspring of a beagle mom who was a little loose with the neighborhood boys.  We're not exactly sure who the father is, but he is believed to be a Fox Terrier.  At least that was the theory of the breeders, who thought it was the Fox Terrier because he "was the only male dog in the area of the right size at the time."  As a veterinarian, I'm not so sure that an asymmetric mating is so impossible, and it would be about my luck that the father was a coyote.  Bella's beagle genes seem to be pretty strong here, however so we'll just call her a beagle, leave the paternal component unspoken, and just tell her that Daddy was an interstate trucker.  

On the behavior side, we've gotten pretty lucky.  The first night we brought her home we put her to a crate bed around 9:00 p.m. and she left us alone until 6:00 a.m.  Even better, she's done it about every night since, so she's a lot easier on our sleep patterns than either of our human offspring were.  Potty-training has really gone pretty well with the exception that the cats, Millie and Moose, won't leave us alone and distract Bella every time we take her out.  In the meantime, Mrs. ProfessorRoush is completely besotted, as every new mother should be.   I'm just hoping Bella's daddy really was a Fox Terrier and that I get a decent garden rabbit-chaser in the bargain.  It's the least Bella could do for the money I'm trading for puppy food, toys, and shots. In the meantime, I'll try to resist looking at her and thinking about how many new roses I could have bought instead.

Life Against The Odds

When finally melts incessant snow,
When arctic winds no longer blow,
When I've succumbed to Winter's woe,
I'm rescued by sweet crocus.

Just as I have lost all hope,
When I no longer seem to cope,
When I become a forlorn mope,
I'm rescued by snow crocus.

Deep beneath the snow and ice,
Growing, stretching, green and nice,
My spirit lifted up in trice,
Relieved from gloom by crocus.

Gold and white, soon blooms will come,
And I'll be fine, no longer glum,
Because beneath the snow was some,
Gorgeous, lifting, thriving crocus.

At last the deep snow here in the Flint Hills has melted, though out my window even more currently floats down to a warmer earth where slush and muck are taking hold.  Morning sleet turned to snow now, which becomes needed rain on the pavement.  Here and there, a remnant patch of snow and ice hide from the weather, clinging to the north sides of ditches and trees, surviving only where former drifts were deep and wide.  Today's high 48F, tomorrow's 57F will assure that the snow stays in memory, no threat to return in the foreseeable future.

The snow melt left my garden a swamp, the frozen ground reluctant to imbibe the liquid cold which seeks only a return to earth.  The former dry and tall grasses are bent low and sodden by the weight of the previous ice, soon a decaying mass on the prairie floor.  Shrub branches are barren, rose canes and thorns are exposed, and clematis and sweet pea are ethereal ropes dancing in the wind, torn free from their trellises.  Magnolia pods are tightly held, fruit tree buds are hard as nails, and branches everywhere are brittle and sapless, not yet ready to chance growth.

But in a western bed, beneath the dormant lilacs, I've found the nascent life in my garden.  And I am ever faithful that warmth and sunshine will spread this life from here across the garden and then across the prairie.  These snow crocus soon to flower and welcome the oncoming Spring to Kansas also carry my spirit upward, free again from the bonds of Winter's fury, soaring to sunshine and dreams on golden stamens.  Here now is hope, here relief, here life.        

No Joy in Snowville

Why, oh why Lord, doest thou test me so?   I discovered today that my last effort at winter gardening has failed.  I am chastened, abashed at my incompetence, unsteady and unwise.  I've lived quite a saga this winter in my meager attempts to develop even a token few blooms.  Way back in late September I planted, with high expectations, several spare pots full of daffodil bulbs and I placed them out around a Redbud tree to let them winter over.  Unfortunately, I placed them near the rock retaining wall at the back door and within a week, every bulb had been removed, presumably by pack rats stocking their winter larder.  As evidence, I later found two partially gnawed bulbs in the crevices in the wall.  I hope the pack rats choked on them. 

In October, I planted the four containers above (and three others), full of daffodil and tulip bulbs, ready to burst into flower at a moment of my clever choosing in the depths of winter.  I was smarter this time and I placed them down in the unheated barn, covered with chicken wire, where they rested through the cold days and nights.  I had hopes of providing them as lottery gifts to our March Extension Master Gardener's potluck. 

In the meantime, I was busy failing to grow Amaryllis for Christmas.  I purchased two 'Red Lion' bulbs at a local nursery on the first of November and began growing them in our sunroom.  They grew slowly and timidly, and ultimately one flowered a single, deep red, and unsatisfying bloom around the 2nd week of January.  So much for Amaryllis at Christmas.  The other bulb never bloomed, but the leaves look healthy enough.  Maybe I can keep them around for another try next year.

In mid-January, I finally remembered the potted bulbs in the barn and pulled them up into the breakfast nook in front of a large window for warmth and light and began waiting.  I waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  Finally today, 5 weeks after bringing them inside, upon noticing a few wisps of errant grass coming up in the pots (probably from the hay in the barn near their storage area), I broke down and emptied a pot, only to find the remains of rotted bulbs everywhere.  Woe, oh woe is me.  I promise that I didn't overwater them.  A little moistened potting soil at the beginning was provided.  How could they possibly rot?  Too cold in the barn?

