Eden Photographed

Gardening Gone Wild's "Picture This Photo Contest" for February 2011 has had me in a tizzy now for a couple of weeks, tossing and turning in my sleep, and flipping and flopping like a landed fish over my choice for entry.  The photo contest theme (each month has a theme) is to take or choose a photo that captures your favorite place in a manner to display its "Genius Loci," the special atmosphere of that place.  In the words of guest Judge Andrea Jones she wants "your personal interpretation of one of your favourite outdoor spaces. Your special place photographed in such as way to show what you love most about it.  Please keep the view wide as possible to encompass of a view as you can but capture that spirit – that’s what matters." 

  

 Although I'm fairly new to both garden blogging and garden photography, I've already amassed a number of pictures of the Flint Hills landscape around me.  The dilemma for me is which of my stored photos best represents the feeling that this land stirs in me?  Kansas presents so many faces to experience that I hardly know where to start. Is the best choice a photo of a typical golden Kansas sunrise as viewed on the right?  

Or should I choose a photo of the summer thunderstorms coming from the North (as at left), the clouds so low that they touch the land? 

Do I choose to highlight the characteristic agricultural activities of the Flint Hills?  Would viewers be interested in the streams of fire rolling down the prairie hillsides in the annual burns?

Or would the August moon over the late harvest of summer grass be more captivating and inspirational?

Perhaps the sunrise creating a cheerful morning mood over my garden to the Southeast of the house?

Or will the frosts of winter highlight the Southern view of my garden towards the town serve to grab the attention of those who have never experienced the beauty of Kansas? 

After long consideration, I still believe that all of these photos, all taken essentially from the walls of my house, represent well this special place on the Earth. Perhaps the choice of "the best" depends on the mood of the viewer at a particular moment. But in the end, the view that I have chosen to exhibit the innate spirit of the Flint Hills is the same picture that has been the background of my computer desktop all winter.  That image, below, taken late in the day in early Winter before the start of the December snow, starts at my front lawn and looks North towards the horizon. The gravel road visible in the picture winds around the rolling grassland and hints towards the promise of travel, of life beyond this barren prairie, this Great American Desert.  The rust and beige hills sit in somber silence, and the gray winter sky is not yet allowing the promise of Spring.  Except, of course, in my heart, where I know that these weathered hills will pass through frost and fire and emerge again emerald green in the Summer that will surely come again.

Faith in a Seed (Packet)

As the winter moves on, I've amassed a respectable collection of seed packets from a number of different sources, all designated for enhancement of my summer garden.  And it occurred to me today that if you are a searcher for faith, whether that search be for God or for strength to prop up your waning conviction that spring will come again,  a seed packet is a most marvelous place to start.  The writer of Matthew 17:20 was not far off the mark when he wrote "if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move."   In like fashion, every gardener knows that within a single seed is hidden all the promises of Eden.  If you haven't yet read it, Thoreau's last manuscript, published as "Faith in a Seed," is a good starting place for hungry winter gardeners to ease their worries.

The entire concept of next summer's garden is a leap of faith when viewed from the winter-sterilized Flint Hills.  Outside, if the biting cold air is still, nothing moves or breaks the silence.  The rusty tones of Little Bluestem break the tan monotony of buffalograss and switchgrass, but not a single bird or animal ventures about.  You can find an occasional hawk, motionless on a telephone line or tree, watching in vain for the furtive movement of field mice, but it will be diet by starvation in the frigid air tonight.  And when the wind blows it comes suddenly and briskly, shrieking past the houses and over the prairie, relentlessly pushing aside leaf and stem and feather and piling the dry snow into mountains.

But there, in my seed packets, safe in the artificial heat of home, lies the promise of my summer dreams.  Small bundles of DNA and starch, cotyledon and seed coat, they await only the touch of warmth and water to initiate the future.  All shapes and sizes, without the packages, I have no hope of telling dill from poppy, lima bean from field bean.  But somewhere inside, Rudbeckia hirta 'Cherry Brandy' awaits.  Will it sprout and survive the inevitable late and unexpected frost?  Will the color match the package and match the surrounding plants where it is placed once it begins to bloom?  Will the blue corn grow tall or be bent low by a June storm?  Will the dill and fennel draw in beneficial insects, as angels to protect my garden against the hordes of chitinous Huns that threaten to steal the summer bounty?

