Garden Innuendo

I've long held that gardeners are earthy in far more ways than one might associate with having their hands dirty.  Most garden literature appropriately stays away from the birds and the bees and other natural topics, but the subtext of sex is always there, lurking deep beyond the printed word. Not many of us actually do our gardening au naturale, but that's just a wise move to avoid sunburn for most of us, let alone the danger posed by rose prickles on exposed skin (Ouch!). It's not surprising, really, because how could a gardener be immersed in the fecundity and bountiful fertilization of a healthy garden without otherwise acknowledging that the lessons of the Garden of Eden were not about how the perfect Man and perfect Woman could be happy in the perfect World, they were about how sin and procreation always overgrow the boundaries we set for our gardens and mess things up.

I find some of the forthright bawdiness prevalent in the works by some authors to be refreshing. Cassandra Danz, for example, in Mrs. Greenthumbs, tends to overheat in her garden at a regular interval. One of my favorite books happens to be Second Nature by Michael Pollan and I've always thought he had a good explanation for why one of the biggest Hybrid Teas around was named 'Dolly Parton'. It's the subliminal messages hidden in most of the other garden literature that we've got to watch out for though. I've read The Hidden Meaning of Flowers but I didn't quite get the point. And recently I've been reading Going to Seed by Charles Goodrich.  It's a quick and very readable book of short thoughts on gardening and life, but consider a passage from the essay titled "Going to Seed" on page 47: "Once I was biodynamic.  I used to do a lot of heavy mulching.  I tried my hand at companion plantings, played around with French intensive.  There was a time I'd dribble seed into any dirt I came across."

Get it yet?  In case you didn't, Goodrich goes on to say, "But I'm done sowing wild oats.  I'm not planning to graft a branch on some other guy's tree.  Anyway, who cares who can raise the biggest zucchini?  I'm just happy looking at the pictures."

I mean, come on, talk about your middle-aged crisis.  Mr. Goodrich needs help and needs it soon.  No gardener should ever give up the urge to plant seed in the dirt, whether the soil is quick-draining sand, tenacious clay, or needs some organic amendment. What would gardening be without the urge to outdo the neighbor in growing the biggest zucchini or the most succulent tomato?  And there's a lot said these days about the advantages of companion plantings with benefits.  

I might have missed something, though, regarding what Mr. Goodrich was really trying to say.        

Bring on the Storms

It seems like the weather across the U.S. has cooled a bit this week and the Flint Hills were no exception, with highs in the 80's and lows in the 60's the latter part of the week.  It isn't winter, but it's a darned sight better than the last month of daily 100's we had.

What we still need in Kansas though, is rain, and lots of it.  On August 20th, we got 1.7 inches of rain, the first significant moisture since early July, and I thought that would help quench the thirsty plants, but I divided a peony two days later and amongst the rock-hard clay clods I couldn't detect that a lick of moisture had been added.  I'm considering adding a motion-triggered camera facing my rain gauge to make sure Mrs. ProfessorRoush isn't adding water to the gauge just to help me feel better.  Even the areas I've mulched with 6 inch-thick prairie hay are dry underneath as far as I can dig with a mattock. 

This is want I want to see; Storm clouds rolling from my north and west.

It's bad enough that I'm seriously reconsidering the utility of ceremonial rain dances by the ancient prairie peoples. I've been googling "rain dance" and "Kansa" to see what worked best for those who survived on this land in the past, but to no avail.  My googles were in vain as so many of those traditions are sadly lost to history.  I learned only that the dancers moved in a zig-zag fashion and that the rain ceremonies were one of the few tribal ceremonies where women were also allowed to dance. I probably couldn't correctly do the steps anyway, but I wonder if my neighbors would mind if they saw me out chanting and wailing across the prairie?  Given my past actions, it's feasible that they wouldn't notice the difference from my usual gardening practices.

The current tradition of Flint Hill's gardeners is to pray loudly for the appearance of storm clouds such as those pictured above.  Now, yes, it's true, Kansas is a famous place for tornadoes, not because we have more than any other state (we're actually down a bit on that list, below both Texas and Oklahoma), but of course because of that darned Oz film that has so poorly stereotyped this state for centuries to come. The true case is that most of the native Kansans, or even the transplants, like myself, cheer up when they see those dark clouds coming over the horizon.  Yes, there's a small chance of destruction, but they also bring life-giving rain to soak the earth down deep into that solid sterile clay. It's a renewal of our souls. We, my neighbors and I, we watch the skies and welcome the building thunderheads.  My small wind vane warns me early as it swings first to the west to feed the storm for an hour or so, and then, in the seconds just before it hits, back to the east as the downdrafts swoop in.

It's time for Fall to come and wake me up some night with the wind howling through the storm doors or with a nice downpour on the skylights.  I promise, I'll just smile and turn right back over to sleep.  Come rain, Come life.

Shakespeare's Rose

"That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet" (Romeo and Juliet II, ii, 1-2), doesn't even begin to cover the unusual wonder that is Rosa eglanteria, also known as R. rubiginosa, the Sweetbriar Rose of Shakespearean fame. For the unwashed rose devotees who have not yet run across this enormous, coarse, thorny monster, I feel I have to spend a blog entry to enlighten those who aren't aware that a rose doesn't need to flower to perfume the air. 

Native to Europe, Rosa eglanteria carries foliage perfumed with the scent of apples, more specifically with the scent of green apples.  The delicious odor can be elicited by crushing the leaves with clumsy fingers, and I almost never pass the bush without traumatizing a few leaves so that I can inhale those images of apple pie and home. Moisture-laden air also brings forth the wafts of scent without inflicting trauma on the bush, and during a warm steady rain, my Sweetbriar perfumes the garden for upwards of 10 yards. If you're thinking of building a gazebo, I'd recommend placing one within a few yards of a Rosa eglanteria, since it allows you to stand in the garden near the bush during a rain without inducing pitying stares from the neighbors. They'll still wonder, of course, if you've gone daft when you close your eyes and tilt your head back to keep your nose in the best breeze, but you won't care since you'll be comatose with olfactory overdose. It's said that serfs during the Middle Ages used to spread fragrant herbs over their hut floors to suppress the more unpleasant odors, but my bet is that they used dried leaves from the Sweetbriar instead of rosemary or thyme.

In Kansas, R. eglanteria grows eight to ten feet in height and becomes a tangle of brambles sufficient to serve as a livestock barrier or as an obstacle to the suitor of a teenage daughter (reading Romeo and Juliet is sometimes useful for gardening fathers). Otherwise it should be planted far away from garden paths and visitor areas lest it snag the unsuspecting and increase the garden's insurance premiums. It has undistinguished single light pink flowers, but the small blooms are quite numerous enough to make a display at the right moment in the spring.  Ovoid orange hips form to provide some fall and winter interest, but it’s the scent glands in the foliage that make this rose one to have and keep. While my annual attempts to trim and tame this rose leave me torn and bleeding, I still keep the Sweetbriar around for its moments of pleasure freely given by the tender caress of the summer rain.