To borrow from the famous poem "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Thayer, there will be no joy in Snowville this year, because mighty ProfessorRoush has struck out.  Zero for three tries at forcing bulbs this winter.  My only real chance of blooms now are the snow crocus that I planted in the fall, still buried at present beneath the snows.   Perhaps, if I increase my nightly prayers and double my church attendance, there will be a chance I'll see them by May.

Zen Frog In Winter

Amidst the snow and ice of this ceaseless winter, ProfessorRoush needs to calm down and take a lesson from his Totally Zen Frog statue.  I took this picture standing in a snow drift up to my waist, at the end of a long afternoon digging the rest of our driveway clean from the storm that blasted us earlier this week.  Here, only a few feet away from the roses buried in snow, sits the contemplative frog, floating above the snow, untouched by the cold.   He doesn't care about Winter's fury.  He's imagining Spring, full-blown, golden with daffodils, glowing with sunshine.







In my garden, however, Zen Frog seems to be the only one who doesn't care about winter.  Even the ornamental grasses have lost their regal stature, bowed and broken in places from the heavy snow.  Those that remain standing seem mass-less now, shrunken from their previous Fall glory.  They struggle to keep their heads above the snow, straining to survive for winter's swan song.









The annuals and herbaceous perennials have long given up their ghosts.  This Prickly Poppy (Argemone polyanthemos) left only a dessicated and hollow carcass to serve as a grave marker, a spiny brown contrast to the white snow at its waist.   Isn't it an odd contrast that these lifeless remains represent also the hope of the next season, the missing seed from the pods spewed yon and hither to find earth and moisture?


I tried today, in a moment of fancy, to levitate above the snow drift and meditate with the Zen Frog, but I fell back to earth and snow with a crash of reality.  Encased in layers of clothing and caps, water-proofed to the ankles but wet at the knees, I must instead await warmth and sunshine with an impatient heart, for I cannot become stone and wait out the winter.  My lot now is to shovel, swear, and scowl out the windows until Winter fades back and Spring surges forth.

Mr. Higgin's Folly

Yes, ProfessorRoush has not blogged for quite some time.  January has frankly been dismal here in the Flint Hills, and I've been leery of planning the return of green and glorious landscapes lest I awaken the wrath of the Winter Gods and precipitate another late April snowstorm.

I was rudely roused, however, from my winter slumber this morning when my local paper printed the January 29th column of the esteemed Washington Post garden columnist, Mr. Adrian Higgins.  Mr. Higgins, normally a sensible and knowledgeable garden writer, titled that column Prune Rosebushes in Winter, a bland and partly inaccurate title that led the reader on to eventually crash blindly into the shores of poor rose advice.  Thankfully, Mr. Higgins rambled over the first half of the article, presumably filling column space, before he got to rose care, else the damage done to Washington's roses could have been much worse.

In his last few paragraphs, Adrian opens the rose-related conversation by stating that "roses are inherently sickly, but the vigor of modern hybrids far outpaces their woes."  Apparently, Mr. Higgins is only acquainted with the inbred, over-pampered, disease-susceptible Hybrid Teas and Floribundas of the 1960's-90's, a time when monstrosities such as 'Tropicana' and 'Chrysler Imperial' ruled the rose world, commercialized and hyped to the point of nausea.  He never mentions the hardier roses that our forefathers grew, nor the disease-resistant, sustainable rose shrubs created over the last two decades by breeding programs such as that of the late Professor Griffth Buck, or test programs such as the Earth-Kind® program of Texas A&M University.

Adrian doubles down on his rose ignorance by recommending the annual pruning of all roses to a "goblet of five or six canes...cut back to 18 inches," making no exceptions for once-blooming Old Garden roses, nor for leaving many modern Hybrid Tea and Floribunda cultivars taller or bushier.  My local newspaper compounded the omission by also deleting the last two paragraphs of the original column, where Mr. Higgins briefly mentions pruning exceptions for  "utilitarian landscape roses" such as Knock Out and larger Ramblers.  I appreciate Adrian's demeaning characterization of Knock Out, but his description of appropriate pruning for these ubiquitous blights will only perpetuate the attempts of home landscapers to turn these shrubs into flowering topiary such as elephants with flowering ears.

Adrian, you did well with your recommendations of pruning for once flowering shrubs, shade trees, and hydrangeas, but please, leave rose-pruning advice to those with a broader view of the rose world.  I retire now, left to cope with my resultant nightmares of hacked down 'Madame Hardy' and 'Variegata di Bologna', butchered in their prime in the refined neighborhoods of Washington D. C. because of your need to fill column inches.  Oh, the horror.

Interloping Chores

With the return of several days of above-freezing temperatures here, the Flint Hills have at least temporarily morphed from deep snow back to brown grass, and I was enticed outside yesterday afternoon by Mrs. ProfessorRoush to participate in what she envisioned as a nice brisk walk in the sunshine.

Unfortunately, Mrs. ProfessorRoush underestimated my determination to avoid useless cardiovascular exercise and she found herself accompanying me on a few brief gardening chores on the thin-muck-on-frozen-ground that currently serves as the prairie surface.  I pulled the Christmas tree down onto the burn pile, changed the memory card in my garden camera, and dragged Mrs. ProfessorRoush to the pond, where we proceeded to relocate a few bluebird boxes to locations that I hope will entice bluebirds more than the wrens that occupied them last year.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush was a great companion, providing a running commentary of the beauty of the frozen pond while picking her way gingerly through the slop, and thus preventing me from feeling any sense of loneliness in the quiet and peaceful surroundings.   

