Assigning Blame

Early Fall is always a good time to look over the garden and determine which individual plants haven't done well over the growing season, and then to assess blame and amend our gardening practices to allow us to improve next year.  At issue, though, seems always the uncertainty of the cause of the failure.

 For example, take the 'Jen's Monk' Hybrid Rugosa rose pictured at the right.  Normally a dependably- blooming, care-free and disease-free rose, I first noticed the browning of a majority of the bush in mid-August this year, far too late to prevent it.  Literally, about 3/4ths of the canes were bare when I  finally discovered the damage and the remaining leaves already shriveled and dead, while the other 1/4 of the bush looked relatively normal.  It would be easy to attribute the damage to the summer drought we've experienced, but was it really?  I could find no other explanation, no insect damage or webbing, no evidence of mildew, and the ground was indeed bone dry around it, but why this rose and not one of the other twenty-six in the bed?  Who would think that a rugosa would be more likely to have drought damage than the more smooth-leaved  'Alchymist' in front of it or the 'Robusta' or 'Louise Odier' on either side of it? Not me.  Thankfully, the damage seems to have stopped spreading (because I watered it, or just on its own?) and I have hope that only the leaves are lost and those bare canes will again leaf out anew next year and maintain the vase-like shape of the bush. If not, I'm resigned to trim it back next year and let it regrow from the base. 

Looking around the yard, I also have decided that I finally am giving up on a Weigela florida ‘Wine and Roses’ in a lower bed because it never did leaf out well this spring.  It has been in the spot for 3 years, now a four by four foot bush, but while it did well in the previous years, it never got going this time around.  It put up a spare few leaves in the spring at the tip of the stems and then, as the spring continued, those leaves collapsed and dropped off.  Was it the colder winter we had last year?  If so, why did another 'Wine and Roses' exposed to the full northern wind in a raised bed survive just fine?  Was it the wet spring and my clay soil?  Did it develop root disease of which I'm unaware?  What can I learn from this other than to put something else, say a crape myrtle, in its place?

I'm also perplexed at the seeming collapse of an enormous Sambucus nigra ‘Beauty’ elderberry that's been growing in the same spot in my "peony" bed for 6 years now.  This dark burgundy finely-leafed specimen is surrounded by three yellow-foliaged shrubs, making a nice dependable contrasting foliage spot in my garden.  Yet, two weeks ago, there it was, leaves completely gone and bare stems covered only by an invading green wisteria vine from nearby.  What the heck?  Another drought victim?  Insect raid?  Cold damage?  I think it had started out the year well, but now, I can't remember for sure if it bloomed as expected in the spring.  All I can do is cut it back and hope it grows out again in the spring.

I hope you learn what you can from your own gardening disasters this year, but if not, you're in good company.  I, for one, have learned only that I have a lot left to learn about gardening.  

An American Pillar

For this Labor Day of the year of our Lord 2010, I'd like to highlight a now infrequently seen but delightful rambler, the rose 'American Pillar'.  'American Pillar' has been variously described as being a cross between  R. wichuraiana and the native prairie rose, or R. wichuraiana and an unknown hybrid perpetual, but regardless of its parentage, the result was a once-blooming cold-hardy and disease resistant rambler.  In bloom, it's covered with hundreds of small (1 inch) five-petaled carmine pink flowers with white center eyes and golden stamens. Although it's once-blooming and lacks discernible fragrance, it blooms for a long (3 week) period towards the end of blooming of the other roses, and then leaves behind a number of small orange-red hips for winter interest.  It was introduced by famous rose-breeder Dr. Walter Van Fleet in 1902, so this rose has its centennial well behind it. 

Here in the Flint Hills, 'American Pillar' is unfailingly healthy and makes a monster of a rose.  I've read stories of it rambling around to 30 feet and smothering everything in its path, but here in Kansas new canes reach about 12-16 feet by the end of a season and I seldom grow a cane into year two. In my garden, I train the rose by spiraling it on a ten-foot tall four-by-four post and it regularly threatens to pull the post over under its bulk.  Many new canes arise annually from the base, and since those canes are said to provide the best bloom, I trim out the two-year old canes in favor of the new canes in late winter.  This annual cleaning improves air flow to the otherwise clogged center and gives me an occasion to collect and tie up the new canes which have sprawled over several 'Rugelda' roses, a "White Profusion" buddleia, two rustled cemetery roses and a number of daylilies in the near vicinity.  It makes, as you can see at the right, a stunning display in my garden to highlight the end of the first summer bloom cycle of the roses.  

