Terrific Teasers

'Dolly's Forever Rose'

I know that some of my readers follow Garden Musings because you enjoy following my foibles with Mrs. ProfessorRoush, others because you like the dry humor or the rambling rants, some that want to commiserate with my tribulations in my Kansas garden, and still more of you just because you never know what I'm going to touch on next.  But then too, some few are the rabid rosarians, the true believers, waiting to see what I'm growing out here in the Kansas hell-land.

It is to the latter group that I'm dedicating this posting.  Several new little pretties have responded to the cooler September temperatures and I thought I would throw out a few little teasers in advance of future rose posts.  I'll let all these little guys get bigger, probably into late next season, before I show you their full glory, but I'm so excited that I just can't keep them secret.

'Dolly's Forever'

One dynamite little beauty with an eye-popping color combination is the Paul Barden-bred 'Dolly's Forever Rose' (upper right).  I've been growing her since early this past Spring and she has randomly bloomed throughout the worst of Summer, now finally a foot tall and blooming her skirts off.  I've become attached to checking on this little stunner and I'm a little worried about her hardiness, so I'm going to cover her up good when the cold weather comes. This little offspring of 'Scarlet Moss' and a complex seedling including 'Angel Face' is definitely going to bring some fire into her bed if she makes it to next summer..

'Vanguard'

'Vanguard' is another rose that has bloomed several times this season and is now stretching for the sky.  At 4 months old, this little Rugosa cross has already topped 2 feet and she has a strong fragrance to draw you down to the ground with her.  The pinkish-orangish-bluish blossoms should add a few more petals as she grows, and her flowers are more delicate than most Rugosa's, but she's certainly proved herself tough enough for a spot in my garden.  One oddity;  she's supposed to be a once-bloomer according to helpmefind.com but Rogue Valley Roses lists her as a reblooming rose and certainly, my 'Vanguard' has been freely spreading her beauty over the entire season.

'Dragon's Blood'



Another Barden rose that I'm tickled to grow is 'Dragon's Blood'.  This russet floribunda has small individual blooms, but the orange-red-rust color is eye-catching.  Freely-blooming and covered in healthy foliage, I placed 'Dragon's Blood' in a prime place for visitors.  At a prominent corner, they can watch the dusty hues (see the photo below) of each petal as they age and darken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Dragon's Blood'

 

 

 

 

 

Well, there you have them;  a few glimpses of next year's tantalizing offerings.  Are you teased enough yet to stay tuned?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arachnophobic Angst

On general principles, I'm a "leave-me-alone-and-I'll-leave-you-alone" kind of gardener (except, of course, when it comes to snakes).  Spiders, insects, newts, and crawly things of all kind get a pass in my garden until they cause me bodily harm or inflict horticultural havoc on my plants.  I haven't, as I recall, used a single dose of insecticide, organic or otherwise, in my perennial garden all year (although I'm not quite so innocent when it comes to my vegetable garden).  You can see the evidence for my benevolence frequently in this blog, since many rose photos hide an insect or two visible only for their protruding legs or antennae. 

But truth be told, the situation is different when it comes to the domestic side of the household.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush and her diminutive clone have an irrational fear and hatred of spiders in and around the house.  I've been summoned from as far as a mile away by screams emanating from trapped female humans in showers, laundries, and basements.  Sometimes, I can't even hear them but I see the dog startle at the hypersonic pitch.  Consequently, as free as my outer garden perimeter is from insecticides, inside my house there exists a toxic chemical wasteland of armageddic proportions.  If it scuttles, it gets sprayed.  If it hides in corners or along baseboards or in the ceiling, it gets sprayed.  Sometimes I think the spraying commences at the merest extrasensory wisp of a chitinous thought of invasion.  I'm expecting the EPA to declare my house a SuperFund site at their first examination.

I naively thought, with the development of long-acting insecticides promising "year-long" residual activity, that at least my own fears of neurologic side-effects might be alleviated, but alas, after spraying only a couple of months ago, I was recently informed that the spiders have returned.  Not in live form, mind you, but as crinkled skeletal remains. Evidently, dried carcasses with eight appendages are viewed as evidence of a marauding population and mass genocide is immediately implemented.  My feeble attempts to point out that dead spiders are an indication that the toxins are working are for naught.  The Huns are at the Wall.

That's why I feel sorry for the little fellow pictured on this page.  I'm no entomologist (or is it an arachnologist?) so I can't identify this individual other than lumping him as a "house spider who spins webs," but I doubt he intends any mischief other than catching a few random flies above the barbecue.  Unfortunately for him, he chose to set up shop, as you can see at the right above, in the window above our kitchen sink, where Mrs. ProfessorRoush has to stare at him daily as she tries to appreciate the view of the valley towards town.   If he'd asked me, I could have told him that such "in-your-face" politics were not a wise move when there's a madwoman nearby with her finger on the nuclear trigger.  This guy's days are numbered and I'm sure he's going to disappear soon to rest next to Jimmy Hoffa, with only me to mourn him between my bouts of spastic twitches.

Resilience of Life

A month from the cruelty of summer's scorch, a mere six days after the fall equinox, a small rain or two behind us, a cool night or three to lift our spirits, and life begins again in the garden.  Even while I'm attempting emergency resuscitation of my buffalograss, other floral tough guys are showing their resilience; blooming literally, as it were, amidst the devastation of my stressed landscape.

I know that this photo of a 'Charlotte Brownell' bloom was careless, taken with my cell phone instead of a decent camera, hand-held and under artificial light instead of carefully composed, but it is nonetheless representative of hope for my garden's future.  I quickly plucked the discovered bloom from its thorny cradle and sprinted straight for its presentation to Mrs. ProfessorRoush, an old man made young by rebirth and seeking the approval of love again.

I've never experienced a more perfect bloom of 'Charlotte Brownell', each petal smooth and unblemished by insect or sun, kissed with the mild rain that fell yesterday afternoon.  She has struggled in my garden, this offspring of 'Peace', and in the summer heat she shriveled, opening too fast and fading to white before her true beauty could be appreciated.  Only now, can I see her promise.  A year's growth behind her, now in Fall, she moves from awkward childhood into puberty in the blink of an eye, the temperate weather bringing blush to her cheeks and a healthy glow to her center.

