Slick Catalogues

Oh, the catalogues!  Pictured here are some of the many catalogues that arrived chez ProfessorRoush in the snail mail during the month of January.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush, I think, was quite put off in the last few weeks by the number of catalogs laying in stacks on the various end tables and nightstands around the house, judging by the number of loud sighs and sideways disapproving glances specifically designed to stimulate my actions to sort and remove them.  I am most certainly a trainable husband if the correct stimuli are used to elicit the desired Pavlovian reaction.

I must confess that the deluge of brightly colored pictures contained within all these unsolicited pages is pleasant, but they are wasted on me in this winter of my discontent.  In fact, I am always skeptical of the power of advertising to sway my purchases and this cold winter I am completely immovable.  There are some firms represented here that I feel offer stellar quality plants or seeds, and others that I view with a little less charity, but all in all, I found little this year to entice me, even as I starve for green pastures and colorful borders.  I glanced through all of them, and I'll likely come back to one or two particular catalogs that may have a few treasures, but otherwise, I'm just not in a plant buying mood this year.

I've always doubted the cost-effectiveness of unsolicited and mass-mailed catalogues, no matter the field.  The days of the Sear's catalogue dominance are long gone.  I can't fathom how much profit it took just one of these horticultural firms to produce a colorful catalog and distribute it to their hundreds of thousands of potential customers.  In this day of the Internet, however, I feel that there must be far less expensive ways to reach consumers.  Even when similar catalogues have opened my wallet in prior years, I only order a few plants from each company, probably not enough merchandise to make producing it a profitable enterprise for them.

If you are reading this, you company presidents and CEO's, my advice would be to eliminate your advertising budgets along with the slick-talking leeches that create those fleeting enticements, and place the savings towards reducing the costs of your plants.  Word of mouth in the social media will take care of the rest.  Most of your loyal customers are happy to search out your plants on the Internet, reminded by a timely special email or electronic notice, or just reminded by their own greed to purchase another 44 roses for that new bed.  We don't need reminders stuffed into our mailboxes and we don't want to max out the credit card balances for our yearly fix.  My apologies to the millions of marketing people I just recommended for unemployment and the for the further losses to the beleaguered US Postal Service, but, like lawyers, a few less "ad men" won't be missed.   And Mrs. ProfessorRoush won't have to move stacks of catalogues to dust the furniture.

Geez Genista!

Yes, I was aware that the weather has been abnormally warm in Kansas this season.  I know that the Bluebirds have stayed put this winter rather than heading south for a month or two.  A Kansas duck hunter told me that this season is the best hunting season he's ever known because the geese are staying farther north this year.  I, myself, was about ready to start pruning roses yesterday (something I've never done in January before since I value the mobility and integrity of my fingers). 

Even knowing all that, I was still surprised when yesterday, on January 29th, I discovered the flower pictured at the right above, giving me this solitary bloom on January 29th in an east-exposed bed next to the house. This is a Genista lydia, a shrub I planted some years back and then promptly forgot whatever was the actual cultivar name.  I planted it originally due to some plant propaganda leaflet dropped upon me that raved about how drought and deer resistant the Balkan native was.  In fact, I've found it so invasive here since I planted it that I've been trying to grub it out for the past 2 years.  Part of the Fabacaea family, it is a low-growing deciduous shrub classified by some as a groundcover and by others as a pernicious pest.  The pea-like bright yellow flowers bloom only a short time, but they bloom thickly, covering the plant. 

I knew that Genista is one of the earliest in my landscape to bloom, but this time it has outdone itself for horticultural confusion.  Blooming on January 29th?  The earliest I've previously noted Genista to begin blooming was March 5th (in 2005).  Based on that timeline, I should expect to see forsythia blooming within the next week and daffodils by mid-February.  This goes far beyond the USDA's announcement last week, that my garden has moved an entire climate zone south, from Zone 5B to Zone 6A.  I must have slept through the move because I don't remember potting things up and replanting.

On one hand, I hate it when WEE's (Wild-Eyed Environmentalists) get any evidence in their favor.  I haven't been a big believer in the idea that Man, however stupid we are, can destroy the Earth, but I am starting to waver in my conviction.  We may be setting record temperatures today, January 30th, when it is supposed to reach a balmy 70F in Topeka, but I always try to keep in mind that the previous record on January 30th was set in 1974, a time when I recall that scientists were predicting industrialization would result in a new Ice Age. If the experts can change their minds, why can't I? 

On the other hand, why fight it?  At this rate, a couple of more decades of global warming and I'll be in Zone 7 and can grow real antique Tea Roses in my garden.  Wouldn't that be something?

Heart's Safe

First October, red and gold,  
Spread through forest, cross the fields,
The Garden long past summer's heat.
Squash rich and heavy, corn hangs low,
The frost moves in and seedlings shiver,
The Gardener sounds a swift retreat.

November leads to bitter cold,
Barren soil and harvest done,
The Garden runs to fortress strong.
Hiding from approach of Winter,
The sunlight dim and hours waning,
The Gardener mourns as days grow long.

Then December's shortest days,
Night grows long and silence deep,
The Garden bides its time secure.
Tall grasses dance in frigid wind,
The Solstice comes and starts the siege,
The Gardener braces to endure.



Blizzards howl and Janus reigns,
His icy hands a death force hard,
The Garden lingers brown and dormant.
Dead some would say, its bones exposed,
The green of life stripped from the bare stems,
The Gardener wails of sunless torment.

Yet deep within the seedman's chest,
Secluded well from Hornung's lash.,
The Garden lives and safely grows.
On through Winter, on to Spring,
The beds are turned, the planting planned,
The Gardener stirs and finally knows.

That March will come again in glory,
Blooms will burst with April's rain.
The Garden lives inside, apart,
From Winter's cold and stony grasp,
Within a fortress warm and verdant,
The Gardener safes it in his heart.
The Gardener holds it in his heart.