Beds in the Sun III

To finish off my saga of the backyard bed layout requested by GaiaGardener, I'm moving to another picture, a continuation of the previous beds showing the beds laying to the south-west corner of that area.  The previous posts on this subject were Beds in the Sun and Beds in the Sun II.

I've already mentioned the bed labeled "J", my "Barden Bed" which is a group of 12 roses, mostly Paul Barden creations obtained commercially from Rogue Valley roses.  I've added a number of new daylily starts to the outside of this bed, hopefully to bloom after these once-blooming gallica and alba creations are long done.

Bed K is a long border, my "Viburnum Bed" the third oldest in the garden, composed mostly of mixed shrub roses and about 8 viburnums in full sun.  People always seem surprised to see the viburnums growing in full sun here, but they are troublefree in this location. It is anchored on the East (left) side by an 'Arnold's Red' Bush Honeysuckle, and on the West (right) side by a 'Golden Spirit' smoketree, the latter now 5 years old and about 7 feet tall.  Several Old Garden Roses are placed here, including 'Celestial', 'Duchess de Montebello', 'Charles de Mills', and 'Rosa Mundi.'  There are also a few assorted other roses, including the rugosa 'Sir Thomas Lipton', 'Dornroschen', and Buck roses 'Carefree Beauty', 'Griff's Red', 'Freckles', and 'April Moon'.  A couple of nice grasses, Panicum 'Northwind', and Miscanthus sinensis 'purpurascens', along with a Sumac 'Tiger Eyes', provide some late Fall color along with the viburnums.

Bed L is my most formal bed, composed of nothing but Buck roses, English roses, Modern Shrub roses, and a very few Floribundas and Hybrid Teas.  If it's a modern hybrid-tea-like rose, it is likely in this bed, surrounding a concrete bench.  There are a few OGR's here as well, 'Leda',  'Variegata di Bologna', and 'Henri Martin' as well.  There are, at last count 58 living roses in this bed.

Bed M is a long bed laying among the three taller beds and it is the oldest of what were my mixed iris and daylily beds.  Here again, the iris keep fading out, overwhelmed by the daylilies, and so I'm converting the bed to daylilies only.  I mow this one off every fall as mentioned in previous posts.

The last of these beds, Bed N, is my "Rose Berm" and it is the oldest bed in this part of the garden.  It was created 10 years ago by a gift from my mother of two truckloads of topsoil spread in a long hump, so it is mostly a raised berm about 2 feet higher than the surrounding prairie.  Along with the topsoil, I got lots of bindweed seed that I have to continually watch for even a decade later.  This bed is anchored by a 'Purple Fringe' smokebush at one end and a 'Blue Bird' Hibicus syriacus at the other, but otherwise there are about 30 roses in the bed, ranging from several Canadian Roses such as 'Alexander MacKensie' and 'Morden Ruby', to Old Garden Roses such as Bourbon 'Louise Odier' and Damask 'Madame Hardy', and even a couple of (gasp) Knockout's; 'Double Red', and 'Double Pink'. My Rosa eglanteria is here, as well as one of my two 'Austrian Copper' bushes, and a 'Harison's Yellow'.

So that's it, my main garden.  I'm going to wait awhile and talk about other things, but eventually I'll give you an overall glimpse of my front, back, and side landscaping beds.   Hope this helps place things I've mentioned in this blog!

GGW September Photo contest

Like others who took on the challenge of Gardening Gone Wild's September Picture This Photo contest, I had a hard time choosing between entries.  The guest judge, Christa Nue, picked a very open subject, "Late Summer Garden," and then made it harder by providing examples ranging from closeups to colorful garden beds, to wild vistas.  Late Summer and Fall subjects are apt to be more difficult in the Flint Hills, a landscape which is often at its best in Fall as the late cool rains turn the grasses and hillsides red in contrast to the late sunflowers and goldenrod that rise amongst them.

As an example, I briefly considered this more natural vista of wild goldenrod on the prairie.  I got lucky with an early morning mist for this picture, taken across my neighbor's pasture.  This golden, unplanned field is composed of a mix of native goldenrod species, including Downy Goldenrod (Solidago petiolaris), Rigid Goldenrod (Solidago rigida), and the ubiquitous Missouri Goldenrod (Solidago missouriensis). 