And I am reminded how a garden, once verdant, can be so again, reinvigorated by the passage of seasons; ever green, ever growing, and forever hopeful. 

A Summer Carol

Twas the end times of summer and all through the beds,
Was a sighing of hope that the Dog Days had fled.

The garden was weeded and mulch was all down,
The rains filled the potholes and   joy did abound.

Baby roses were nestled all snug and secured,
In milk jugs aplenty, their safety assured.

Mrs. ProfessorRoush in her afghan, and I with my shovel, preparing for winter to come to our hovel.

Well, I guess the poetry just falls apart at the mere mention of Mrs. ProfessorRoush. 

What you are glimpsing in the picture to the right is the start of a new bed, with some baby Griffth Buck roses spaced out and covered by my usual milk-jug protectors.  This is how I plant all rose bands these days, hard-won knowledge bought at the feet of many, many dead little roses.  The milk jugs are my catchall protection equipment, providing increased humidity and some shade to the roses through the still-hot and sunny days here, and then later, as Fall wears on, giving them some protection from the cold nights and winds.  I'll gradually cut these down a bit as the roses acclimate to provide them some extra sun and air movement, but I keep a tall collar in place to discourage rabbits and rodents from chewing these greenlings down to their base.  As the temperatures approach freezing at night, I'll substitute glass cloches for the milk jugs to give them some extra protection against the worst of Winter. 

I prefer Fall for planting these days, giving the plants time to develop good roots before Winter.  The quick Kansas Springs give way too soon to Summer's heat, leaving spring-planted shrubs gasping for moisture and support.  Planted here are Quietness, Queen Bee, Chorale, Gentle Persuasion, Prairie Clogger, Prairie Lass, September Song, Silver Shadows, Summer Wind, Paloma Blanca, Survivor, and, as usual for me, an unknown band.  The unknown band is from my trial of a new rooting method this summer.  I immediately forgot what variety I took the cuttings from and, of course, it rooted handily.  Hopefully I can identify it in a few years when it reaches mature bloom.  Or not.

Three-Season Alliums?

Are you kidding me? 

This morning's edition of our local paper reprinted an article that caught my attention big time. Caught my attention and made my eyes bug out.  From the Daily Press as written by a Ms. Kathy Van Mulleskom, it was titled Alliums Provide Color For Three Seasons.

Really? Are you kidding me?  I don't know what planetary eden Ms. Mulleskom comes from, but the first two lines of the article stated that (I'm paraphrasing here), "Planting alliums is one way to realize the dream of a garden that's colorful spring through fall."

Now, truth be told, I like alliums in a spring-bulb sort of way.  They're colorful, they're healthy with little care, some varieties are very large and very tall, and they draw butterflies to them like they were made of pure sugar.  My 'Globemaster' alliums, pictured here, draw all the attention in my garden at their peak and Mrs. ProfessorRoush never fails to comment when they're blooming. 

But alliums are, without doubt, a one season plant for Kansas.  Ms. Mulleskom does correctly note that by selecting among the varieties, the bloom season can be extended to six to eight weeks.  She also cheerfully points out that the height of some varieties can be an architectural feature.  But we differ on the value of the second and third season for these marvelous bulbs.  In the article, she says "after bloom, the dried golden brown allium seed heads stand tall amidst lush late season flowers."  They also last "sometimes into winter." 

Let me tell you, whether they are "brown," or "golden brown" by July, neither is a real color for the garden.  Brown is okay on a desert landscape painting or on the Mona Lisa, but in the garden "brown" is the color of death, the Final Color, and it doesn't add anything to the garden palette.  And winter?  I just went out to take a picture of the brown-headed remnants of my alliums and here, in early September, I could find a few remaining allium stems laying on the ground, marking the resting spot of the subterranean bulbs, but there is nothing left of the globes to be picturesque or even present when the snow falls.  Perhaps the Kansas wind has swept them away already.

Mrs. Mulleskom, who is evidently an accomplished gardener and who blogs here, quotes Hans Langeveld of Longfield Gardens as saying "the seed heads (of alliums) are every bit as cool as the flower."   Maybe, just maybe, I'll agree that they are "cool" to myself and to my fellow gardening nerds, but if they're a three-season garden stalwart, then I'm a garden toad.

My Choice, My Climate!

The ample rain two weeks ago was enough to green up the buffalograss and provide some much needed relief to the perennials here in Kansas.  It also brought some relief to gardeners here, not from the sweltering heat which continues to stress my garden and its gardener daily, but the rain at least provided a respite from daily watering chores.  And it was enough to entice ProfessorRoush to order some rose bands for Fall planting.  I like to plant own-root roses, even young bands, in the Fall in Kansas as the cooler weather and higher rainfall gives them a better start next year before the heat hits.

I had a great afternoon in the air-conditioned indoors, choosing rose varieties online and planning the layout of a new bed.  Imagine my surprise, however, two days after placing an online order with "Rose Paradise" (not its real name, but I don't want to single out the real nursery), when I received a return email thanking me for my order and informing me that it would be held until next Spring because "Rose Paradise" had ceased shipping to my area for the  Fall.   When I contacted the nursery directly, they explained that it was getting too cold to ship to my area and the roses wouldn't have time to become established before winter.

AHS Heat Zone Map

I suppose it is a positive development that mail-order nurseries have fully taken notice of the USDA Hardiness Zones and are trying to keep horticultural idiots from planting tropical palms in USDA Zone 2 in September, but it is past time for these nurseries to also begin taking note of the AHS Heat-Zone map.  On it, one would find that my portion of Kansas is currently listed as AHS Zone 7, meaning that it has 61-90 days annually where the temperature is above 86^oF.   And the current AHS Zone Map was based on data from 1974 through 1995 and has not been updated.  Given the changes of the 2012 revision of the USDA zones, I'm probably now in AHS Zone 8 or 9, with somewhere (I'm guessing) around 120-150 annual days of >86^oF highs.  Believe me, please, when I tell you that I've got plenty of time left before Christmas to get new roses established.

