Fence-Sitters & Ground-huggers

Western Meadowlark

On the prairie there are few bushes and even fewer large trees for birds to perch on or hide in.  The endless grasses provide ample chances of concealment, but there are few opportunities to seek the high ground, to scan for approaching danger or food.  Consequently, most of the prairie birds can be characterized as either "ground-huggers" or "fence-sitters."  

The ground-huggers are elusive creatures, hidden both day and night, often nearby, but revealed only when they are disturbed, if then.  I've yet to see a Greater or Lesser Prairie Chicken, but I've heard their spring mating calls.  In contrast, I've often been startled by quail exploding at my feet.  Killdeer and Common Nighthawk, and turkeys are more abundant.  Getting a photo of any ground hugger, however, is difficult at best and requires more patience than I'm made of. 

The fence-sitters use any manmade or natural elevation to gain advantage, and although they are easier to spot, they are just as difficult to photograph.  They're able to see me coming a long way away, and hence they tax the abilities of my largest lense and my ability to hold it steady.  I was lucky however, last week, to capture these shots of the Meadowlark seen above and to the right.  This is probably a Western Meadowlark, but I'm told that I can't reliably tell Western from Eastern outside of song.  This guy was singing his head off, but I'm afraid I don't yet know the tune. 

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Even more fortuitously, I was happy to snatch  these blurry photographs of this Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher living nearby.  This beautiful male has been coming back every summer for five years to the Osage Orange tree across from my driveway. I often see him sitting on the fence in the early morning as I drive to work.  He always flits away just as I'm about to get within good photo range, every time that I stop the car and roll down the window, or even when I'm on foot trying to sneak up on him.  The Scissor-tailed Flycatcher's natural range is only up to the northern border of Kansas, so this guy is pushing the limits of his species.

I'm lucky to be blessed with his acrobatic performance flying from time to time, the aptly-named scissortail sailing like a kite in the wind;  A kite in the wind over a sea of endless grass, floating and buoyant on the currents of summer air.  I just wish he'd let me be closer before he soars, so I could properly admire the beauty of grace married to perfect form, the envy of many an aerospace engineer.

Ground-huggers and fence-sitters, the birds of the tallgrass prairie.  Each adapted in their way to hide or to flee, to fly for life and food, or to run for their life deeper into the grass.  Each successful at that most important game, survival and reproduction, over and over, on and on.         

Toad Behavior

So, there I was, rushing home from a trip to Kansas City at 4:00 pm. on a hot Saturday afternoon because I had to go out and mow in the boiling sun and be showered again by 5:30.   "Why," you ask?  Because Mrs. ProfessorRoush, always mindful of social opportunities, had asked me earlier in the week if I would go out to dinner Saturday night with a couple of old friends who were going to be in town.  Ever the indulging and doting husband, I had agreed immediately, not knowing that "going out to dinner" would ultimately also include a plan for visiting my garden prior to dinner.  My garden that I have abandoned to the heat of summer, sans weeding and mowing for three weeks.

The lack of regular maintenance is not as big a deal as you might surmise, primarily because our ample rains of early June ceased around June 20th and we haven't seen a drop since then.  All the prairie grass has stopped growing except for a small rim around the asphalt where the grass gets more runoff.  And weeds have stopped sprouting, except for my Ambrosia sp. nemesis which seems to merely require dehydrated concrete to grow.  So, except for finding a few giants that I've missed, the garden really wasn't too terrible, but I still couldn't let it be viewed in its current condition.

Anyway, at minimum, the fuzzy edges needed to be trimmed, and here was Mrs. ProfessorRoush, trying to talk me out of it, telling me the garden looked fine.  I responded poorly to the discussion, stormed out into the heat, and proceeded to perform my impression of a Tasmanian Devil from a Bug's Bunny cartoon as I rushed about performing emergency cosmetic surgery on the garden.

