Fall Color in the Flint Hills

The colors of Fall here in the Flint Hills are not the bright reds, oranges and yellows characteristic of the NorthEast forests, but rather a more even russet that coats the landscape in late Autumn.  Native and invasive tree species that are common here either don't change color much before they drop their leafy coats onto the ground, or else they turn some form of brownish-yellow that just fades away.  It's just the prairie grasses, particularly the blue-stems, that provide the red to brighten the browns.  The russet color is especially pronounced on misty or rainy mornings, so it's those Fall and early Winter days that I look forward to, knowing the landscape will come alive with reds. 

We often borrow the red shades by choice, though.  Certainly, in town, the varieties of chosen trees improve the variability of fall color for the eye.  And there are sometimes some happy accidents that Man can't improve on.  In the case of the tree on the left, an otherwise unassuming Siberian Elm on my drive to work, the brilliant red is provided by a wild Virginia Creeper that is entirely invisible the rest of the year, yet it proclaims its existence in the colding months before it fades away again.

Another form of a darker wine-red that dots the prairies in some areas is the Smooth Sumac (Rhus glabra) pictured to the right above.  Smooth Sumac can be almost an invasive weed if left unchecked, or more exactly unburned, in some areas of the prairie, but in the Fall I welcome the clumps that often outline the peaks of the ridges.  Backlit by the morning sun, the leaves of Smooth Sumac glow a very bright red, and the seeds make up for the dull unnoticed spring flowers of the sumac by providing a red "drupe" of frosted berries above the plant.  Smooth sumac, a member of the cashew family, is said to be eaten by deer (although I've never seen deer nibble on it at all) and was used by Native Americans to treat sunburn, sore throats and mouths, and to make red and black dyes.  Since I haven't tried any of these uses, I can only attest to its welcome addition to the Fall colors of the Flint Hills.

All in all, I can't complain that we can't match New England for fall tourist color.  The colors of the Flint Hills are what God gave to this unforgiving soil and they are quite sufficient to propel me into winter.

GGW Photo Scanner Contest

 Time flies, and although I had prepared these photos some time ago, I thought I had a couple of days left to enter the GWG monthly photo contest, which is the formation of one of my previous blogs on Garden Scanner Photographs.  Since I think I'm now 3 hours late for the contest and hope to still get in, I think I'll just post this without much comment.  My entry is a dual photo, suitable in real size, for hanging on a wall, that I call "Impossible Flower A" and "Impossible Flower B"  Click on them and you'll see them larger, but not yet full size.  Enjoy.  And call me if you want the real files to print out and decorate your home.

Mama's Sedum

If we searched, I think most gardeners could trace the roots of their love of gardening to some family or acquaintance, or, as in my case, find their lineage back to generations of gardeners (both sets of my grandparents were farmers as were, respectively, their parents).

But many of us also have plants that we can trace to other family members.  My maternal grandmother, whom we called "Mamaw," would not really have thought of herself as a gardener, since most of the gardening she did was in the process of raising food in the vegetable garden and preserving it for use throughout the year.  She did however, out the back door of the farmhouse, have a small 8'X10' plot containing, as I recall, some portulaca, a species of yellow and pink columbines, some "hens and chicks" and a tall sedum. 

Mamaw's Sedum

Sometime after I started gardening at our first home, and before Mamaw passed on shortly after that, I got a start of the columbines and sedum from her and when we moved to our current home, I transplanted them again.  Currently, the sedums, along with some goldenrod, provide the fall flowering and foliage in a bed that is composed primarily of peonies long past their prime.  They do this year after year, without any care or extra water at all, and they suffer neither from insect pest nor fungal disease.  They're not called "live-forevers" by coincidence!  In fact, looking at the list of what Mamaw grew for enjoyment, all of them are low-maintenance, low-water survival plants that don't take time away from the more important business of putting food on the table. The columbines are the same easy care plants for me as the sedums are, popping up here and there with wild abandon in my garden, but it is the sedum I associate, for some reason, with my grandmother.      

I don't know what exact species or cultivar of sedum I inherited from my grandmother.  I thought for awhile that they were simply the ubiquitous 'Autumn Joy', but I've seen the two side by side and Mamaw's sedum is a little more pink-purple and fades to a duller brown than the currently commercial 'Autumn Joy'.  It doesn't really matter.  I very much enjoy other more modern sedum cultivars and I grow, for instance, Mohrchen and 'Vera Jameson' and 'Frosty Morn and Matrona, but some stay small and sprawl and others get big and sprawl (unless cut back severely in August or grown through supports), unlike my inherited sedum who stands tall and stays vertical without support at the end of the season.

I've lost the chance to listen more to the wisdom of my grandmother, but I can still enjoy her plants.  And maybe, just maybe, she's still teaching me that it's not flashy new appearance, but long-term staying power that is the most important criteria to keep us going in gardening and in life.