Recently, at Walmart, I tried to purchase a fan and had a store employee tell me (on a 102^oF day) that they were no longer selling fans because it was getting too cold.  I gave the customer service representative at "Rose Paradise" the same response I gave that misguided Walmart employee, which is to say that after a moment of silence during which I labored mightily to calm myself, I pointed out that it was still plenty warm here and would likely remain so for some time.  Fortunately, in terms of my future purchases from it, the "Rose Paradise" employee cheerfully informed me that they would be glad to go ahead and ship my order, however the roses would not carry their normal guarantee.  Jumping ahead to the end of this story, in my garden on this day there are 9 new roses trying to survive the predicted 99^oF high.

My point here is a plea to all mail-order nurseries to give consumers the benefit of the doubt, as long as we don't giggle fiendishly or otherwise exhibit latent plant-icidal tendencies, and let us decide when we want plants delivered.  It would also be nice if the AHS would update their Heat Zone map, and if all nurseries would take a closer look at it, but that is probably too much to expect.  Gardeners know our climates best and, in fact, I have similar issues trying to get nurseries to send me plants in the Spring before my climate gets too hot for planting.  I don't need any extensive guarantee because as long as I receive the plant in good condition, I'm never going to claim a death was the nursery's fault three months later after I've forgotten to water the little seeding.  I know full well who deserves the blame for dead plants in my garden.

Morden Centennial

Somewhere out there in the gardens of the world, someone else MUST be growing the AgCanada offering 'Morden Centennial', but information on this rose seems to be difficult to obtain, with few commenters on the normal sites.  I've looked in a number of places, and seen links to many others that are currently unavailable, but the real value of 'Morden Centennial' seems to be a very large secret (until I reveal it to you below!)  A wonderful website at the University of Minnesota does place 'Morden Centennial' in its list of roses "recommended for low maintenance landscapes," but,f you'll pardon my digression, perhaps the most useful chart on that web page is the chart of roses that were NOT recommended.  The comment section of the second list detailed why each rose was not recommended, and was most interesting because they confirmed my impression, for 'Morden Fireglow' for instance, that it was a blackspot magnet, but also because the authors tossed out the Grootendorst roses for "lack of fragrance".  Do all roses HAVE to have fragrance?  No one seems to care that our fall garden standout Crape Myrtles or Rose of Sharon are very fragrant, do they?

 

'Morden Centennial' is a medium or bright pink Shrub rose, with fair, but not exceptional repeat bloom.  It was bred by Henry H. Marshall in 1972, and released in the AgCanada Parkland series in 1980, just in time for the centennial of the city of Morden, Manitoba, founded in 1882.  The mildly-fragrant blooms are large and double, of about 40 petals, and often cluster-flowered on small stems, but they have the drawback of going quickly from bud to completely open form.  The foliage is dark green and semi-glossy, and it seems pretty resistant to blackspot here in my climate.  The bush form is vase-shaped and 3-4 foot tall, with stiff, thick canes and moderately-wicked thorns.  'Morden Centennial' is an offspring of a complex cross, with heritage from 'Prairie Princess', 'R. arkansana', 'Assiniboine', 'White Bouquet', and 'J.W. Fargo' in its gene pool.  'Morden Centennial' is rated hardy to zone 2B, but I read an entry from a Minnesota cabin in Zone 3 that stated the plants didn't do well over several winters in Zone 3, but did better when transplanted to a Zone 4 residence.  I've never seen winter kill of any kind on 'Morden Centennial' here in Kansas. 

 

I would not dispute that 'Morden Centennial' puts on a nice garden display during peak bloom, but the repeat blooms are sporadic enough that I wouldn't put it front and center in a small garden.  The great secret about 'Morden Centennial', though, is its fabulous contribution to the winter garden.  If you are not a fanatical dead-header (as I am not), this rose puts on numerous large bright orange hips to brighten up the winter garden in a display that will match any of the winter hollies or viburnums.  I'm sorry that my picture, at the right, is not taken from a garden covered in snow, but truly, the bush is covered with large orange balls that can be seen from across the garden.   Those hips are almost 3/4ths inch across and they get ever more bright red-orange as winter goes on.  This rose ornaments itself for Christmas, so you won't have to.

Sudden Spruces

Federal law should require a warning sign on the dashboard of every gardener's car to alert  unsuspecting passengers of the dangers of unexpected stops and swerves.  As a passenger in my Jeep, Mrs. ProfessorRoush is often being thrown into the dashboard or side door as I slow down suddenly to view a Garden Center storefront or swerve to admire a floriferous rose near the road.  I feel such adventures enrich her life by providing relief of her boredom on trips across town.  She has returned my thoughtful acts by considerably enriching my vocabulary during these jaunts. 

Mrs. ProfessorRoush was accompanying me recently on a Sunday morning coffee run when I passed the Blue Spruce pictured here and came to a sudden stop in the middle of a Manhattan street.  As a long-suffering gardener's wife, she was not surprised at all by the action, but merely briefly commented on the hot coffee spilled from the cup in her hands onto her lap and onto the dashboard.  Thankfully, she was mollified as I explained that it was important to the World that I capture and share the photographs here as prime examples of a "what not to do" garden technique.  

There are a plethora of gardening books and articles centered around the idea of "Right Plant, Right Place." Some clever writers put a twist on that philosophy and take a "Wrong Plant, Wrong Place" approach.  I'm using these photos on this blog to illustrate an "Abominable Plant, Atrocious Place" example. 