As is often the case when a puttering gardener is trying to take advantage of a warm day, there were numerous other interlopers besides the lovely Mrs. ProfessorRoush who demanded my time and attention.  Near the pond, we found ourselves being chased down by the donkeys, Ding and Dong, who both seemed intensely interested in the bluebird boxes and who provided close supervision of the move and their advice and final approval of the new locations.  Once or twice, they even had to be swatted away from breathing down the back of my neck while I tightened the screws holding the boxes to the fence posts.  Warm, moist, donkey breath around my ears makes me a little nervous, especially since Ding likes to bite the fingers that give him treats.  I didn't need any Mike Tyson-style ear-mangling events to provide stain the remaining snow.

Soon, I'm sure, Spring will arrive, providing succulent grass to occupy the donkeys and a lack of novelty to outside excursions, and I'll be forced back into solitary gardening, puttering alone with my hands in the dirt. It's a dirty, lonely chore, but one that I'll be happy to tackle once again.
 

Sleeping Gnome

This dawn beckons, the first morning of a new year, and yet I find myself reluctant to bid goodbye to the old.  The Year 2013 Of Our Lord was a good year on the Kansas prairie, filled with change and happy moments.  It spanned the building of a barn and the quickening of that simple enclosure's spirit by the addition of  warm-blooded inhabitants to the environs.  It embraced an active and expanding garden, with roses and grasses and shrubs and perennials to satisfy any man and swoon many a maiden.  It connected aging man to growing opportunities, moved impatient gardener closer to Nirvana, and forced change where change needed made.  Experience has added yet another year to this gardener's repertoire, a hedge against the improper choices of youth and recklessness.

On the other face, 2013 brought Japanese Beetles to my garden, and revealed evidence of the existence of  a still unknown creature who likes to root through the soil in search of grubs, destroying iris and daffodil alike.  It brought coyotes, a multitude of white-tailed and quite hungry deer, furry rabbits and long sinuous silent snakes. It oversaw the return of my weed nemesis, the Common Dayflower, to my landscaping, and the rapid advance of a prize blackberry into an impenetrable and unproductive thicket.  It disappointed me with a lack of fruit in the orchard and the disappearance of grapes from the vine.  Snow fell in very late April and Spring was late.  Winter came early in October and deepened in December, shortening the golden period of the garden. 

Perhaps this new year, 2014, is good riddance to the old, best welcomed in its arrival rather than lamented as change.  Today, like the concrete gnome that lays at the foot of my sidewalk, this gardener and his garden rests.  Like the gnome, the garden is cold and dead, brittle and brown from the view of the outside world, inert and languid.  Like the gnome, the aging gardener will also nap today, but indoors, his new resolution to spend at least part of every seventh day this year imitating the gnome, an unread book on his stomach and smiling from a pleasant dream.  With the New Year, and the growing length of each new day, hope and happiness begin again.

Meet Moose and Millie

I'd like to take this pre-Christmas opportunity to introduce you to Miss Millie and her live-in companion Moose.  The pair has settled in nicely over the past month, so I suppose they're going to stay around long enough to let my readers in on their lives.  They are both about 7 months old now and I obtained them from a veterinary student who had promised their original owner that she would try to find a single home for them so that they could stay together.  

Moose

Moose is a Maine Coon cat and will likely be a pretty big boy when he's fully grown and muscled in.  He's withdrawn and calm, moving slowly and meowing quietly and sparsely.  His fur is incredibly long and soft, so Mrs. ProfessorRoush spends a lot of time holding him while the very jealous Millie climbs around her legs and shoulders and demands attention.  Despite his much larger stature, Moose is a pussycat (ouch), allowing Millie to have first chance at the soft food and ignoring her as much as he can.  It is Moose that's going to be my mouser; he's already left me two pack rat corpses to admire.  Unlike many rodents trophies, these happily presented rodents still had their heads and tails so I presume that he's not acquired any culinary interest yet in fresh, warm mouse meat.

Millie

Millie is a dainty tortoiseshell female, with a mischievous and restless nature.  If a cat ever needed Ritalin, Millie does.  She has a needy personality, constantly rubbing around our legs and making us worry about stepping on her while we walk to the barn.  She will play with a mechanized toy that Mrs. ProfessorRoush brought into the barn, but otherwise, she seems to merely exist to eat her weight in cat food and to aggravate the more stoic Moose.

I'm expecting big things from these two, hoping  that they'll keep the mice and moles away from the barn and garden, which, in turn, should decrease the number of snakes in the area as well.  Hopefully these two cats will leave the prairie birds alone and they'll stay around the donkeys at night for protection from the coyotes.

If you are wondering about their names and how they got more imaginative names than "Big Cat" and "Little Cat", it is because I named them myself instead of letting Mrs. ProfessorRoush and the kids have a say.  Millie just seemed like a "Mildred" and my theory in the seemingly random name is that she may be a reincarnated pioneer soul of the last century.  The other choice for naming Moose was "Bubba", and although he seems a little like a "Bubba", the aliteration of "Moose & Millie" was just too good for me to pass up.

