Canadian John Cabot

I do have a few "new" roses to share this year; roses that have survived a couple of winter seasons and seem to be reaching their mature growth.   I placed the "new" in quotes because they are new roses to me, but, of course, have been commercially available for some time.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to 'John Cabot', introduced by Ag Canada in 1977 according to helpmefind/roses, although other sources say its introduction was in 1978).  Bred by Dr. Felicitas Svejda in 1969, this rose was named after an Italian navigator and explorer (his English name was John Cabot, but he was known as Giovanni Caboto in Italy), who, in 1497, crossed the formidable Atlantic Ocean to the New World and was the first European to reach Newfoundland since the Vikings.

The 'John Cabot' of my acquaintance is a gangly, thorny, sprawling mass of a rose, with some disheveled pink-red blossoms that open quickly to their 3-inch diameter forms in clusters on short stems.  Many petals have a central white streak and, in that way, the rose reminds me of a smaller 'William Baffin'.   Although described to have "mild fragrance" in the entry by helpmefind/roses, I detect no hint of fragrance in the flowers of my specimen.  My 'John Cabot' only bloomed once last year, in June, although it is said to have sporadic rebloom in late summer.  

A Hybrid Kordesii, 'John Cabot' ((Rosa kordesii Wulff x (Masquerade x Rosa laxa)) is said to be hardy to Zone 2B.   He certainly is solidly cane-hardy in winter here in Zone 5, with absolutely no dieback in the past two seasons. and has suffered no blackspot or mildew on his light green, matte foliage. He is also growing in a site where I lost the rambler 'America' to Rose Rosette Disease, but shows no signs of that monstrous disease yet.  At three years of age in my garden, the arching canes top out around 5 feet tall, and the rose has a tendency to grab whatever is passing by. 

In Hardy Roses, Robert Osborne stated that 'John Cabot' is "one of the most important new roses for northern gardens" and that he first saw it labeled as "seedling L07."  Released as a climber, I will prune and grow it as a shrub and try my best to keep it looking less "wild."  

If, as you read this blog entry, you feel that I'm not that fond of 'John Cabot', you are correct.  While I don't despise the rose, it has few exceptional qualities for me to favor.   It IS hardy, healthy, and needs little nurturing to provide a bounty of color in its season, however, so it has earned my attention in the garden, and, as you can see on the right photo taken just after sunrise last Friday, its jarring bright pink color makes it a standout even on a cloudy day.  

Fall and Winter

'John Cabot'

Where to begin?  It's been so long since my last post.  I had the desire, I had the need, but I lacked the final urgency to blog.  There was always something more pressing, more distracting, more immediate.  Excuses aside, by late August, I gave up on the garden and its Japanese Beetles and its drought. I was trying to ignore the actions of some unknown burrowing creature that was attempting to dig half of the garden up and I was disgusted by the lack of blooms and wilting daily along with the flowers.

Renewal, however, is always just around the corner in a garden.  There were always bright spots, refreshing moments like the 'John Cabot' rose (photo above) trying to climb through an old sitting bench near it.  The spray was half eaten away, but it still shone like the entrance to heaven from halfway across the garden.  I rallied in time to purchase a couple of dozen daylily starts at the local sale and gathered the energy to water them enough to keep them alive.   And the irrepressible  crape myrtles bloomed on time and gave way to panicled hydrangeas and late summer shrubs in their due time.

Sweet Gum

By September, we had a deficit of 10 inches of annual rainfall, almost half of the normal total expected.  Then, in a single night, the drought was extinguished by a deluge, parts of Manhattan were temporarily under water, the farm ponds filled and overflowed, and the ground cracks disappeared.  Over the following 2 weeks, three separate rainfalls added another 11 inches to the total, a year's rain in less than a month, and the world was mud.

Fall was nice while it lasted.  My young Sweet Gum, Liquidambar styraciflua (above, left), won my undying gratitude for its glowing orange fall foliage, and the prairie began to greet the sun every morning with its own display of gold and rust (below).  There are many here who believe fall is the best season on the prairie, and I can scarcely find any reason to quibble.