Why?  Oh why, I ask you?  Why didn't I just point out that impromptu visitors to my garden are no different to me than impromptu house visitors are to Mrs. ProfessorRoush?  She goes into a tizzy every time visitors are nigh, despite keeping a house so constantly clean that I could safely eat off the floors at any random moment.  That simple analogy would have so easily been game, set, and match in favor of ProfessorRoush.  Alas, it seems instead that I was close to testing out my theory of eating off the clean floors for awhile.  

(The toad picture, BTW, is merely for blog decoration and is not a comment on the actions of any individual mentioned herein.)

Token Hybrid Teas

'Tiffany'

Yes, I grow some Hybrid Tea Roses.  A few.  A very few.  A small fraction of the Hybrid Teas that you would find in a regular rose garden are mixed among my Rugosa's and Canadian's and Old Garden Roses.  Except for a few Griffith Buck roses that are officially listed as Hybrid Tea's, however, I can count the classic Hybrid Teas in my garden on the fingers of both hands.  I grow 'Olympiad', 'Garden Party', 'Pristine', 'First Prize', and 'Double Delight', and....two that I  absolutely can't do without; delicate and refined 'Tiffany' and her older and more softly-colored sister, 'Helen Traubel'.
 
'Tiffany' is a 1954 offspring of 'Charlotte Armstrong' X 'Girona', bred by Robert Lindquist.  This delicate medium pink rose with a yellow base to her petals has a tremendous fragrance, strong enough to make her the second winner of the James Alexander Gamble award for fragrance from the American Rose Society in 1962.  She was also a winner of the coveted AARS award in 1955.  Blooms are large, double, and very high-centered on long stems.  She grows in my garden as the own-root clone of a former grafted $3.00 bag rose, a tough start to life on the prairie, but one that keeps her coming back year after year.   She is not cane hardy in my garden, and she needs occasional spray for blackspot, but as a rose princess, she's welcome to stay as long as she likes.

'Helen Traubel'

'Helen Traubel' is also a cross of 'Charlotte Armstrong', but this time the promiscuous lass dallied with a Kordes-bred Hybrid Tea named 'Glowing Sunset'.   This apricot-hued Hybrid Tea bred in 1951 by Herbert Swim has a larger bloom than 'Tiffany', with an average diameter of around 5 inches in my garden, and she grows a bit taller.  'Helen Traubel'  opens a little more loosely and quickly and I prefer her coloration, blushing and glowing at the same time.  Fragrance is moderate, not nearly as strong as 'Tiffany', but still lovely. 

These grand old dames are not viewed equally in rosedom.  'Tiffany' is widely viewed as a proper and refined lady of high acclaim.   'Helen Traubel' has a bit of a poor reputation, the black sheep of the sisters as it were, to the point where she is called "Hell 'n' Trouble" by some sources.  Various rosarians complain about the blooms of the latter nodding with weak necks, and a tendency for blackspot.  Personally, in terms of health and performance, I prefer 'Helen Traubel' over 'Tiffany' in my vicious climate.  In my garden, 'Tiffany' needs coddling, is only marginally hardy, and while her blooms are beautiful, I wouldn't ever describe the bush as vigorous.  In contrast, I've watched a dozen bushes of 'Helen Traubel' for a couple of decades in the Manhattan City Rose Garden, and out of a group of probably 40 different Hybrid Tea and Floribundas, she is consistently the most hardy and vigorous.  In fact, most years she is cane hardy without added protection at that garden.  'Tiffany' died out in the City Rose Garden and at the KSU Rose Garden.  I've only grown 'Helen Traubel' about three years in my own garden, but already she has twice the number of healthy canes as 'Tiffany'.  Both roses need blackspot preventatives in Kansas, so there isn't a clear winner in that regard.

All things considered, I think these two roses are a perfect example of roses who respond better to some climates and grow poorly in others.  I also see them as a rallying call for the importance of regional rose trials and lists of best regional performers.  It doesn't matter to me how large or beautiful a rose blooms in California if it won't stand up to the wind and heat of Manhattan. Kansas.  