Shotgun Gardening

Image from www.flowershell.com

While some conspiracy theorists believe that shadow organizations such as the Illuminati or the New World Order or the American military-industrial complex are heck-bent on taking over our lives, ProfessorRoush has long suspected that "Marketers" are the real shadow organization that will bring about the downfall of civilization.  After all, they've already convinced us to buy bottled tap water at prices exceeding that of our dwindling oil supplies.

As further evidence of my theory, I learned today that an Indiegogo campaign has formed to convince willing fools such as myself to part with money for the promise that a prairie garden can be created by haphazardly firing shotgun shells packed with flower seed into a field.  Several hours ago, if you asked me what I thought "shotgun gardening" was, I'd have envisioned a haphazard assemblage of shrubs, flowers, grasses and plants stuffed hither and yon into the landscape without a specific plan.  I certainly wouldn't have expected that it meant that I could step out on my back porch and, true to VP Joe Biden's recent suggestion, "fire off a couple of rounds" and create a garden. 

Indiegogo, for those unenlightened gardeners who actually spend time in their gardens instead of reading about gardening online, is a site that lets anyone use its "powerful social media tools" to create "campaigns" for "raising money" (the latter a nice euphemism used in lieu of admitting that it helps you find suckers to fleece).  The Shotgun Garden Indiegogo campaign is run from www.flowershell.com, where you can purchase twelve-gauge shotgun shells loaded with twelve different kinds of seeds including peony, poppy, cornflower, daisy and sunflower seeds. 

I have a plethora of experience strewing tons and tons of variously marketed "meadows-in-a-can" around my environment without altering the forb/grass ratio of the native prairie to any appreciable degree, so I'm somewhat skeptical that a few shotgun shells full of flower seed will improve the outcome.  And these are live shells, dangerous in their own right.  What if I mistook Flowershells for rock salt while chasing off the pack of teenage boys who constantly circle my daughter?  "You're no daisy" might not work anymore as a 19th Century throwback insult for those boys.  I certainly can't risk the chance of contributing to their delinquency if their backsides each sprouted a personal poppy field.

No, Indiegogo's efforts are wasted on me because I'm certainly not going to waste my hard-won cash on Flowershells, despite how interesting and tempting they might seem to a bored gardener in winter.  My gardening money is going to have to be wasted the old-fashioned way, attempting to grow meadows from a can.   

Lovely Louise

'Louise Odier', blooming in clusters

Oh, how I miss the roses here, trapped deep in Winter.  I miss the sunshine on their cheery petals and sweet fragrances on every breeze and their fetching colors against the dark green foliage.  I miss the pollen-coated bees busily buzzing around, and the swelling buds, and the first glimpse of each happy bloom. 

This morning, I was thinking how much I miss 'Louise Odier', the classic pink Bourbon bred in 1851.  She, more formally addressed as 'Madame Louise Odier' but properly exhibited only under 'Louise Odier', carries an 8.4 rating by the ARS and she is eligible for "Dowager Queen" in a show if you participate in such momentary breaks with sanity.  A deep pink, double Bourbon of the most refined cupped and quartered form, she often unveils a green button eye as she fully opens her 3 inch flowers.  'Louise Odier' grows in a vase-like shape with thick tall canes and she does have a bit of blackspot in my garden, but she's never completely naked.  She blooms repeatedly over the summer with one of the strongest fragrances of rosedom, a credit to her Bourbon heritage.  I grew her as my first Bourbon and I still love to bury my nose in those first large blooms of summer.  

 

I've grown 'Louise Odier' for over 20 years in two different gardens, and she will be one of the last roses I surrender when vigor and strength fail me.  She's been hardy most winters in my Zone-5-becoming-6B-garden, but she does suffer in an occasionally cold year and may die back halfway.  I've seen her reach 7 feet at the end of a summer and I've seen her struggle to reach 4 feet, but she always blooms dependably, even if it is in a mid-1800's, I-don't-have-much-foliage-but-look-at-my-big-blooms sort of way.

While seeking information this morning about her provenance, I noted the following entry (attributed to Brent C. Dickerson in The Old Rose Adventurer): "[Dickerson speculates] that this rose was named after the wife or daughter of James Odier, nurseryman of Bellevue, near Paris, who was active at the time 'Louise Odier' [the rose] was introduced. Monsieur Odier was indeed also a rosebreeder, having bred and introduced the early (1849) Hybrid Tea 'Gigantesque'. He may well thus have been the actual breeder of 'Louise Odier', Margottin later purchasing full propagation rights from him."   And thus I was led to place three books by Brent Dickerson on my Amazon wish list for the next time I place an order.  I had never heard of them before, although I was aware of Dickerson, but I can't pass up any book with new information on the history of Old Roses.  I may not be able to enjoy Bourbon roses in winter, but I can imagine their scent on the coldest January day while I'm reading about them.

Corral Complete

It's been quite some time since I updated you on the barn project, but it is essentially finished, minus a little painting of the iron fencing and a well-chosen corral sign.  Yes, yes, I'm aware that most "oil pipe" fence is left to develop a patina of rust here in Kansas, but at the ripe age of fifty-four I am still apt to climb over the fence rather than walk around to a gate, and I don't want to soil my britches.  My initial plan is to happily spend most of my summers sliding in and out of this "man cave," and rust stains are not part of the vision.