Despite the rejuvenating rain, the garden had little time to respond, as fall was short-lived.  On October 15th, two weeks earlier than any I've seen in 30 years of living here, we got a heavy wet snowfall of 3 inches.  While it made a winter wonderland of the landscape, it was an early finish to the annuals and the sedum and the chrysanthemums.  You can call it "weather," instead of climate change, all you want, but a record-early snowfall of decades, to the garden and to me, suggests that things are getting colder, not warmer.  We've already had 4 separate snowfalls in the last month, another anomaly for my scrapbook.  My unscientific conclusions were also bolstered by the "climate" of last weekend, as we smashed a 110 year old record overnight low for the date.  Maunder minimums, meet the 3rd millennium!  

I'll leave you, here on the 2nd day of December, 2018, with these last two pictures to ponder.  The first, taken at 7:52 a.m last Sunday, was my back garden at the start of a day of incoming climate.  The second, taken just after 11:00 a.m. through the same window, the frozen tundra that was previously my back garden.  That morning, if a mastodon had come lumbering out of the gale-driven snowfall, I wouldn't have batted an eye.  Except for the 4 foot drift on my front sidewalk, which I shoveled away while I composed a spirited few words that might have taken Al Gore's name in vain, most of this snow is already gone, feeding the prairie grass roots deep in the saturated soil.   This year, at least, I won't have to worry about the lack of soil moisture available for the shrubs as the ground freezes and churns.  Climate-change has its own little gifts, I guess.

How Long the Rose?

During that dreaded time period that pulls many gardeners reluctantly away from their Spring gardens (i.e. tax preparation time), I happened across some important information that I want to reproduce here for the benefit of other rosarians. While I was hauling off the truckloads of worthless annual paper and filing the few sheets of information that are actually important to my life, I found my copy of a February 1992 Horticulture article by Ian S.Ogilvie and Neville P. Arnold titled Roses From the North.

'Champlain'

The purpose of Ogilvie and Arnold's article was primarily to review the history of the breeding of hardy roses in Canada, but they have an interesting table in the article that provides an extra bit of information I wish was available for all roses in commerce, particularly for those that are blurring the boundaries between once-blooming and remontant roses.  In a table listing the Canadian cultivars, their color, habit, number of petals, and hardiness zones, they also listed the number of weeks each cultivar was in bloom between June 1st and September 30th, presumably at the L'Assomption site, and the relative blackspot resistance there:

Cultivar                                     Weeks of Bloom                  Blackspot Resistance

'Assinaboine'                               9.0                                        medium
'Cuthbert Grant'                           10.0                                      high
'Morden Ruby'                            8.9                                         medium
'Adelaide Hoodless'                     8.8                                        medium
'Morden Amorette'                      10.0                                      medium
'Morden Cardinette'                    10.0                                       medium
'Morden Centennial'                    10.7                                       medium
'Morden Blush'                            12.3                                      medium
'Morden Fireglow'                       9.0                                        medium
'Martin Frobisher'                        13.3                                      medium
'Henry Hudson'                            13.4                                      high
'David Thompson'                        12.7                                      high
'Charles Albanel'                          11.3                                      high
'John Cabot'                                10.3                                      high
'William Baffin'                             10.4                                      high
'Henry Kelsey'                             9.0                                        medium
'John Davis'                                 11.6                                      high
'John Franklin'                             14.0                                      medium
'Champlain'                                 13.6                                      medium
'Alexander Mackenzie'                9.4                                        high
'J.P.Connell'                                8.1                                        medium
'Capt. Samuel Holland'                12.2                                      high
'Louis Jolliet'                                14.5                                     high

I know this table reproduced from Ogilvie and Arnold leaves a lot of questions for those of a scientific mindset (how many years of bloom were averaged to obtain these numbers, spraying protocols, etc), but this information from two individuals involved in the breeding of these roses is still priceless for gardeners who are choosing roses for their landscapes. Yes, I agree that it would be nice to have disease resistance ratings and bloom periods like this for various climates and locations (in Virginia versus Kansas for instance), but for now, this information is the best available and I think that it relatively fits what I see for these roses here in Kansas.  'Champlain' for instance is almost never without bloom and perhaps once or twice in a bad year I have sprayed it for blackspot, compared to 'Cuthbert Grant' who seems to have several cycles with rest periods in-between, but whom I've never sprayed for blackspot.