My thrust and plans for garden changes this summer are threefold.  Encouraged by wild-eyed organic converts whispering into my ears, I am collecting dill and fennel, daisy and parsley, to provide sustenance and homes for monstrous predators that I hope to enlist on my side of the battle for garden supremacy.  I have also been searching far and wide for cosmos and poppies and helianthus and daisies to brighten up an area designed as a wildflower meadow and attract the flittering beauty of butterflies for me to contemplate as summer nears its end.  And I'm carefully choosing varieties of edible garden plants, some heirloom and some the newest hybrids, to allow the garden to pay back my labor in sugars and starches and flavors. I am placing my faith in the seeds, enlisting their support to transform my garden once again, as summer rolls towards me.

Harison's Yellow

If I were to choose a rose that I believe exemplifies the spirit of the prairie, it would be the drought-tolerant, thorny, scraggly mass that is 'Harison's Yellow'.  Harison's Yellow, an early season bloomer, always serves to remind me that the brightest days of Spring and Summer are yet to come.

This has long been one of my favorite roses but I'm convinced that my fondness for it is entirely due to the cheery bright yellow color in the early Spring.  Ever the optimist, I tend to gravitate towards interaction with, and enjoyment of, plants and people that will keep my day on a cheerful note, whether it is watching the perky Robin Meade on the Morning Express of Headline News ("Good Morning, Sunshine!") or picking the next perennial to go into my garden.  As a consequence, I shy away from the trendy "black" and chocolate flowers that the designers rave about and instead I choose bright colors.  My garden tends to be on the flamboyant side at times, at least among the roses.  Harison's Yellow is just such a cheery yellow that I can't help but feel lighter at the sight of it.

Of course, Harison's Yellow (R. spinosissima X R. foetida 'Harison's Yellow') has other positive attributes that make it one of the few roses I grow in multiples.  The dark green foliage provides a great contrast to the vibrant semidouble yellow blooms, and I believe the small leaflets, delicate in appearance, give this rose a bit more drought-tolerance than the average Rosa.  It is also, unusual for a yellow rose, highly resistant to fungal disease and I never spray this rose for blackspot or insects.  Don't get me wrong, it does get blacksport, but it rarely proceeds to affect the plant significantly.  And hardy?  Harison's Yellow is stone-cold temperature-hardy into Canada.  This is a rose that laughs at the worst of my Zone 5 winters and shrugs off late freezes and frosts.  It grows about 6 feet tall in my climate, and, due to it's suckering habit, can be as wide as I let it range.  It is a once-bloomer, but that is not something I count among the deficiencies of this rose, for its beauty is all the more cherished by me for its fleeting nature.

All great beauties have their drawbacks though and Harison's Yellow is no exception.  This is an exceptionally thorny rose;  not with great gouging thorns like 'Chrysler Imperial', but with more delicate, sharper and more numerous thorns that pierce you every which way from Sunday.  It has tall gangly canes that have a delightful brown tone, but tend to sprawl in a mass.  It also suckers and spreads like there is no tomorrow on the prairie.  This is a rose to use as a barrier for human marauders or livestock, reportedly one of its original uses on the prairie. A final regret, however, is the musky scent carried in the blossom. Harison's Yellow has a history clouded by various myths of origin, but undoubtedly this rose is a cross from Rosa foetida 'Persian Yellow', because it carries the bright color and rotten scent of the latter parent in every bloom.  From several feet away, I tend to like the aroma surrounding Harison's Yellow, but not when my nose is buried in an individual bloom. 

Part of the allure of Old Garden Roses as a group is the history surrounding the roses, and there are many stories surrounding Harison's Yellow.  Its introduction ranges anywhere from 1824 through 1842 in various sources, but all seem to relate its origin point as being in New York during that period.  The most common story, unverified and under debate, is that it first bloomed in the garden of attorney George F. Harison on 32nd Street and 8th Avenue and was introduced by nurseryman William Price in 1830.  It is also known as the Oregon Trail Rose and the Yellow Rose of Texas and seems to have followed the pioneers across the United States, leaving pieces of itself at every homestead. I always hold a picture in my mind of a heart-worn pioneer woman bringing Harison's Yellow along in the wagon as a reminder of home.  Rosarians should keep in mind though, that the famous song "The Yellow Rose of Texas" refers to Emily D. West (aka Emily Morgan), a woman who reportedly aided the Texans during the Battle of San Jacinta with her ability to keep Santa Anna preoccupied in her boudoir.  Lovely flowers, it seems, come in all forms and were helpful to the struggling American pioneers in many different ways.