Properly sited in a landscape, Colorado Blue Spruce can be magnificent specimen trees; indestructible, colorful, and drought and deer resistant.  Many suburban and rural homes built from the 1940's through the 1970's had a Blue Spruce planted nearby so that the homeowner's good landscaping taste could be clearly displayed.  We grew smarter in the 1980's, however, and realized that these trees are not meant for small yards or even for most yards.  They are particularly abhorrent when planted in the 8 foot wide space between the driveway of a house and the sidewalk/street, as pictured here.  Do you think this homeowner has any clue that in the next decade, he'll be constantly trimming these limbs away from his garage and from the sidewalk?  That it will smother the euonymous and grass planted around it?  That it will become a complete nuisance as its constantly shed needles clog the downspouts of the house and litter the driveway? 

As an Extension Master Gardener, sworn by oath to spread gardening knowledge to the uninitiated masses, I was sorely tempted to knock on the door of this home and educate the occupants about the horticultural evil that they have unleashed in their landscape, but Mrs. ProfessorRoush persuaded me that the homeowner might not be thankful for nor receptive to such enlightment at 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning.  Acceding to the wisdom of her superior intuition in such matters, I can but hope that this homeowner, aware of their shortcomings, is a frequent and dedicated reader of my blog, and that the next time I pass through this area, I'll be treated to the view of a far better choice of plants for the space.  With my luck, of course, it'll be a grouping of 'Knock Out' roses, but I suppose small positive steps are better than no steps at all. 

I Lay Awake...

I laid awake all night and listened to the rain.  I listened as the dry raspy voice of the parched ground was stilled under a steady gentle shower.  I listened as the wind gently caressed the earth, drawing away the stored heat of the sun's furnace.  I listened as the lightning flashed and demanded in a deep, booming voice that the soil bring forth life again.  I listened as the world became right again.

This was the radar view as I settled in last night, the whole area of middle Kansas on the brink of a break in the drought.  The national media has focused here recently, noting that drought has struck the hardest in areas of Kansas and Iowa, calling it "extreme" or "exceptional" drought here in this band of Flint Hills that I've chosen to garden.  Yesterday's newspaper, as always, grimly listed the tally; 14.21 inches of rain so far in 2012, 11.51 inches less than normal.  I was afraid, seeing this radar picture, knowing that I'd seen it several times before in this summer, the promised storms breaking on the shores of the western Flint Hills and leaving us yet dry.  For an hour more I wondered, until the first gentle drops kissed the skylights, increasing in tempo until my anxiety eased at last.

My rain vigils are dependent both on modern technology and on ancient instincts.  I'm addicted to an Iphone app called MyRadar, which allows me to see the rainstorms coming at the touch of a button, direction and severity on full display.  I don't deal in rain chances.  Twenty percent or sixty percent predictions mean nothing in the mid-continent unless you actually see and feel the thunderheads build.  My inborn and farm-bred intuition of when the rain will wither or build, and where it will head and how far it will spread, are still far better than the muddled mathematical measures of local meteorologists.  I recently have come to suspect that authorities have conspired to change the reference colors on radar in the same way they manipulate the Homeland Security threat level.  Storms with orange and red pass over us with barely a dribble where in the past they meant deluges and discussions of cubits.  Forget green and blue, those colors now leave us frustrated and weary.  At the end of any actual rain that reaches the ground, I use simple gauges to tell me if we were teased or fulfilled, but my first knowledge of the volume bestowed is always from a small depression in the blacktop right off of my garage pad.  Filled to overflowing is more than 3/4th's of an inch.  Barely damp is less than a 10th.  My hopes and dreams are raised or dashed with my first morning sight of that puddle.

I laid awake all night and listened to the rain. The patter of the rain against the window near my left ear, and the rhythmic breathing and occasional snores of Mrs. ProfessorRoush in my right ear, calmed me and rested me far better than sleep.  The rain continues now as I rise, with chances for more rain in each of the next three days, God-willing.  But for now, the puddle overflows and I and the prairie earth are renewed.

Napoleon's Hat

I am the proud landlord of one Old Garden rose that you may know better under one of at least 10 aliases, including Crested Provence, Cristata, Crested Moss, R. centifolia cristata, or R. centifolia muscosa 'cristata'.  I knew it first under the more fanciful name of  'Chapeau de Napoleon', a moniker bestowed because some think that the fringed calyces resemble the tri-cornered hats worn by the famous French emperor.  The "proper"appellation, if you want to exhibit the rose in competition, is 'Crested Moss'.  In private conversation, of course, we of the bourgeois or peasantry classes can simply call it "Napoleon's Hat" and every rosarian will know the rose we're talking about.  Well, most of them will, but one should be aware that DNA analysis has shown that 'Crested Moss' is not the same rose as 'Crested Provence'.  As with any number of roses, the fact that they look alike doesn't necessarily mean that they are clones of one original plant.

'Crested Moss' is a once-blooming, medium pink, double-petaled rose that was actually not known when Napoleon was alive, but was a "found rose" discovered some years later (some authorities say as early as 1820, others as late as 1827).  'Crested Moss' is believed to be a sport of Centrifolia muscosa 'communis', the 'Common Moss Rose'.  Most sources, especially those written shortly after its introduction by Vibert in 1828, suggest that it was discovered in 1827 near Fribourg, Switzerland, growing in a monastery wall (or a nunnery wall). 'Crested Moss'  has been used extensively in hybridization by Ralph Moore and those efforts are reprinted on Paul Barden's website in an article by Mr. Moore.  He writes that the rose is usually sterile and does not set seed, but he was once able to collect enough pollen to cross with 'Little Darling', 'Baccara', and 'Queen Elizabeth'.  Ralph Moore noted that since those first attempts, he was never again able to find anthers (pollen) on any plant of 'Crested Moss'. 

In my garden, my two year old plant has the characteristic sparse foliage noted for this rose by Paul Barden, and the reputedly slow-growing plant stands about 2 1/2 feet tall at the time of this writing.  The foliage has grown more dense over the summer since flowering and the bush has achieved a more rounded form with a little judicious pruning.  'Crested Moss' is cane-hardy here in Kansas and it has withstood the current drought very well.  If you choose to grow it, you'll be rewarded annually by the strong damask-type fragrance and the clear pink color of the blooms.  If nothing else, the mossy calyx (a collective term for the sepals of a flower) creates a unique memory for visitors to your garden.  More than once, I've been near a point of failure in my attempts to excite a new visitor about the roses, but when they spy these unique buds, a connection forms and they start spewing forth questions. Questions that I usually can't answer, but at least I no longer have to search among mundane gambits to elicit conversation.  "How about this weather?", or "How about those Wildcats?" get tossed aside for a more stimulating discussion (at least to me) of Napoleon's three-cornered hat.  I am almost always able to restrain myself and stop before the visitor's eyes completely glaze over once again. 

