Who Digs There?

I had an unexpected and unpleasant surprise last weekend in my garden.  All over several beds, some devious night-walking creature had excavated holes; here, there, and everywhere.  Not deep holes, most around 6 inches deep, and all had the appearance that a frantic, clawing Tasmanian Devil had occasioned across my garden.  I say this despite never having seen a Tasmanian Devil except in the Bugs Bunny cartoons I was allowed to watch in my youth.  I wouldn't even know that a Tasmanian Devil existed but for the Warner Bros. cartoon character, but that puts me one up on all of the younger gardeners reading this who have been deprived of even that knowledge.  Isn't it a shame that our modern enlightened society now views Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner as violent cinema and indicative of poor parenting?  

In Kansas, of course, a Tasmanian Devil would be quite unlikely due to geography, and I have no idea about their actual digging habits beyond what Wikipedia tells me.   I have, however, no real evidence as to the culprit since no prints or scat or fur remnants exist to provide clues of identity.  I suspected first that Mrs. ProfessorRoush had allowed our Brittany Spaniel to run unsupervised, or perhaps we'd had a visit from our daughter's Italian Greyhound or the neighbor's Labrador, but quick blanket denials were issued by all suspected parties.

As regular readers know, I edge my mature beds with limestone to protect the mulch and contents against the occasional prairie fire.  The vast majority of the holes were next to the limestone edging rather than in the center of the beds.  Knowing that there are a number of voles and newts that like to hang out under the limestone edgers, my logical conclusion is that whatever sentient organism dug these holes and threw loose dirt all over the mulch and adjacent plants was after food in the form of those small garden delicacies.  I suppose it is also possible, since about 10% of the holes were in the middle of the beds (some were close to damaging young roses!), that the culprits were after the fat white grubs that inhabit every spadeful of my soil.  With this chain of logical reasoning, I hypothesize a nocturnal coyote as the most likely villain, with perhaps badger or anteater as other geographically possible criminals.  For now, my only chance at identification is if the culprit returns and provides me a footprint or poses for my game camera .  Maybe it has already since I never identified the animal in  the second picture I posted earlier.

I feel somewhat chagrined, however, that barring an escape from the Sunset Zoo in Manhattan, a Tasmanian Devil is quite unlikely in my garden.  A resident Tasmanian Devil would be a cool addition to my garden and the carnivorous nature of the creature might help me prevent rabbit and rodent damage.  On the other hand, reading that the Tasmanian Devil has the strongest bite per body mass of any predator, and that it can take a back leg off sheep in a single bite, I might eventually regret having the creature around.  A badger might even be a better, if not exactly safer, choice.

Dampened Desire

In the middle of the heat and drought this summer, ProfessorRoush had an epiphany!  Surveying my dry and disappointing garden during the first week of August, a time when even daylilies were failing me, I realized that I was deeply in lust with the defiant Orientpet and Asiatic lilies.  When everything else was turning to dust, those intrepid bulbs were putting out green foliage and colorful blooms;  strikingly cheerful flowers, if somewhat smaller than usual.  It was the perfect collision of opportunity and need.  I needed more, wanted more, just had to have, more lilies.

So I quickly did what every color-hungry lily-deficient gardener would do.  I sprinted to the computer, credit card in hand, and ordered lily after lily, bulb after bulb, until my bank account was screaming under the strain.  Restraint didn't matter, my lily insanity had no bounds.  I was mentally eyeing the bare spaces in my landscape and visualizing a few gorgeous and gigantic lilies in every spot, each aspiring to stand tall next year among the roses, grasses, and viburnums.  I intended to shoehorn lilies into every spare inch between roses.  I was planning a lily blitzkrieg of my garden.

Now, of course, in October, my lily craze has come home to roost.  Long forgotten, the lily bulbs made a sudden appearance on my front porch this past Wednesday, just two days prior to a predicted bout of colder weather and rain.  Work and the ever shorter Fall days, of course, immediately conspired to keep me from planting the bulbs before the rains set in.  Today, Saturday, I stare out at a sodden landscape, a brief foray into the garden rebuffed by mud and wind.  To be truthful, of course, I have absolutely no desire now, when the roses are again in bloom and the garden is green, to go about planting several hundred assorted bulbs, most of them lilies that require deeper holes than other bulbs.  Oh yes, I couldn't buy a few bulbs here and there, I had to buy the Asiatic naturalizing mix with its hundred bulbs and the Orientpet mixture, and I threw in a few hundred Crocus chrysanthus for good measure and I thought that a few 'Mount Everest' allium's would be a nice surprise for myself next spring.  Needless to say, the thought of excavating several hundred holes in my rocky landscape make my arms and insoles ache already.