The northernmost third of the barn has been reserved for hoofed critters, hence the "corral".  My original intention was to house a couple of bred Angus heifers for the winter and thus gain the benefits of both the miracle of baby calves while also providing to Mrs. ProfessorRoush some nice grass-fed steaks (the latter individual is an unreformed and unapologetic carnivore).  It has, however, been appropriated by the donkeys and a pair of barn cats for the foreseeable future.  The rest of the barn is storage for the "big green" tractor and its various implements, and the small green" lawn tractor, and various gardening implements that otherwise dirty and clutter up the garage.   

There is something both incredibly calming and deeply biblical about having a barn filled with straw bedding, feed, and living creatures.  I imagine that my blood pressure dropped ten points the minute I started feeding animals again every morning and evening.  There is a peace and stillness in the barn (with the exception, of course, of the donkey's braying at the sight of me), that I haven't had in my life for quite some time.  It may be a -10º wind-chilled trek to the barn, as it is this morning, but it's a short one and it does serve to stir the blood every morning.  Inside the barn will be some hungry kittens and some impatient donkeys, waiting on the stupid primate for some decent sustenance.  It took only two days once the barn was opened for the donkeys and cats to learn when feeding time was.  Creatures of habit, each and every living soul here.

So this is where I can be found this winter, lazily sharpening lawn mower blades and hoes and dreaming of Spring.  The barn cats?  I'll introduce them to you later on, I promise.  

Party At My Place

Unbeknownst to a sleeping or absent ProfessorRoush, there seems to have been a party, or a series of parties, held in my back yard in the late month of November.  My garden has, it seems, become the combined neighborhood delicatessen, coffeehouse, and social networking place for the wild creatures of field and forest.  I suppose I should be grateful that they aren't egging the house, although I have noticed the damage from the deer equivalent of teenagers making wheel-mark doughnuts in my garden.

 Take a really close look at the picture above, taken November 25th at 5:29 a.m.  This is the Garden Musings equivalent of Disney's "Bambi" tale.  The doe is easy to see, slightly blurry in the center of the picture, but look closely at the lower left corner.  Those little blobs with the glowing eyes are two rabbits who evidently are not bothered by the simultaneous presence of the deer. Click on it if you need to blow it up a little to see them.

And the next night, November 26th at 3:47 a.m., the doe from the night before must have felt outnumbered by the rabbits and subsequently brought a friend for round two. Or several friends.  I've got approximately 25 photos with deer in them exposed over the space of two hours and I have no idea if all the deer are the same as these two or whether the big party was off camera and they were just using this area for a private conversation.

Last, but not certainly least, on the third day, November 27, at 8:43 a.m., the antlered creature pictured above decided to answer the question I posed in a 2012 blog entry.  Here, at last, is the missing and majestic Hart, bounding away in all his masculine glory.   Nice antlers, buddy.

I must make all haste to deploy countermeasures before my rose garden gets eaten down to stubs.  Hhmmmm, where did my bottle of water go?       

My Friend

After a search of his own blog, ProfessorRoush can scarcely believe that he has never even mentioned, let alone featured, the clear pink blossom of one of his favorite Griffith Buck roses, 'Amiga Mia'.  But, there it was, or more properly, there it wasn't, a glaring absence of the rose unlisted in the "labels" section at the bottom of this blog.

'Amiga Mia' is a medium pink Shrub rose bred by Dr. Buck in 1978, making it an early introduction in his group of roses.  It is described as "Seashell pink" on helpmefind.com, and as "light empire rose (RHSCC 48C) with white at the base of the petals" on the Iowa State Buck Roses page.  I simply call this a clear pink; no bluish or orange overtones in this one, a color that will mix well in the garden.

'Amiga Mia' is almost a grandiflora; Hybrid-Tea style blooms occur in clusters of 5-10 and open quickly.  They are double (25-35 petals) and 4 inches in diameter in my garden.  The plant is very healthy, with glossy, dark green, blackspot-resistant foliage.  'Amiga Mia' is an offspring of 'Queen Elizabeth' and 'Prairie Princess'.  She is hardy to Zone 4.

Dr. Buck gave her a catching name, naming her 'Amiga Mia', translating to "friend of mine" after his friend Dorothy Stemler, an eminent rosarian and proprietor  of California-based "Roses of Yesterday and Today".   That nursery still carries 'Amiga Mia', with the description from the current owner of "Griffith Buck had a great friend – one who respected and loved him, as well as his roses. Her name was Dorothy Stemler, and she was my mother."

This is my third year with 'Amiga Mia' in this garden (I grew her in my previous town garden), and she is a tireless performer.  She is a chubby elfin rose for me, growing about 3 feet tall at maturity, and she has a round overall form.   I love the bloom color and the constant ample display of her bosoms...oops, I mean blossoms.

I do have two complaints about 'Amiga Mia'.  The first is simply that I can rarely find a perfect, unmarred blossom on her.  More often, they're like the photo at the top of this blog, tempting me to learn photoshop so that I can airbrush out her blemishes, much like the fashion industry does with their flawless human models.  My second complaint is that she opens up too fast.  The middle photo, above, shows the bush with a number of new high-centered blooms on 5/28/13.  The photo at the right shows the bush the next day, with most of those same blooms open, pistils on full display.  No woman of the Victorian era would favor such brashness, so it is good that 'Amiga Mia' is around now, in our more accepting and less prudish society alongside our fascination with the Kardashians and Kendra On Top. 