Dry Times and Desperate Measures

The dry time has come, my friends, when a gardener's principles of xeriscaping and letting plants fend for themselves has smashed into the proverbial hard spot.  As a gardener on this bit of prairie, I try mightily, sometimes seemingly against my better judgement, to have as little impact as I can on my environment.  Minimal extra water use, lots of mulch, pesticides only in emergencies, no inorganic fertilizer, plants selected for the conditions of my region.  I fail mightily as well, harvesting corn drenched in insecticide (growing corn here in Kansas at any time qualifies as an emergency), watering marginal plants in dry times, and choosing some plants because they are unusual or interesting or pretty, even if they are better adapted to Costa Rica than this mid-continental desert.

I understand, however, on some basic level, that an attempt to garden at all must inevitably result in some effects on the environment.  I can't give Mrs. ProfessorRoush a rose garden, for instance, without displacing the native prairie grasses that would otherwise outcompete the roses.  I can't plant a tree on the prairie without shading out some of those same grasses.  I can choose a Miscanthus sp., or select among the excellent cultivars of Panicum, but the first is not native here and the second may not drawn the same insects, or the same birds to its seeds, or provide the same benefits to the soil as the native forms.  As noted by Michael Pollan in the classic essays of Second Nature, ornamental gardening means finding "a middle ground between the two positions of domination of a piece of ground or acquiescence to the natural conditions of the area."

I have drawn the line against nonintervention this weekend while worrying about my trees.  I'm quite pleased, these days, with the growth of several maples and oaks and cottonwoods that I have planted, and I'm quite distressed to see them turn silver leaves to the sky and begin to die.  Go away, Charles Darwin, and stop whispering in my ear.   I cannot stand by and let the pressures of Natural Selection, represented by this extreme and unusual drought, dictate which trees survive in my garden.  I cannot coexist here with a garden of Red Cedars and Osage Orange.  I need my Sweet Gum, my Black Gum, and my 'Patriot' Elm to create the illusion that I have some control over my garden.  I need them to linger here after I'm gone, keeping my presence after the end of days.

So I'm watering the trees today, deeply and individually, with a sprinkler that will cover most of the root extent.  I'm watering them in order of my love for them; my daughter's accidental Silver Maple first, next the native Cottonwood (pictured here) ravished first by ice storms and then drought, the 'October Glory' Red Maple that I hold dear in the Fall was third, and so on to the others.  My apologies to the Flint Hills aquifer, but I'd like someday to see a tree here large enough to support a squirrel or two, maybe to serve as a perch for a hungry owl, and perhaps to provide a little shade to rest from the Kansas sun.  As I water, however, I see that the backlit spray of water just looks like another clump of grass on the prairie, a quiet reminder to me of what God really intends to be grown here.

Sedum Smorgasbord Served

ProfessorRoush, why do you grow sedums as an edging plant?

Because, my Dear, they are drought-resistant and make nice tidy foliage clumps and they have disease free foliage and they bloom brightest and best after the roses are tired and also because the deer leave them alone.

But ProfessorRoush, why then have you clipped off the blooms on all your sedums this late in the season?

Because, as you so often make me aware, Mrs. ProfessorRoush, I was wrong.  Again.  I didn't clip them, the deer ate them.  The deer love them.  Indeed, if you search the Internet or books, there will be any number of websites that list sedum as a deer-resistant plant (including a pamphlet from a local gardening store that I based my decision on), but many of those were written by evil gnomes and are dead wrong.  As usual, I should have looked to the Universities of this fine land for definitive information.  Rutger's University has a very well laid-out webpage that lists sedum as "occasionally severely damaged."  North Carolina State Extension has a nice pamphlet as well, listing them as "occasionally damaged".   As a Extension Master Gardener, I should have known better than to trust a non-research-based source.  I am expecting a hit squad of Mossy Oak®-camouflaged EMG's to show up at my door at any minute, demanding my trowel, Felco's and my EMG name badge.

I don't wish to be full of sour grapes, but what the heck kind of a term is "deer-resistant" anyway?   I understand the evolutionary advantages for Lamb's Ear, for example, to have developed a fuzzy surface that is distasteful to deer, but the plants don't really resist the deer, the deer just resist eating certain plants. Until, in the midst of a drought, they're hungry.  After that, Watch Out, Nellie, because the stupid large furry rats won't even leave the junipers alone. 

Lesson learned.  By edging a nice rose bed with 'Matrona' (Sedum telephinum) divisions, I have merely set out a smorgasbord of sweetly-flavored succulents during a drought.  HEY THERE!  DEER!  LOOK OVER HERE!  Don't bother with all that tall dry grass, come get these velvet-lip-wetting candy treats I've set out for you.  And please, nibble on the roses on your way through, pretty please?   To quote Charlie Brown, "Good Grief!"

See, This Is Why...

This is why I encourage the growth of the Prickly Poppy (Argemone polyanthemos) in my garden. Yes, the so-called "Prickly Poppy" or "Crested PricklyPoppy" is an invading weed in dry, barren soil, but it certainly catches the eye.  Look at those white petals, the cleanest perfect white ever created, and made out of the finest parchment.  Experience the cloud of yellow stamens floating above the petals like the center of the sun.  Notice the purple cross (stigma) at the center of the bloom, a royal receptacle waiting to collect the golden pollen.  And look at the attendant honeybees in the pictures on this page.  In that overall shot of the whole plant, every single open bloom has a bee in it.  Count them.  Imagine a garden bed full of white poppies and honeybees.