'Helen Traubel'

 

Basye's Purple Rose

For fellow rose-nuts who want to grow the unusual, I would recommend that they try 'Basye's Purple Rose' as a candidate for scratching that particular thorny itch.  For the photographers among the group, it will also present the challenge of correctly capturing the difficult wine-red color into a digital file.  As you can see from the varying hues represented by the photographs on this page, that is not an easy task.  The first photo, at the left here, best captures the exact tint and hue according to my eyes.  Iphone photos of this rose, like the second picture here, often turn out truly awful.  I've mentioned it in this blog before, but I like it enough that I felt it deserved a page of its very own.

'Basye's Purple Rose' is officially a mauve shrub rose bred by Dr. Robert E. Basye in 1968.  According to
William Welch, Basye rejected the rose as "a jewel in the rough", but the rose made it to commerce nonetheless, perhaps through stock given to Welch by Basye in 1983.  A cross of R. foliolosa and R. rugosa rubra, I've placed it in my mind as a Hybrid Rugosa, although I suppose it could just alternatively just as easily be described as a Hybrid Foliolosa.  Blooms are single with 5 petals, about 2.5 inches wide, have a mild fragrance to my nose, and repeat sporadically.  After the first flush the bush usually has a few blooms on it, but it won't make a large impact on garden color for the rest of the season.  I've seen the color described in various sources as "rich cabernet-red", "fuchsia", "magenta", and "rich wine-crimson with strong purple tones".  Personally, I would incorporate the velvety texture of the petals into my description of the color and tell the reader that the petals were cut out of the royal purplish-red robe of an English king.

This shrub is healthy here in Kansas, with no blackspot or mildew visible, but it is reported to mildew in some climates.  It has narrow medium green leaves, but the leaves towards the bottom 18 inches of the plant tend to drop off over the summer with no apparent disease.  The picture at left illustrates the bush in full bloom.  It was completely cane hardy in my garden last year in a winter that took almost all modern hybrid roses back to the ground, so I'm sure it's hardy in Zone 4 and probably can be successfully grown in Zone 3.  Terminal height in my garden is about 5 feet high and about 4 feet wide from the original plant.  It does throw up suckers on its own roots and I expect this rose could form a thicket if untended.  Young canes are red and very thorny, while older canes have less numerous awl-like prickles, but the bush form is gangly and not well covered.

'Basye's Purple Rose' is a collector's plant, not a landscaping specimen, and it seems to be primarily known and raised in America.  I couldn't find any mention of it in Peter Beale's Classic Roses, Twentieth-Century Roses, or Roses, but it is is described in G. Michael Shoup's Roses in Southern Gardens and William Welch's Antique Roses for Southern Gardens.  The latter describes it as ravishingly fragrant, but is the only source I've seen that attributes it with any substantial bouquet.

There are reports that 'Basye's Purple Rose' is tetraploid and fertile with modern roses.  Paul Barden listed the rose as "likely my very favorite Rugosa and certainly one of my favourite roses period.   Few, however,  seem interested in the rose as breeding stock.   Kim Rupert perhaps stated it most clearly in a  post on helpmefind.com/rose where he said "Able to be crossed with other roses, but far from willing and extremely willing to pass on awful plant architecture....a truly awful choice for breeding."   

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetle....

No!  I won't finish saying it.  In the 1988 Tim Burton film, Beetlejuice, the obnoxious ghost perfectly played by Michael Keaton, appears after the third repetition of his name.  So, I won't even think of Japanese Beetles lest I call them forth.

Opps.  Too late.  I found this little demon pictured in the photo above on July 4th, hiding in 'Golden Showers' at the Manhattan City Park Rose garden.  I've been expecting them to arrive soon, because I found my first last year on July 7th.  I didn't find any on July 4th this year at the KSU Rose Garden or on my own roses.  And, believe me, I looked carefully.