Gratefully Thankful

ProfessorRoush is fully aware, and mildly abashed, that it has been quite some time since my last rose posting on this blog, but I promise that I'll get to one soon.  The next victim has, in fact, been chosen and is waiting in line.

Today, however, I awoke uncharacteristically grateful and I would be distinctly ungrateful if I ignored the feeling.  I'm not given to displays of random emotion, but I can't shunt aside the contented feeling warming me up on this cold Kansas morning.  I'm grateful for my life and my home and my love with Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  Grateful for my children, now almost grown and gone.  Grateful for the donkey's and the new barn cats and my garden. 


I'm grateful for the plants and life of the prairie.  I'm particularly grateful for the native blue sage that pops up randomly in my garden beds and provides a cooling reflection of the clear summer sky in the doldrums of August.  I'm grateful for the prairie grasses, and for the ample sunshine that makes it all possible.  I'm grateful for the mornings given to my life, fields dewy and golden with the rising furnace.

I'm extremely grateful for the Internet this morning, ready with all the information of the world at my touch-typing fingertips, including the origin of the word grateful.  ProfessorRoush's mind doesn't work in a straight line, often taking bends and u-turns through a maze of thought, and somewhere along this little piece of writing, I began wondering why we say that we are "full of grate."  There is no definition of "grate" in the English language (to sound harshly, to irritate, a frame of metal bars to hold wood) that seems pleasant.  Happily, a short search informed me that "grateful" derived from an obsolete meaning of grate as "pleasing", from the Latin grãtus as in gratitude, and that the first known use of "grateful" was in 1552.  It seems odd that "grateful" would have survived in the English language while "grate" no longer is defined as "pleasing."  It seems odd that I would even wonder about it.

But, strange as it is, I'm also grateful just to wonder about it.

Bluebird Harvest

While I was harvesting pecans, I was also taking advantage of that beautiful November Saturday to make my Bluebird house rounds.  I would rather do this annual chore now, in the sunshine and mild wind, traipsing up and down the hills through the tall grass, before the world gets cold and breezy again.

I'm pleased to report that 11 of 19 boxes, were occupied by Bluebirds this year, a record for me.   Eight of the eleven were boxes of my own North American Bluebird Society-approved design.  Of course, many of you remember the hatch group that I watched closely this year, raised in this nest (to the right) as it looks now and pictured during their growth period (below to the left).   If you haven't seen them before, this is a pretty typical nest for a bluebird, perhaps even a little on the cushy side.  Eastern Bluebirds are not, by any anthropomorphic comparison, very good architects and they seldom place more than an inch of unorganized grass in the bottom of their boxes, varying a little upon the depth of the box cavity.

Of the other eight boxes, two were completely unoccupied and six were occupied by whatever species in my area fills the entire box, top to bottom, with small twigs (House Wren?)  The latter six boxes were all close to the border of the trees in the draw.  I had placed them along that border but facing the open prairie, thinking that the Bluebirds would like the sites, but the Bluebirds seem to be drawn to boxes out in the middle of the grasses, on fence posts.  Since Bluebirds often start nesting in early February in this area, I presume they've got first choice on most of these boxes and are leaving the boxes around the woods and ponds for others.  I think this year I will move some of the woodline boxes out farther into the fields just to make sure I've got a surplus of Bluebird-approved housing in the area.

I have to be a bit careful, however, of my site selection.  I've found that the donkey's like to rub the boxes left within their reach, often to the point of knocking them down, so I've moved several boxes to the opposite side of the fence from the donkeys or into corners where the little brown asses will have trouble getting at them.  Ding and Dong must not like Bluebirds as much as I do.

Pecan Plenty

In the midst of a hectic early November, I almost forgot to collect pecans from my young tree, but after driving over them a few times, I did eventually notice that they had fallen from the tree and were awaiting harvest. 

Of course, my epiphany came when I was rushing around doing other things and so I picked them up as rapidly as possible and filled my pockets.  The ultimate result was this previously picked, pocketed, and photographed pile of perfect pecans placed on ProfessorRoush's kitchen counter.  There are, for those who want to know, 83 pecans in this pile.

Last year, I gathered about a dozen pecans from the tree at harvest, the first year it ever bore fruit.  If my crop proliferates at the rate of 83/12, or 6.92X per year, then next year I should harvest 574 pecans, and the year after I should get 3975 pecans, and then 27500 pecans in 2016, and 190348 pecans in 2017. 

I think I'll stop counting after that since I'll literally be rolling in pecans.  Or I can just start counting pecans by the dump truck load after 2017.  Pecan paradise awaits.

Rosette Reckoning

'The Magician' Rose Rosette

I suppose some are wondering why ProfessorRoush has been so quiet for the past 9 days?  I'd like to tell you that I've been on a fabulous vacation to a tropical isle, but truthfully I've just been swamped with lots to do and haven't the extra energy to write.  Well, that, and my gardening depression over what I'm about to show you.

Last Saturday, after the leaves finally were blasted off the roses by a cold spell, I used the opportunity of the bare stems to assay my roses for any signs of Rose Rosette disease.  And, of course, I found plenty of possible lesions, on 5 different roses to be specific.  One of the more definitive examples is pictured at the upper right, from a cane on 'The Magician', a recent shrub rose bred by Dr. John Clements.  The red arrow shows the thickened, thorny cane in question, originating from the much smaller branch indicated by the white arrow.