On the recent day that I took them, just past the worst heat of the hottest summer on record, nothing else was blooming in such perfect form in my garden.  Nothing else was even close. There were a few decrepit drought survivors trying to bloom, but they played second fiddle to this beauty.  I know that I've written a tribute to this plant before, but witness again an opportunistic plant  that deserves more than to be called "just another weed."

Perfect blooms in the heat of summer? Healthy blueish foliage during a drought? No pests? Nectar source for bees?  Xeriscape worthy?  Someone (maybe me?) should spend half a lifetime in a worthwhile manner trying to breed these weeds into a decent and refined garden plant.  If this plant lost a few prickles and maybe gained some foliage density, gardeners would fall all over themselves trying to buy it.  Imagine the possibilities if it could be developed with some color variety or variegated foliage.  Why, it might even make the cover of Fine Gardening.  Now that would be something.

The Catalonian

'El Catala'

The beautiful, albeit slightly heat-singed, bi-colored rose pictured at the left is the Griffith Buck rose 'El Catala', a tribute to the great Catalan rose breeder Pedro Dot (or Pere Dot i Martinez as he was known in Catalan).  The Catalonians are an ethnic group in northern Spain (including Barcelona) with their own distinct language. As a high school student, Griffith Buck was assigned by a Spanish teacher to find a pen pal from Spain.  Senor Dot became that transAtlantic correspondent, taking the time to befriend the budding rosarian in a mentoring relationship that forged a lifetime interest and friendship, although the actual letters were written by his niece, Maria Antonia.  Pedro Dot's roses are not widely distributed these days, but if you've seen any of them you would most likely have run across 'Nevada', a single white Hybrid Moyesii, or the Large-Flowered climber 'Madame Grégoire Staechelin', both bred in 1927.

Officially listed as a red-blend grandiflora, 'El Catala' was released in 1981.  The classic buds open slowly to reveal double 4 inch diameter blooms of rose-red to crimson-red on the face of the petals and very pale rose on the reverse.  The color seems to intensify in heat and sunlight.  Blooms are borne singly or in clusters up to 8 at a time and have a mild fragrance.  The bush, in its second summer in my garden, is small at present, only 2 feet tall and about 1.5 feet wide, and seems healthy but not very vigorous.  It has a slow repeat bloom, but I've seen no fungus or winter damage here during two seasons.  The seed parent was 'Wanderin' Wind', a Buck-bred pink shrub, and the pollen parent was a complex cross of a seeding of 'Dornroschen' and 'Peace' with 'Brasilia'.  It is the latter ancestor, a scarlet rose with a golden yellow reverse, that the unique coloring pattern of 'El Catala' seems to originate from.   

'El Catala'

I find the coloring to be quite similar to the 1980 William Warriner-bred eventual AARS winner 'Love', although 'Love' tends to be a little more crimson on the inside and a little more white on the outside of the petals than 'El Catala'.   I grow 'Love' here on the Kansas prairie as well as 'El Catala', and it is no contest that  'El Catala' is a much more healthy rose than 'Love', which struggles year to year to keep enough canes alive to reach a bloom-supporting size.  Although the summer heat seems to be doing its worst on the pictured 'El Catala' blooms, they hold their own the rest of the year, adding a nice and very different touch to the front of the rose garden.

Passed Along Pleasures

It's always a great joy when somebody gifts you a plant or when you can pass along a favorite plant to a friend.  Witness "Greggo's Sedum", a gift from Greggo when he visited my garden a few weeks back.  In the midst of drought, with everything fighting for survival, there could be no more useful gift than a succulent, even if it is one purloined from a distant garden during the travels of a friend. 

Greggo, as you can see, the sedum clippings survived, rooted, and are even getting ready to flower.  It's somewhat sad to be fearful about the drought resistance of a succulent, but I think I'll hold off planting it out into the garden for awhile until I'm sure it can survive the drought.  I don't want to risk this memory of friendship, any more than I would risk the divisions of sedums from my maternal grandmother that have grown for years in my garden.

Almost two decades ago, in the infancy of my gardening education, I came across a delightful book named Passalong Plants, authored by Steve Bender and Felder Rushing and published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1993.  As the title suggests, Passalong Plants is a descriptive collection of heirloom plants that are often gifted from gardener to gardener, mother to daughter or father to son in the gardens of the South. It's about old plants and old friends, varieties that aren't often found at nursery centers, but which can anchor a regional garden because they've survived the climate of time.  These beautiful plants are all described in, as the foreword by Allen Lacy states, "a distinctive voice, folksier and colloquial and playful."  If you can find a copy, it is one of the most delightful reads of "modern" gardening literature.  Along the way, amidst the humor and joy of gardening in the words, you'll learn about plants that need to be found for your own garden, about the delightful stories of their provenance and value to the gardeners who grow them, and you'll be reminded of all the wonderful plants you already have that represent friends and family in your own garden. 

Broken Record

News reports have now made it official; July 2012 was the hottest July on record in North America.  I don't know about you, the broader audience that is reading this blog, but I expected that the record would be broken.  Certainly the heat and drought here in Kansas have exceeded my usual dismal expectations.  I've found myself taking numerous pictures of rain clouds and judging storm directions on radar to the detriment of the rest of my life, and I've been disappointed in most cases to see the rain veer away from Manhattan.  I can't count the times when I've actually seen actual rain falling down from a quarter mile distant vantage where I remained dry and sun-blasted.  Here, for example, is a photo of a storm that I took on my way into work on July 12th, missing Manhattan about a mile to the east:



Of greater interest to me is what all this means for the future and what it tells us about "global warming."  The previous record we broke in July here in Kansas was set in the Dust-bowl year of 1935.  So we have at least, with the reputed additional effects of global warming, broke a record set some 77 years ago before anyone even dreamed of climate change.  Temperature records in the US have only been kept since 1885, a mere 50 years earlier than the 1935 records.  How can we possibly say that this July was the hottest EVER?  The hottest on record in the short range of human experience yes, but the hottest EVER?  And the "hot" records are being set here in North America.  The same newspaper edition that announced the hottest July ever contained a story about a rare snowfall in Johannesburg South Africa; a place where it snows only once every 20 years on average. 