However, I had previously put some Japanese Beetle traps out at home, and inspecting this one, a Rescue! Trap, on July 6th, I found three males and a female, all of which I subsequently and thoroughly smashed to beetle pulp.  This trap was sent to me last year as a trial by a marketing agent for the Rescue! company and I believe it is a superior trap.   If you want to purchase one, it is currently $8.34 on Amazon.com.   I particularly like the strength and thickness of the collecting bag and the zipper closure at the bottom which lets the bag be emptied and inventoried as often as I like.  Those of you who have ever smelled the eventual stench of a "nonemptyable" trap know exactly what I'm talking about.  A competitor's system in a different area of my garden hasn't captured any beetles yet, but I don't know if that means that the Rescue! trap is also simply better at attracting the beetles or if it is just positional coincidence.  I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, I've raised the drawbridge, stationed lookouts at observation points around the ramparts, and readied the cannons. And, thanks to this trap, there are at least three male and one female Japanese beetles who won't be fornicating on my roses or producing any future beetles in this season.

Positional Vistas

I am a gardener that spends most of my garden time looking down at the level of my feet, peering into the depths of each flower in search of beauty, examining each leaf closely for evidence of insect damage or fungus, standing fast against the tiny advance guard of marauding weeds.  I rarely take the time to glance up into the greater world and appreciate the wider views of my garden.  I could probably blame my approach to gardening on my surgical training because of the similar approach when I concentrate on a surgery.  In one moment, in a surgery, the world is small, the length of an incision or of a bone fragment.  The work completed, I take a breath and suddenly there is a bright room, with people and beeping anesthesia machines and the clank of instruments thrown back onto the table.  My innate focus on the activity at hand, however, is probably not training but is simply my nature and perhaps why I enjoy both my vocation and my hobby.  Anyway, the lesson for the today is to try not to be like me.

I was struck recently, walking Bella and passing by the northeast facing "entrance" to my back patio (shown above left), that a tall pillar rose on the left and the house on the right frame an almost good vista, the fake path stones leading one's eye to the patio and the statue and steps at the other end beckoning onward.  I was also struck by the fact that I know the view from top of the steps at the other end, shown to the right here, is not quite as artful, no frame to draw the eye and the satellite disk rudely imposing on the scene.









But those observations did serve to lead me into a search for other pleasing vistas in my garden and I learned once again that finding beauty is often simply a matter of one's perspective.  A frontal view of this peony bed, with peonies, mockorange, and honeysuckle in full bloom is not nearly so interesting as the "long axis" view at the left, with the curved line of the bed drawing our eyes down it.  It was a fabulous Spring morning, that day I took this photo.











And likewise, my lavender border, frozen back and beaten down by a harsh winter, looks like forty miles of bad road until the gardener or visitor takes a position to look along the bed, focusing on the upended limestone rock at the center.  The light blues, purples, grays and greens are so soothing that I could sit and look at this picture all day long.













I need to remember to look up far more often.  I live in a place where the sky and the land meet sometimes to form a fantastic view, a vista that only needs to be carefully framed to release the magic within it.  Two steps to the right and several feet forward and the picture at the left, of the low clouds, distant fog and my neighbor's house, could have been an even better memory of a special early morning.  We merely need to always remember to look for the beauty, frame it, and file it away, in a picture or in that collection of neural paths called a memory.  Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, but it is certainly enhanced and improved by the perspective of the beholder.

Rural Rhythm

Among the Griffith Buck roses that I ordered and planted this year is a delightful delicate pink rose named 'Rural Rhythm'.  Introduced in 1984, 'Rural Rhythm' is a cross of 'Carefree Beauty' and 'The Yeoman' and is the first of the Buck roses I've run across that incorporated David Austin's English Rose line in the breeding.   I would say her appearance, however, reminds me of a more delicate 'Tiffany', the very shell pink blossoms of 'Rural Rhythm' tending to yellow at the base.  The petals on this rose are, however, almost translucent when the rose fully opens, reminiscent of the English rose parent.  According to Sam Kedem, the color of the flowers intensify in cool weather, so I'll be looking forward to that as Fall nears.