'Darlow's Enigma' Rose Rosette

Other lesions, such as that on 'Darlow's Enigma', pictured at the right, and 'Vanguard', pictured below left were a little less certain, but still highly suggestive.  The fourth and fifth possible victims are unfortunately two Griffith Buck roses, 'Iobelle' and 'September Song'. 

In the positive column, only a single cane was affected on each rose and each one high on the cane at that, and I wacked every one of these diseased canes off at the ground level in hopes that the virus didn't spread to the base.  I would also note that none of these roses are over 3 years old (are they thus more susceptible than established roses?) and that I found no lesions on any of  my Old Garden Roses or my "real" Rugosa Hybrids (I don't really count 'Vanguard' here since its foliage is not very rugose).



'Vanguard' Rose Rosette

On the negative side, two of these newly affected roses were Griffith Buck roses, increasing the affected number of those hybrids to 3/6 in my garden.  Thus 50% of the roses affected so far are Buck roses, although Buck roses do not account for nearly 50% of the roses in my garden.  Are they more susceptible?  Or am I seeing more on Buck hybrids because they constitute a majority of my "modern" rose hybrids; those that are not either Hybrid Rugosa or Old Garden Roses?  I don't know.

Still Life

I am well aware that the few roses in this vase are crumpled and frost damaged and certainly not the best representatives for my gardening skills.  I collected these last few buds from the garden Monday night just before a forecast hard freeze and it occurred to me that I should display their imperfect forms here for some of you who might believe that I don't grow any classic Hybrid Teas at all. 

Any Hybrid Tea roses in my garden have to earn their way in by fragrance, and they can only stay if they will return year after year in Zone 6B with minimal or no winter coddling and without regular fungal sprays.  Thus, I present to you 'Double Delight', 'Tiffany' (on the left) and two buds of 'Chrysler Imperial' (on the right).  I doubt that three more fragrant roses exist in all of the world.  In my garden, but not blooming right now, are also a decrepit 'Garden Party', a struggling 'Pristine', a miserable 'Granada', a scentless 'Touch of Class', two almost-scentless 'Olympiad',  and a mildewed and constantly balled-up, 'La France'.   'Double Delight' and 'Tiffany' are safe from my wrath, and I'll never live in a garden without 'Olympiad', but the rest of these interlopers constantly live at the precipice of spade-pruning.  Indeed, more than once I've expected and wished for  'Garden Party' and 'Pristine' to expire, only to see them send up a measly cane or two just to irritate me.  Some things just don't know when to die on their own.

I've always been particularly fond of 'Double Delight', however.  It is a marginal survivor in my area, but I fell in love with that overpowering sweet scent back in my adolescent rose-growing days before I knew better.  It was sort of like falling for the beautiful high school cheerleader before realizing that keeping her required you to spend all of your hard-earned minimum-wage money and future college funds on jewelry, ice cream, and restaurant meals.  Yes, she was nice to admire and hold and smell, but, darn it, she was still almost more trouble than she was worth.  And that was even without any bouts of fungus disease!  If you weren't a geeky nerd with no other similar female prospects, you'd have gotten rid of her years ago.  In the case of 'Double Delight', yes, it blackspots and it is an ugly garden bush and it throws up lots of double-centered flowers.  I do believe it is more even fragrant on its own roots than it is as a grafted bush, but if I wasn't still a geeky nerd at heart, I'd have shovel-pruned her long ago.  Or maybe not.  Where would I get another rose of that beauty, fungus or not?

Ethereal Elegance

Extremely delicate or refined.   Almost as light as air.  Celestial or spiritual.  These definitions of "ethereal" all fit the last rose that shines defiant against the coming Winter in my garden.  Cheerful in spite of frost, embracing the sunlight from dawn to dusk, 'Betty Boop' carries alone the promise of delicate and refined beauty into the cold nights of November.  She may now be clothed in soiled foliage. and her days in warm sun may be numbered, but she blooms still, an angel of charm and elegance in the dying landscape.


 

I was struck yesterday, on a glorious, warm and bright Saturday afternoon, by the tableau of these bright yellow and red flowers against the now drab buffalograss nearby and the blanched prairie grasses of the distant background.  The individual blooms are stained here and there by the frozen dews, but the chilling nights of the past two weeks have made a porcelain study of the petals and deepened the contrast of yellow center and blushing edges.  While other roses in my garden have balled and browned, 'Betty Boop' still engages the gardener's soul with a passing glimpse, beckoning to close, to come hither and be smitten. 

There are lessons upon lessons here, in this rose, for one and for many.  The values of buoyancy and perkiness while the nearby world stands gloomy and grave.  The strength of fragility and softness in the defiance of certain destruction by the coming storms.  The lure of coy subtlety and refinement over blatant sexuality and wanton display.  The stolen embrace of sunshine and warmth during a fortuitous moment, returned back tenfold to the world in a smile.

Twas 'Betty Boop' who held my heart yesterday, calmed in her graceful hands.     

Now? Really?

Like many other Texas-borne and -bred organisms, my Texas Red Yucca seems to be befuddled since it was transplanted from its native environment.  I have three plants, purchased on a whim after I saw them blooming in Las Vegas, and I am finding their bloom periods unpredictable at best.