It also encourages me to keep better records. I grow somewhere around 150 roses at last count.  Information on the dozen Buck roses I grow, for instance, might be of interest to others.  If only I didn't have to earn money to support the lifestyle the missus has become accustomed to, I could just walk around Thoreau-like with a notebook jotting down the blooming periods of roses.  I'm sure that someday I'll have the time.  I should perhaps plan for reincarnation as a bumblebee.  I'd have time to visit all the roses and the ability to sting those who annoy me.  Not a bad life, eh?

Lambert Closse

'Lambert Closse'

Along with 'John Cabot', another new rose to my garden that will have to "grow" to gain my full favor is the pink shrub rose 'Lambert Closse', another of the Explorer Series roses from Ag Canada.  'Lambert Closse' was introduced in 1995 (or 1994 depending on where you read about it) at l'Assomption in Quebec.  He has been in my garden only 2 years, but is already a gangly lad with sparse canes sprawling almost to 5 feet tall.

ProfessorRoush said "sparse canes", but I really should have said "cane", as in the singular form.   My specimen had an odd first growth year, putting up several weak spindly canes, and then a single long thick cane that had me worried it was a sucker from a nearby 'Dr. Huey' plant.  This year, however 2-3 other healthy canes are sprouting from the base and starting to catch up to last year's prodigy.  

'Lambert Closse' (formerly Ottawa 'U33') was a cross of bright yellow Floribunda 'Arthur  Bell' (McGredy, 1959) with pink and the vigorous Canadian semi-climber 'John Davis', an odd match if ever there was one.  The result, against all odds, is a very double flower of the clearest medium pink, borne in loose clusters and a bush reportedly hardy to Zone 3 (I saw the rose lose about 6 inches on its canes this winter here in Kansas).  'Lambert Closse' has glossy, healthy foliage and bears nonremarkable hips in Fall and Winter.

Bred by Dr. Ian S. Ogilvie and Dr. Felicitas Svejda in 1983, 'Lambert Closse' is named for a French merchant, Raphaël Lambert Closse (1618-1662), who made a name for himself fighting the Iroquois and first met his wife, Elisabeth Moyen, while rescuing her from them in 1657.  He was ultimately killed by the Iroquois only 5 years later, so we will leave judgement of the true quality of his tactical military skills to the historians.  

'Lambert Closse' open

So how do I really feel about 'Lambert Closse', the rose?   Well, he grew bigger than I expected (it is officially listed to be 0.85m tall, so much shorter than it grows for me), and the bush is more like an ugly Modern Rose than an attractive vase-form or rounded shrub.  The initially chaste tea-form buds open too quickly for my taste, in a day, to a flat form with yellow stamens.  And I probably won't like the "occasional repeat" that is reported for this rose, although some sources say it blooms continually from June through September when it is mature.  But I love the color, which doesn't "blue" on wetter, colder days, and the foliage has no blackspot or mildew here.  So, it stays.  For now.  

Minor Miracles

It is, in fact, still a world where miracles can occur, as Spring has finally begun here in the Kansas Flint Hills.   A very late, dry, and windy spring, but still, I'll take it.   Yesterday, ProfessorRoush inhaled his first ever-so-faint fragrance of this Star Magnolia (Magnolia stellata), which finally began to bloom only 3 days ago and which is not wasting a moment of our temporary warm spell.   No redbuds, no forsythia, no other life out there in the garden yet, but where there are magnolias, there is spring.  

How late is it?  Well, this Magnolia stellata is two weeks behind 2015 and 2010, and almost a month behind 2016. On the other hand, it's about 4 days ahead of last  year so I suppose I should count it as a blessing.  At this point however, I don't care that its behind, I just want warm days this week to draw out that deep musky fragrance so that I can overdose while I putter in the garden proper.  And warm days to bring on the rest of spring. 

The Puschkinia have joined in at last.  The short white and blue flowers are one of Mrs. ProfessorRoush's favorites, so I'm adding this picture to send some love her way.   The poor woman is on extended grandmother duty this month, in Alaska, tending to our 1 and 5 year old grandsons and feeding chickens through 2 feet of snow and the under threat from moose that frequents my son and daughter-in-laws backyard.  Pray for her since she will miss spring in the Flint Hills completely this year.  Heck, perhaps pray for Alaska, which may never again be the same.