'Rural Rhythm' blooms in clusters of 1-5 and the flowers are full and quite large, about 4 inches in diameter.  They start out in Hybrid Tea form, but quickly open to golden stamens against a light yellow center. One poster on Gardenweb.com suggested that the flowers have weak necks but I haven't yet noticed that here.  On the plus side, the bloom is so light-colored that it doesn't burn in the Kansas sun, but not so light that it browns when it gets wet or fades.  There is a moderate fragrance to my nose, again tending more to the English rose parent.  My small bush has been blooming its head off (I counted 20 blooms at once on a bush that has yet to reach one foot in height or wide), but it is far to early for me to say anything about blackspot or winter hardiness here in Kansas.  Internet references suggest that it is both hardy to Zone 4b and blackspot resistant.  I did run across a really great pamphlet on hardy roses for Zone 4 from the University of Idaho Extension, which listed Rural Rhythm as having 50% winter dieback.  

Beyond everything else, I simply love the name of 'Rural Rhythm'.  I can't find any explanation of why Dr. Buck gave it that name, but it has everything going for it.  It has alliteration, it rolls off the tongue, and it reflects the quiet nature of the rose in the garden.  My rural garden.

Pink Daylily Rap

'Frosted Vintage Ruffles'

I like pink day-lilies and I cannot lie

You other gardeners can't deny

When a bud pops open
with a pretty lacy bloom

And a pink that's over the moon

You feel young

Sung, of course, to the melody of Baby Got Back.  I'm not in the habit of singing rap composed by Sir Mix-A-Lot, but I couldn't help thinking of this one in regards to my pink daylilies.  I would advise older male gardeners who like my revised lyrics to make sure they sing the words rather than hum it when they are near their spouses.  Most wives just don't seem to react well to spouses humming Baby Got Back in their near vicinity. Ask me how I know.

'Siloam Double Classic'

I realized, as the main daylily bloom came on this past week, that this year it is the pink-toned daylilies that are bringing me the most pleasure.  And not just any pink daylily, but primarily those with clear clean pink tones.  From top to bottom, the first three daylilies pictured here are 'Frosted Vintage Ruffles', 'Siloam Double Classic', and an anonymous beautiful pink daylily that I'm in love with.  You can be sure that I'll be dividing these clumps  to spread others around my garden this Fall. 

'Jolyene Nichole'???

Of these three, 'Frosted Vintage Ruffles', a 2000 introduction by Begnaud, is my favorite for its delicate porcelain petals, the shading from light to dark pink, and its excellent fragrance.  'Siloam Double Classic', by Henry in 1985, is indeed a classic and a multiple award-winner including a Stout Silver Medal Runner-up.  It deserves a place in everyone's garden.  The name of the third daylily has been lost to my poor records system, but is likely either 'Jolyene Nichole' or 'Siloam Full Dress'.  The former looks a lot like it, but the latter's description also fits and I can't find a picture of it online for comparison.  I've got a huge clump of it shining pink at me from all the way across the garden.

'Bubblegum Delicious'

Pinks that are not quite so pure are doing nothing for my soul this year.  This fourth daylily, 'Bubblegum Delicious' is a more recent (2010) introduction by Kelly Mitchell that I planted in 2013, but despite all the edging and ruffles, it leaves me unimpressed.  The overall combination is just a bit too gaudy for my tastes.  Daylilies are just getting too fancy for me.

(returning to Baby Got Back)...
So Gardeners! (Yeah!), Gardeners! (Yeah!)
Is your daylily good and pink? (Heck yeah!)
Then you should show it (Show it!)
Show it! (Show it!)
Show off that healthy bloom!
Daylily Got Pink!

 

One Man's Milkweed, Another's Poison

I understand that there are biologists, both amateur and professional, who curse Carl Linnaeus for his Latin-infested taxonomic classification system, and I am sometimes among them.  I personally am quite thankful that someone else spent a lifetime pulling apart flowers and describing floral sex organs, because I don't possess the most minute fraction of the patience required.  On the other hand, all the Latin is a bit off-putting.  Today, however, I guess if Linnaeus hadn't been such a stickler for reproductive organ detail, I'd never have been able to identify the new wildflower in my untamed prairie backyard.  Well, Mike Haddock, the genius behind www.kswildflower.org helped quite a bit as well.  Being able to look at a collection of native flowering plants grouped by bloom color and month of bloom is a big aide to those of us who can't count stamens.