'American Pillar' is a long-lived rose as well.  Plants set in the ground almost a century ago at the Pierre du Pont estate (now Longwood Gardens) are still climbing over metal arches in a courtyard.  I've grown 'American Pillar' for 9 years now in its present position and it shows no signs of weakness and never needs spraying for fungal disease. 

In the interests of full disclosure, I might not mind it if the rose would weaken, at least a little.  Those vigorous 1/2 inch thick canes are armed with exceedingly vicious thorns and I try to do the annual pruning and lashing up of 'American Pillar' on a particularly cold day so my skin doesn't feel the pricks so much and so that all the blood stops flowing and freezes quickly.  I've had bouts with this rose that leave me looking like I'm one of the victims in a slasher movie, but I wouldn't have it any other way.  Those incredibly thick blooms are simply too gorgeous to turn away from.

Organic Agnosticism

I'm going to take this opportunity to confess that while I do try to practice some organic gardening techniques, I also spend some time looking at the whole organic gardening tidal-wave with a bit of a hairy eyeball. 

I try to follow most organic techniques recommended to improve soil fertility and conditions, right up to the point where it becomes manual labor. I'm happy with deep mulching of organic sustainable materials and letting the worms move the carbon into the soil, but I don't double-dig.  If you'll observe carefully, most of the gardening "authorities" who propose that double-digging and deep soil amendment are the solutions to all evil are either a) standing next to and employing the young guy who actually does the digging work, or b) gardening in a soil that has the tilth and mass of sifted flour and where a shovel actually penetrates the soil without jumping on it repeatedly with both feet. Neither of those conditions exist in my garden. The laborer here is me and the Flint Hills soil resembles the consistency of pound-cake with imbedded boulders. I'm a big proponent of mulches to prevent weeds instead of herbicide use, whether the herbicides be synthetic or corn gluten meal. And I'm good with the important idea of selecting plants adapted for your climate and conditions, rather than trying to grow an orange grove here in Zone 5.

I believe we should decrease our use of pesticides and herbicides, but I'd push further for decreasing the use of all garden chemicals, whether natural or synthetic. We've learned over the past few decades that while DDT was perhaps not the best choice to release into the environment by the millions of tons, it's also true that so-called natural substitutes aren't always safe either, as seen with the recent EPA banning of a number of the pyrethrin derivatives. Nature, at its heart, is really nasty, folks, and there are some really nasty chemicals being produced outside your window by the most benign-looking of plants. Still, even while proclaiming that I support the decreased use of chemicals in my garden, I will use them in limited quantities and where necessary for efficiency. I don't mind spots on my apple skins (I peel them), but I don't like finding worms inside. I don't like using pesticides, but on the other hand, I don't know anyone in Kansas who can grow squash consistently without them. I'm not the guy who prefers to spend hours hand-picking bagworms off my Mugo Pine instead of 20 seconds of spraying with an approved pesticide. In truth, I'm the guy who got rid of his Mugo Pine because I didn't want to do either.

The organic gardening movement has many thoughtful and useful aspects, including the concepts of decreased use of pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers, decreased overall water usage, increased and deep mulching, and local food production and consumption.  I'm with the WEE* people on all of those and I try my best to be a good locavore.  But, you see, where I fall out from the Kool-Ade drinkers (look it up) is when reason, knowledge and logic give way to zealotry and fighting over issues of faith. Show me that increased mulching moderates soil temperatures and decreases watering needs and I'm your huckleberry.  Go off on a rant about how the wearing of sack cloth and the double-digging of beds halfway to China will decrease Global Warming and you're going to lose me within minutes.

In most instances, it's because I don't agree that "natural" necessarily means "good", any more than "modern" necessarily means "bad."  I don't really want to go back to "natural" if it means forsaking steel tools, automobiles, and computers in favor of stone tools, caves, and starvation. There's a reason that life-expectancy and personal productivity increases go hand-in-hand in developed countries and there's a reason that modern pharmaceutical's are more effective than bat-wing and newt's eye stews in treating disease.

In short, the true road to gardening Shangri-La is by applying organic methods in moderation. Zealotry without Reason is the Devil's tool.

*WEE = wild-eyed environmentalists, the natural constituency of idiot ex-Vice-Presidents who fly around in private planes, live in energy-burning mansions, and doesn't have the slightest idea of what constitutes scientific inquiry.