From the somber experience of previous overzealous binges however, deep down I know that starting the task is hard part, and forcing myself into the garden tomorrow will get me underway and the digging day will pass quickly if not painlessly, after that.  Once the deed is done, I can lay up for awhile with aspirin and hand lotion, ready for a winter's rest and knowing that drought or not, next year's garden will be scented and colorful in the face of searing summer.  Because I'll have lilies while the prairie burns.

Maria Stern Mopes

Among the roses I grow is one of those beautiful and elegant roses that also somehow remind you of a slow-motion nightmare.  You know what I mean; you're having a beautiful dream and then suddenly it all turns bad, in slow-motion you see the car crash or the long fall coming and you try to stop it but you just can't?  Well, that's how I feel about 'Maria Stern'.

'Maria Stern' is an orange blend Hybrid Tea bred by the Brownell family in 1969.  The blooms are admittedly, fantastically-colored, double, and non-fading, but typical of many of the '60's Hybrid Teas, that's about all I can find to recommend her.  She is one of the "Sub-Zero Roses" of the Brownell clan, bred to survive tough winters, but I'd give her a "D+" for vigor.  The bush under the strongly fragrant flowers is nothing special to see.  My 'Maria Stern' is a little over a year old and stands about 2 feet tall, with only two decent canes.  Several other roses planted at the same time, most of them Griffith Buck roses, are a foot taller and much broader and healthier.  'Maria Stern' has moderate blackspot resistance but by this time of the year, her legs are starkly bare and her hair is thinning as well.  A cross of 'Tip Toes' (another Sub-Zero rose) and 'Queen Elizabeth', she certainly isn't living up to her pedigree.  'Maria Stern' is supposed to grow to 4 feet tall and be hardy to Zone 4B.  The only recommendation I can find for it is that it was the Twin Cities Rose Club's Rose of the Month in March, 2010.

I absolutely love the color of this rose, I really do, but, alas, I feel that she is trying her best to slip away into the dark abyss on me.  This is my second 'Maria Stern'.  The first loss I attributed to being a decrepit bagged and budded rose, but this time she's on her own roots and still isn't thriving.  I planted her last year, almost lost her again right away,  protected her against all ill weather, and pampered the heck of of her this year, but no matter how many chocolates and wine coolers I bring her, she just sulks.  Maybe next year, if she makes it through winter, she'll finally find her way to shine.

Spider 1, Mrs. ProfessorRoush 0

For those who were rooting for the spider outside Mrs. ProfessorRoush's kitchen window, I thought I'd take this occasion to ease your fears.  Several hints and eventual outright demands last week for spidercidal action by the gardener of this marital unit went unheeded as I feigned deafness.  As a side note to other non-gardening spouses, be advised that there are times when accusing your spouse of being "increasingly hard of hearing" can backfire on you.  I fully agree with Mrs. ProfessorRoush, in fact, that I find it ever more difficult to hear suggestions for chores that I have no desire to accomplish. 

Outside looking in

After a few days of procrastination by her noncompliant and reticent husband, Mrs. ProfessorRoush took broom in hand and wiped the offending speck from the outside of her window in a merciless surprise attack.  I mourned the poor little guy briefly, but then went about readying the rest of the garden for Fall.  Just two days later, however, there it was one morning, the web restored to its former architectural disarray, and the spider back, calmly sitting in the middle of my spouse's long-distance view.  As an old and wise gardener would be advised to do, I carefully concealed my pleasure and quickly set about to ensconce the household brooms.

The view from the inside

You've got to give this spider some props for both persistence and pure gall.  When a wild-eyed, flailing monster wipes out your home and food supply in a fit of irrational fear, not all of us would have the will to rebuild, let alone right back in the face of the enemy. I've also got to give him some credit for his choice of venue.  His web design is haphazard, but that kitchen window web is protected from North and West winds, shaded from the hot sun, takes advantage of radiated heat from the brick behind it, and it sits right over the barbecue grill, a prime source for luring food to the web.  Talk about prime real estate!

I will attempt to remain, like Switzerland, a neutral and aloof observer, bemused at the struggle of life and death taking place in my very home, but I sense that I will yet be drawn into the conflict on the side of the aggressor.  A gardener is ever reminded what side his bread is buttered on and we have a particularly uncomfortable spare bed upstairs.  Although I still fear for this individual spider, I fear not for the future of his race however, because I know that somewhere out in the garden, others, who have chosen safer and prettier homes for the time being, are biding their time and making plans for window domination.