This new find is Whorled Milkweed, or Asclepias verticillata L. as it was known to Linnaeus.  I'd never have guessed that this perennial was related to my ubiquitous Asclepias tuberosa because it is not my nature to stare lewdly at flower parts;  I look at leaves, and commonly fail at identification because leaf shapes are reborn again and again in different plant families.  Look, for example, at the leaves of Whorled Milkweed.  I would think those thin leaves resemble a coreopsis family member, but their whorled pattern around the stem is responsible for the species name. Surprise, surprise, the favorite habitat of this one to three foot tall plant is a place in dry prairies with chalky or limestone soils, so my yard is as much of an Eden for Whorled Milkweed as it is for me.  I'd just never seen it before.

Whorled Milkweed, also known as Horsetail Milkweed, grows in colonies just as depicted in the photograph to the left, and it is poisonous to livestock.  Luckily, it tastes so bad that it is rarely consumed from the pasture.  Whorled Milkweed, as other milkweeds, may contain cardiotoxins and neurotoxins, and dosages as low as 0.1% to 0.5% of body weight may cause death in hooved animal species.  The toxins are not inactivated by drying; thus the biggest danger to livestock is the feeding of hay containing the plant.  Clinical signs include profuse salivation, incoordination, seizures, and gastrointestinal upset and death may occur 1-3 days after ingestion.  So, all in all, the presence of this plant in my backyard may not be so exciting as it first seemed.  I need to remember not to cut my backyard for hay to feed to the donkeys, and I may have to watch that the dog doesn't take a bite of the plant, but otherwise I'm glad that Whorled Milkweed is back in my prairie.  

Glowing Amy Robsart

'Amy Robsart'

I was happy this Spring to see the first full bloom I've gotten from R. rubiginosa  hybrid 'Amy Robsart'.  I planted her in the Fall of 2012 and last year she went from a rooted start to about 2 feet tall and had only a few sporadic blooms.  This year, she's gone from 2 feet to about 5 feet tall and she looks to become a massive bush in time.

The blooms of 'Amy Robsart' have completely met my expectations and surpassed them.  The single blooms are larger than the species R. rubiginosa (eglanteria), and they are so bright pink that they glow with an internal light and pop out against the bright foliage.  I was absolutely smitten with the otherwordly contrast of the yellow stamens over the small white center of the flower, with that bright, almost translucent pink all around.  'Amy Robsart' gets mild to moderate blackspot in my garden depending on the time of year.  Her foliage has the same green apple fragrance of the species, but is a bit lighter.

'Amy Robsart' in front of lighter pink  'John Davis'

'Amy Robsart' was bred by Lord Penzance before 1894.  Her parentage is described as Rosa rubiginosa var. camadrae R. Keller X Rosa foetida Herrm.   Peter Beales, in his Roses text, described her as "dull for most of the year but spectacular in full bloom."  I agree.  The bush is very healthy, and already, as a youngster, she has the look of a monster that will sprawl over everything around her.  In my garden she looks to reach her advertised 10' X 8' stature and become a thug.  She is hardy to Zone 4 and had no dieback in my tough winter last year.   'Amy Robsart' does form sporadic hips which turn orange-red in Autumn.   

I've got 'Amy Robsart' planted next to my species R. rubiginosa so that I could directly compare them, and if I were only to grow one, it would be 'Amy Robsart' rather than the species.  She has a fabulous bright flower, and is more garden-worthy, even if the fragrance of the foliage is not quite as strong as the species.    

A Shade Of Relief

 At last, my shade house is complete.  I took advantage of a cool Sunday last week to finish attaching the baseboards, stretch the cover, and secure it in place.  A cool Sunday in the late June of Kansas means that by 2:00 p.m. I was still roasted and mildly dehydrated in the low 90's temps, but, hey, it was done.