I witnessed a second miracle yesterday, as I shopped the local Home Depot to see what poor decrepit boxed roses they had shipped in.   No April Fool joke, I was surprised to find these badly-paraffined and undoubtedly rootless shrubs in stock there, terrible specimens, but important genetic varieties if I can nurse them into health.   Among all the doomed hybrid teas and floribundas were a few precious (to me) Canadian roses, 'Rugelda' and, low and behold, a 'Roseraie de l'Hay rugosa'!   Commercial big-box rose offerings are so strange in these days of post-Knock Out hysteria!    So I left with the rugosa, two 'Hope for Humanity', two of the aforementioned 'Rugelda', a 'John Cabot', a 'Morden Sunrise', and a 'Zephirine Drouhin', ten roses all destined to fill in some spots from my Rose Rosette losses.   I also spotted, for those interested, 'Morden Blush' and a Buck rose, 'Prairie Princess'.   So if you run quickly to your local Home Depot and if you know what you are looking for, you may get lucky.  Leave the hybrid teas and junk for the unwashed masses, but grab up those Canadian roses while you can!

P.S. Almost forgot, Home Depot also had 'Therese Bugnet'!!!   I left them for you since I have plenty!

Hunter Tribute

ProfessorRoush is trying his best this year to bring Garden Musings back to its focus on my first love (beyond, of course, the beautiful Mrs. ProfessorRoush!); roses.   In that spirit, he has compiled a number of comments, thoughts and photos from the just-finished first flush of blooms, and would like to start by updating my assessment of a previously-discussed rose; the Hybrid Rugosa 'Hunter'.

My specimen of 'Hunter', planted in 1999 in my front landscape bed, seemed to peak during the 2012 season.   As I recall, its decline started after damage by an ice storm in 2015, and, surrounded by a bright red Monarda and burgundy Knautia macedonia, it struggled to compete, lingered and seemed weaker each season, and finally perished in 2017 or 2018.  Although I'm not sure if competition, poor sunlight, or old age contributed the most to 'Hunter's loss (or all three, equally) I can state with some confidence that the rose never showed any signs of Rose Rosette Disease and it remained only minimally affected by blackspot.  

I'll spare you the over-enthusiastic attempt at a poetic tribute this time, but  I missed 'Hunter' enough that I replanted a small band in 2022, this time in a more southern exposure, protected from the north winter winds by the house and near my bedroom window where I would see it more often, although the new site is also subject to more severe crosswinds and the ground is more dry in that area.  

Once again, the second coming of 'Hunter' in its now third season has grown into a spectacle, as you can see in these first 4 photos.   These were taken during first bloom cycle of 'Hunter'-2, around the 2nd week of May, when it opened every bud and petal all at once, a mass of "almost crimson", and became a show-stopper at the end of my back patio.   At 2.5 feet tall and 4 feet wide, it seems to be reaching full adulthood and is enjoying the current spot.  It shows absolutely no disease and had no winter dieback these past two winters.  

And now, 5 weeks later, it appears to be heading into another bloom cycle, slightly less flamboyant on its own, but this time accompanied not by 'John Cabot' and 'Konigin von Danemark' behind it, but by the daylilies 'Bubblegum Delicious' (left) and a yellow-green spider daylily whose name I've lost to history.  'Hunter' has also sprouted a couple of vigorous new canes that are reaching higher.  I can't wait to see what it does next!

(Non sequitur; has anyone else noticed that the iPhone 16 seems to have better representation of the reds than previous iPhones and digital cameras?  I'm much happier with the red tones of digital pictures these days!)

Weather Woes and Wrong Roses

I realize it may be often boring when ProfessorRoush complains about the lack of rain in Kansas in the summer, but bear with me a minute, and I'll let you feel a bit of my pain, and then I'll throw in a gorgeous gratuitous rose picture to end on today on a (semi)-high note.   Down and up, your emotions on a never-ending rollercoaster along with my Kansas blog.

Frustration, thy name is moisture.   Necessary and welcome whenever, wetness in this area of the country is a gift, a blessing from the sky however and whenever it comes.  I'm at the point of happily accepting the 80 mph winds and hailstorms and occasional sheltering in the basement as long as it brings rain.   Since May 30th, we had not any rain in this area, a period of drought that denied daylilies and blackberries any chance for full development.