Certainly, Kansas has had previous, and will have in the future, dry years and windy years and hot years and cold years.  Horticulture in Kansas will always try the patience of gardener and wife.  Isaac Goodnow, a co-founder of Kansas State University, moved to Kansas and reached the Manhattan area in April of 1855, long before official records of temperature and climate were recorded.  His diary from that year states "The nights are exceedingly windy and dusty", a statement that wouldn't shock anyone living here 157 years later.  He also noted that he "have had to spend much time almost everyday in encouraging the young men and keeping them from going home.” I, for one, can easily sympathize with that last entry for there are many times this summer when I've stood in my garden and been tempted to chuck it all and move to a better climate.

 In the meantime, the drought has been bad this summer, but I'm encouraged that the prairie looks approximately the same as it did early in June, as shown in the photo above.  We've had over 40 days of 100F+ degree temperatures and less than a total of 2 inches of rain in that entire period, but the prairie is holding its own, as most of my garden seems to as well.  My assessment of my garden, of course, is still limited by a brief examination at 5:30 a.m. while I run around frantically with watering cans, but I will take "holding its own" as a positive until I see September begin to usher back more temperate weather. 

John Franklin

The most prolific bloomer of the Ag-Canada roses, according to a 1992 Horticulture article by Ian Ogilvie and John Arnold, is the medium-red shrub rose 'John Franklin'.  Unfortunately, although Ogilvie and Arnold listed 'John  Franklin' as having medium resistance to blackspot, John Franklin is one of the worst of the Canadians for disease resistance in my Kansas garden.  I might see the advertised 14 weeks of bloom on him, but if I don't watch and spray this bush, 10 weeks of his bloom will be carried above bare-stems.

'John Franklin' is otherwise a really nice shrub rose, with clusters of semi-double flowers appearing in rapid succession.  This pink-rose-red tone is not my favorite color among roses, but if you like the color, you'll see a lot of it on this bush.  Bred by Dr. Felicitas Svejda in 1970, and introduced  by Ag Canada in 1979,  'John Franklin' is a well-mannered shrub rose of the Explorer Series that has matured at about 3 feet tall and 3 feet wide in my garden, a great big red ball without many thorns.  'John Franklin' is very hardy in northern gardens, but alongside the lack of disease resistance I must also note that I find little fragrance present in the blooms.  The seed parent is believed to be 'Lilli Marleen' and the pollen parent 'Red Pinocchio' X ('Joanna Hill' x Rosa spinosissima).

   

'John Franklin' is likely a great example of a rose whose blackspot resistance may vary depending on the exact endemic strain of the fungus in a garden and on regional environmental factors.  Ogilvie and Arnold listed 'John Franklin' alongside 'Champlain' as having medium resistance to blackspot, but I find 'Champlain' to be a far more superior rose in blackspot resistance, bloom time, color, and overall garden impact.  Helpmefind.com states that 'John Franklin' is "very disease resistant," although one member of that site comments that he is prone to rust in California.  The red hue of this rose also seems to vary by location, with some pictures on the web appearing almost orange, and others near-crimson.

'John Franklin's explorer namesake was a Rear-Admiral of the British Navy who perished in 1846, along with his starving, lead-poisoned, cannabilistic crew and his icebound ships, during an attempt to chart the Northwest Passage.  In the case of 'John Franklin', the rose, I suspect that over the years horticulture may well imitate history and we won't see much of this rose except in those very cold Zone 3 and below areas, where anything that blooms is still welcome and blackspot doesn't grow well enough to bother roses.  And, of course, as global-warming continues, this rose is going to have less and less land to grow on, since it won't grow in the increasingly open seawater above the Arctic Circle and the Zones are moving ever-farther north.  Does it even snow in Canada anymore? 

Velcro Legumes

Sorry everyone, I was away from home for a little piece and didn't have the urge to write.  Or to garden in my brown, crinkly garden.  Frankly, given the extremely hot weather here and the glaring sunshine, I have pretty much cast the garden aside to survive or die on its own.  Before I left, a week ago, I did stand out most of the day in the 106F weather, watering everything in sight.  The plants seemed to appreciate it and it only took me two days to rehydrate myself.  I left the garden this past week to the good graces of Mrs. ProfessorRoush, who at least kept the watermelon and pumpkins alive.

But a quick walk outside today and I was reminded, by the pictured seeds clinging to my jeans, that life in the garden goes on.  Does anyone out there care to guess at the identity of the seeds pictured above?  I can harvest loads of them from now through Fall, sticking resolutely to my pants and socks as they do, just by walking out into the prairie.  They are seeds, and they look a little like ticks, don't they?  And they stick to you like ticks.  No amount of washing will get these things off my pants, they have to be hand-removed.  That's my job because Mrs. ProfessorRoush takes a dim view of my pants sharing this bounty with her undergarments in the family washer. 






Looks like a tick, but it's a seed?  This is either Desmodium illinoense (Illinois Tickclover) or Desmodium canadense (Canda Tickclover or Showy Tick-trefoil ).  Both are native wildflowers here in the Flint Hills, and both are members of the Fabaceae, otherwise known to normal people as members of the bean family.   D. illinois has a prominent banner, with a darker spot near the base as seen above left.  D. canadense is lighter on the top, more violet on the bottom  and lacks the banner, as pictured to the immediate right.  D. canadense  also stands a fuller with more leaves in my yard, while D. illinoense stays low and spreads out at the base.








The delicate flowers of these natives bloomed in late June and early July here, rising over the prairie grass on two-foot tall racemes to entice passing pollinators.   They grow in the driest spots in my garden, sustained by deep tap roots and leathery leaves, and they are native all over the hillsides.    The flowers turn quickly to seedpods that have fine hooked hairs that allow them to cling to clothing and fur.  Fascinating, isn't it?  A natural "Velcro" created and utilized by this genus for seed dispersal.  And a very effective one at that, since a well-covered pair of socks can take quite some time to "de-tick". 