When I think of a Fall garden, I often think of rose hips, so a recent picture of Rosa eglanteria hips appealed to me on a closeup level. Orange skin and wicked curved barbs, rose hips hold the essence of the fading sunlight.

 And for a pure late summer flower show, nothing rivals Hydrangea paniculata in the Flint Hills.  This cultivar is 'Limelight', no less interesting in late summer for the browning, drying petals, their demise hastened by the drought which still lingers.  Seeing this, I remember why they're popular subjects for dried flower arrangements.

 

Roush GGW September Entry 'Goodbye Summer Harvest'

But, I finally settled on entering the picture at left  into the contest; an overripe, overgrown, group of forgotten cucumbers on a fence.  I know that the overall subject is a little unusual, but the title of "Late Summer Garden" suggested more of a vegetable garden feel to me.  And in the end, I couldn't resist the papery, detailed texture of the dried leaves and prickly stems of these cucumbers.  Make sure you look beyond the overall "orangeness" of the composition and click on the picture to see the full size version to appreciate the detail.  To me, this picture screams, "Summer Is Over!"  

(Rats, it's been automatically compressed because it is so large....really, the leaves look great in full size!)

Perky Betty Boop

One of the delights of the gardening act is that occasional moment when, despite all the careful planning of the gardener, despite the research about and the search for special plants, despite the careful site selection, and the arduous care afforded many plants,  the gardener finds a miraculous unplanned beauty, a serendipitous excitement, that was still unplanned for.  Sometimes, I wonder if the very plants are conspiring against our plans, growing bountiful and beautiful not "despite" the gardener, but to spite the gardener who believes the beauty is all due to him.

Rosa 'Betty Boop' is one of those plants that I never expected to really love, nor that she would return my love.  I bought her on a whim as a bagged $3.00 specimen several years ago, merely because a gardening friend loves the rose.  I was never really attracted to the rose by the published pictures I've seen but somehow I still felt that I should give her a chance in my garden.  And I never expected much from her.  Many floribundas struggle in my Zone 5b garden, surviving, freezing back to the ground every year, but, once on their own roots, at least providing me with an occasional bloom that keeps me from spade-pruning them.  That's all I really expected for 'Betty Boop'.

But, for reasons I can't explain, I dumped this cheap, grafted rose in the front of my house, a place of pride next to the edge of the walk, stacking the odds against her by placing her at the edge of the bed where it would be coldest in the winter and driest in the summer.  And she has defied me by growing stronger and more beautiful every year.

What gardener cannot love the delicate mix of yellow, pink and white displayed by the newly opened flowers of 'Betty Boop'? The open, welcoming cheerful faces presented to the sun? The yellow pistil and stamens, private parts of the flower on full display for dashing bee drones with their minds on food and sex?  Yes, the yellow fades as the blossoms age, and the pink becomes slightly less vivacious, but she still welcomes all who would admire her.  I've been stunned by my growing appreciation for this rose and I'm grateful that she chose to surprise my expectations right there, at the beginning of my front walk. Even in Fall she shines, placed accidentally next to Sedum 'Purple Emperor', welcoming my visitors with a contrast of deep purple and bright pink and white.

'Betty Boop' was a 1998 introduction by Carruth, so she is a relatively new floribunda to the trade compared to some of the old classics. Her semi-double form matches the delicate nature of her shading to perfection. I'm told she has a strong scent and I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't even tried to inhale her blossoms although I've grown her now 5 years. She grows about two and a half feet tall in Kansas by the end of the season, and despite my lack of winter protection in Zone 5B, she usually doesn't freeze entirely to the ground but retains about a foot of thick canes to start her off strong every year.

For the record, I'm not old enough to have viewed this roses' namesake Betty Boop cartoons, but for the younger gardeners in the audience, Betty Boop is arguably the most famous sex symbol of animation, a symbol of the Depression, and a caricature of the carefree Jazz Age flappers.  I actually don't think I've ever seen one of the original cartoons, created in the 1930's, but I've always known Betty Boop was a sex symbol instinctively, right down to my XY chromosomes.  If nowhere else, you've seen her painted on the nose of many a pictured WWII fighter plane or bomber, a reminder of home and love to the young pilots of that era.  And the rose 'Betty Boop' captures that image perfectly, reminding a young-at-heart gardener that beauty and perkiness is a good thing for the garden as well.