Keep in mind that all three plants are the same age and size and they are cited about two feet apart in the same bed under the same tree.  Last year, two clumps bloomed, the center one starting in June and the south-most one in July, both continuing through September.  This year, the center clump didn't bloom at all.  The clump to the north end bloomed alone in June and has made a nice display all summer.  A closeup photo of the very long-lasting waxy flowers from that raceme is on the left, below.  Most recently, just a few days ago and after our first freeze here, I noticed two foot-high flower spikes growing on the southern-most clump as pictured to the above right.  Say what?  What possible natural signal would have enticed this plant to start blooming now? 

Talk about your messed up biologic cycles.  Land sakes, it must be more evidence of Global Warming!   Somebody please, quick, alert Al Gore!  He'll surely take action; at least, maybe, if you can pull him away from the millions he made selling his TV network to Al-Jazeera.

It will, at the very least, be interesting to see how the winter weather affects this raceme.  Will it shrivel up and turn brown and die?  Or will the waxy coating protect it from the frigid North winds and the dehydrating bright winter sun?  Will this stalk perhaps make it to March and then bloom in April, giving me 6 full months of bloom from a single stalk of flowers? 

No way could I get that lucky.  I'm predicting either a) a mouse will find these succulent stems delightful as a Christmas meal, or b) that the stress of the flowering stalk forming in late fall and into winter will result in the death of the plant, while its more intelligent neighbors bide their time and survive.  Or both.

I Want It!

ProfessorRoush doesn't often post pictures taken outside his own garden, but I can't resist posting this iPhone photo of a Halloween display that I encountered yesterday at a local horticulture proprietor.  Forget the Halloween paraphernalia, look at the garden table!  I took one look at this table, stained cement at about the perfect height for either "real" garden work like potting or for just display and ornaments, and I almost walked out the door with it despite the almost $400 price.  Shades of impulse buys, somebody purchase this thing before it lures me back!

I've never, ever, thought about a table in the middle of my garden, but somewhere in ProfessorRoush Fantasy Garden Land, this table, with its Griffon-style legs, stands adorned in Spring with forced pots of bulbs hidden among blooming wisteria vines.  There is a fat calico-furred feline soaking up the early Spring sunrays and lazily watching a torpid bumblebee lumbering near.  The view changes again in Summer, and I see the legs adorned in Jackmanii wisteria and a fragrant pink pillar rose draped over it along the back, butterflies floating slowly from bloom to bloom on placid early morning air currents.  I see this very table in September, arrayed with ornamental gourds and pumpkins, surrounded on the sides and back by tall 'Northwind' and Miscanthus 'Gracillimus' grasses.  What garden paradise can I create here with this eye-level cement muse?

Alas, while these beautiful vistas beckon, I can't escape from the realities of the Flint Hills.  I know that potted bulbs would be quickly swept off the bench by the Kansas winds of April, and the wisteria would likely refuse to bloom.  The fragrant pillar rose would rake across the table in Summer, scraping any contents to the ground in an instant.  The clematis would be wilting in the hot summer sun, particularly where it contacted the boiling concrete.  The colorful pumpkins and gourds of autumn would be whisked off to Missouri on the back of a thunderstorm while the grasses stood as silent guards around the cement tomb of summer's hopes.

Hey, look again at that picture.  It might not work out in my garden, but I think it would look great in yours!

Misty Magic

I believe ProfessorRoush has mentioned it before, but the monotone beige of the autumn Flint Hills comes completely alive when rain or mist dampens the tall grasses.  Without moisture, the grasses are an uninspiring shaggy carpet of light browns and tans, some perhaps rarely displaying a dusky red undertone.  If the heavens bestow a mild drizzle, however, or perhaps engulf the land beneath a damp cold mist, the prairie becomes a sea of fall colors, reds, golds and yellows woven into a tapestry of summer's bountiful growth.

I came back from a day trip to Nebraska last evening, fighting mist and fog over the last thirty miles of backroads, to find my little corner of prairie transformed into a quiet paradise of colored foliage studded with clear aqueous gemstones.  The mist imposed a sense of isolation and dampened all sounds from the adjacent roads and city as well as raising a veil to screen out the view of other houses on my horizon, leaving my garden as an oasis within Eden.  Some might label the silent misty cloak as an ominous warning of apocalypse, but I felt only peace and calm draped across the land.

The evening mist also provided me a victory of sorts.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush finally conceded that the unmown prairie grass on the rear-facing slope behind the house might have some redeeming qualities beyond her fears of a snake-infested meadow.  I made sure to get a firm verbal commitment of support for my laissez faire approach to the landscape, but I prudently decided not to push my luck with a request for her surrender in writing. Mrs. ProfessorRoush was, in fact, madly snapping close-up photos of the grasses, presumably with the goal of adding them to her already voluminous Facebook page.  In unusual fashion, she was even squatting at eye level with the foliage, capturing a much broader and more artistic view of my meager gardening efforts than she normally strives for.  Oh my, vindication and validation are such sweet wines to the gardener's palette!

My own quick Iphone capture in the growing dusk resulted in the photo displayed above.  There was barely enough light left to trigger the digital pixels, but I found that I liked the blurring effect that the dim light added to the mist.  This is the Kansas prairie, untouched and unsullied by man, carrying all these harvest hues now exposed into winter.  I slept soundly on the prismatic prairie last night, wrapped in a silent blanket of inner peace, separated and protected by a misty curtain against the waves of civilization.