So why, you might ask, do I allow these to grow when they pop up?  The beans, to my knowledge, aren't edible, and the flowers certainly aren't showy.  But I am aware that they are used in agriculture in several ways, both as a nitrogen-fixing groundcover and because they produce a number of insect repelling compounds collectively known as  antixenotic allomones.  I allow them to grow solely for their legumistic benefits to my garden soil and I make darned sure to cut off the stems as soon as they set seed.   Otherwise, I'm sure that I'd find my next round of weeding time doubled by the time it would take me to de-seed my clothes.

I HAVE GROWN CORN!

A miracle has occurred on the Kansas prairie.  I have, at long last, grown sweet corn in the Flint Hills.  Praise God and pass the butter and salt!

This may not be an earth-shattering accomplishment to many of you from other climes, and perhaps not to many farmers in this area, but I have been completely stymied for years trying to grow edible sweet corn in my own garden.  I have experienced years where I had poor germination (soil too cold?), years where the wind blew the knee-high corn flat before it could tossel, years where the ears didn't fill out (too hot for pollination?), and years where I had decent ear growth, but opened up the shucks to find that I'd raised only a superb crop of earworms.  I've had decent corn stolen at the last minute by raccoons, I've had seedlings mowed down by deer and rabbits, and I've even caught quail scratching and eating the seed as soon as I planted it.  Those are all minor pests compared to earworms in this area.

To borrow and modify for gardening a term currently popular among teenagers and young adults,  have, in summary, I been "corn-blocked" for a decade by wind, drought, earworms, raccoons, rabbits, deer, and birds.  The worst of all are the earworms;  not only do they leave me believing I've had a good crop until I try to harvest it, but earworms as a species are completely disgusting.  I refuse to just cut off the end of an ear full of worms and worm feces and then cook and eat the remainder.

My inability to grow edible corn is all extremely embarassing for me, a descendent of several generations of Indiana farmers.  My long-lost Indiana, where the soil drains better, where the wind is gentler, the rains more frequent, and the mid-summer heat less searing, is tailor-made for corn. You can toss corn down in Southern Indiana on the surface and it will grow and produce.  Heck, it grows as a volunteer annual from year to year if you leave too many kernels in the field.

This year, inexplicably, the Maize God decided to take pity on my efforts and allowed me a decent crop.  Not without some effort on my part, however, effort honed by years of hard-won lessons.  I selected my corn variety carefully, choosing Burpee's 'Honey and Cream' because the package noted that it had "tight silks".  I laid down some soaker hose along the rows and I have religiously watered deep twice a week after germination. I provided plenty of nitrogen fertilizer as the corn stalks rose.  As soon as the silks appeared, I sprayed weekly with cyfluthrin, stopping when the silks were brown, for a total of three applications over late June and early July.  I made sure the electric fence stayed in working order as the ears grew and the signs of deer in the yard became more frequent.

These six ears of merely slightly poisonous corn are just the first of what I hope will be a few nice meals for myself, Mrs. ProfessorRoush and her diminutive clone.   I don't have any innate desire to upset all the diehard organic gardeners out there, but I firmly believe that any residual insecticide that penetrated the husks and survived the printed withdrawal period must surely be less harmful to my health than the earworm poop.  Probably tastes better too.  Anyway, I'm not worried about the insecticide;  I'll just feed the first couple of ears to Mrs. ProfessorRoush and if she doesn't develop tremors, than I can safely dig in.

Remember that scene in "Cast Away" where Tom Hanks starts his first fire on the island and dances around shouting to the sky, "I have made fire"? Well, that's me today. I HAVE GROWN CORN!

Portland's Duchess

I'll show you a rose today that has continually surprised me.  Surprised me because I wasn't expecting much from it and I got these great big, hot pink flowers.  Surprised me because, in general, I'm not a fan of hot pink flowers and yet I like these.  Surprised me because the repeat bloom has been better than I expected. 

That rose is 'Duchess of Portland', a Damask Perpetual that was known prior to 1775 and who gave birth to an entire rose class named after her. This reported hybrid of 'Quatre Saisons' and Rosa gallica officianalis is one of the few reblooming roses  grown in the Western Hemisphere before the China roses and their hybrids took Europe by storm.  Perhaps because of her ancient heritage, 'Duchess of Portland' can be found under many different names, including Portlandica, The Portland Rose, Rosa Paestana,  Rosa damascena portlandica bifera, and Scarlet Four Seasons' Rose.  There was some suspicion that she DID have some 'Slaters Crimson China' in her background, but Internet sources say that any China heritage was disproven through DNA analysis at Claude Bernard University in France. 

'Duchess of Portland' has semi-double blooms (10-16 petals) with a diameter of 4 inches in my 6A climate.  Four inches might not seem like a large bloom size compared to a Hybrid Tea like 'Peace', but the flat shape and the small number of petals puts this rose in a class with 'Altissimo' for standing out in the garden.  There is a strong sweet fragrance to reward any nose that dares to part the golden stamens.  It is also her lipstick-bright pink color that sets this rose apart, almost scalding your eyes if you look at it too long.  Officially, this color is labeled as "red", in the same way that many Old Garden Roses that were really fuchia or pink were labelled  "red", because that was the best red tone in roses available in former centuries.   Personally, I think it is time to stop calling these roses "red."  They're pink, okay, can we just agree to call them that?  I've had two bloom flushes already this summer, with a few sporadic blooms in-between, and I hope yet to see another flush as cooler weather returns in the fall.  The bush is round in form, extending about 3 feet in all directions, very healthy and drought-resistant, and she sets a few orange hips as the season ends.

Some roses just have more history than others, and 'Duchess of Portland' is one of the former group with history to spare.  She is the mother of the entire group of Portland roses, which once numbered in the hundreds but has dwindled to 15-20 commercial varieties.  The origin of the name was from a namesake Duchess of Portland who was a plant collector around 1780.  And yes, she may be old, but she's still very much worth adding to your garden.  Just don't expect her to hide among other roses, because she was bred to stand out.