Worst of all, my weather app had promised a decent chance of rain every day this past 10 days.  You would logically think that if there was a 30% chance of rain each day, it would rain one day in every three, correct?   Well, in Manhattan Kansas, that logic doesn't compute.   Oh, it rained on most days, it just rained all around us.   After watching storms last week go around us, I started snapping screenshots of the radar this week for proof.   I'm the blue dot in these shots, and the top photo is Tuesday, the second Thursday (flooding north, nothing on us), and this one at right is Friday morning.   My weather app actually said it was sprinkling here Friday as I screenshot the radar.   I evidently need a new weather app.   Or my weather app needs to learn from its poor performance and improve.

Finally, Friday night this storm at the left developed in early evening and held true for a half inch of rain and then a second storm rolled over in the middle of the night and laid down another 1.5 inches.   Saturday morning I could almost hear my buffalograss applauding as I stepped outside.   I've now skipped two days of watering new roses and I think the browning grass is already greening up.  If there's a bright side to the drought, the lawn didn't grow at all last week and so I can skip a week of mowing.   That radar-imaged storm you see pictured at the left looked like this as it moved in: 

Doesn't that look beautiful?   I considered dancing naked in the rain, but realized the neighbors might talk.

In other news, I do have a number of new roses growing this summer, courtesy of the Home Depot "Minor Miracle" that I wrote about earlier and this one is one of the new ones, a fabulous florescent orange-red semi-double that screams "watch me" in a exhibitionist display of pride.  On the downside, I don't know what variety it really is.  Two of the labeled Home Depot 'Hope for Humanity' roses look like this and they're obviously not 'Hope for Humanity'.   My best guess is that I now have two 'Morden Fireglow', although the foliage seems more glossy than I remember that rose.  In its favor, the stems are red like 'Morden Fireglow' and the color is so unique, it is hard for it to be anything else.  Certainly, this isn't a reborn 'Tropicana' and time and winter hardiness may reveal its secret identity.   Of similar concern is that the labeled 'Rugelda' I purchased appears to be a 'Hope for Humanity' instead.  The 'Morden Sunrise' and 'Zephirine Drouhin' seem correct, so they're not all labeled wrong, but 'John Cabot' hasn't bloomed and isn't acting like a climber.  Who knows what I've got?

I said I would end on a (semi)-high note, right?   You didn't really expect a fully happy ending from this blog did you?   After all the times you've been here?   My mystery rose is a beautiful rose indeed and certainly provides some color to contrast the subtle daylilies, but is it really too much to expect that if I'm paying $13 or $14 for a big-box-store rose, it would be labeled correctly?   How hard is that?

Morning Vistas

A "Vista" is defined as "a pleasing view, especially as seen through a long narrow opening."  This morning, ProfessorRoush was simply content to take Bella on a walk around her garden, and taking photos of the broad pleasing views of his garden through his narrow (phone) camera lens.  I'm not going to write a lot about these pictures today, I'll just note a few of the particular roses visible in them and leave them to speak for themselves.  Before you blow them up to look closer, you must promise not to feel smug about all the unpruned deadwood in the roses and the weeds at their feet.  A gardener only has so much time and Spring came at me fast this year.

Roses, from left to right, are tall 'John Cabot', crimson 'Hunter', pink 'Konigan von Danemark', and fading 'Marie Bugnet'

The irises are spectacular this year.  You can see Bella running ahead to the right, sniffing the ground.

Peony 'Buckeye Belle' sits maroon-ly at the feet of bountiful 'Blizzard' Mockorange

One view of a rose bed looking east as the sun rises.  The near border, left to right, is 'Leda', 'Rosalina', and 'Blush Hip'.  The nearly red rose just behind those is 'Duchess of Portland'.

Front to back, these roses are pink 'Duchess de Montebello', bright red 'Survivor' with 'George Vancouver' to it's left, and behind, tall, and pink 'Lillian Gibson'.

I have been hacking around and reviving this bed and 'Lillian Gibson' looks about as poorly as I've ever seen, but I still think she deserves a photo all to herself.

As does this second 'Survivor' specimen, with mauve 'Hanza' and single 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' following behind it.