It is astonishing what the presence of a mere high tunnel shade house does to the aura of a garden.  It immediately feels like the garden is composed less of a series of beds plopped into the middle of prairie grass, and instead it promotes a sense of a purposeful and planned garden.  Despite placement deep down into the vegetable garden and off to the side, its existence somehow balances the overall garden.  "Here," it says, "is a thoughtful and determined gardener."  Thank God, I was able to erect it well enough that it isn't askew and disclosing the gardeners complete desperation to fight the searing Kansas sun.   I should also be thankful that I didn't erect a real greenhouse else I'd have delusions that I might someday become a decent gardener instead of a serial plant killer.

If you ignore the weeds in front and behind the structure, the laughing masses of weeds that I swear weren't there two days ago, you'll see that I followed my original purpose and placed it around and over my very pampered strawberry bed.  I've done about everything I can now, mulching the strawberries in black plastic so that the natural rain is concentrated in the rows and the competition of weeds is lessened.  I've run drip hoses up and down the rows so that the mere turn of a faucet at the house can mitigate the July scorch of the prairies.  I'm carefully directing runners back into the rows, to fill in the bare spaces and increase the yield.  Now I must merely wait through Fall, Winter, and Spring to harvest the fruits of my labors, hoping all along that Winter doesn't get too cold and dry or that Spring doesn't recognize the humor of a late freeze.   A garden might not provide fruit or sustenance, but every day it provides the gardener a lesson about the virtues of tolerance and patience.

A Garden Love Story

Time stood still in my garden today.  Time stood still while I paused to absorb a lesson of love and tolerance from two very different creatures thrown together by the whim of chance and the necessities of other lives.  My garden is a witness every day to a love that should not be, a love that few dare to speak of,  a Romeo and Juliet joining of souls so vastly different that they trivialize the Shakespearean plot.  Moose, my skinny garden predator, and Bella, the puppy replacing a daughter, are the picture of bliss in the brief moments they share.  No seconds are wasted marveling over their friendship, they know only the rapture of each other's company.

Cat and dog, as differently matched as the sun and moon, are yet alike in their huge hearts, their simple joy from the touch of another warm body.  Bella is a lover, happy to see anyone and everyone crossing her path.  Moose is more restrained, but just as desperate for attention as Bella is to provide it.  Many are those who live only in search of that one perfect love, exciting and exuberant,  joyfully unrestrained in the celebration of another's presence.  Bella and Moose are content in their forbidden love.

 

Moose waits continually by the front door, pacing patiently for Bella to visit the garden.  Millie, his former close companion, has been missing for some time now and hes increasingly lonely.  Bella paces the floors indoors, watching through the front and back windows for a glimpse of the other, begging to go outside as often as she can convince her master that she could possibly require a visit into nature.  Outside, they fly together, the cat swooping in to tease the dog, the dog using weight and leverage to pin and muzzle the cat.  Never is a claw or fang unsheathed, the weapons of the predators set aside for a cuddled eternity, as playful and tender and caring of the other as any other loving pair.  Finally, the impatient owner pulls them apart to encourage attention to the business at hand. 

My sainted mother often says "There's a fool for every fool", an expression she normally reserves for human couples who she perceives as individually flawed, but perfectly matched.  It surely applies here as well, the match between the ebullient puppy and the lonely cat, each filling a need in the other.  It's a lesson that this gardener needs to assimilate, a willingness to seek peace in the midst of diversity, an acceptance of different to support the beginnings of love. 

New Camera, New Garden

ProfessorRoush has a new camera.  Nothing really fancy, but I am setting aside my beat up and almost 10 year old Canon Rebel in favor of modern file sizes  rather than files that are no bigger than those on my iPhone 5.  The Canon was still okay, as evidenced by the couple of thousand pictures on this blog, but it had some autofocusing problems and was pretty battle-scarred.





The new camera is a Nikon D3300...kind of bottom of the line for Nikon DSLR's, but with most of the picture quality of the big boys.  In a few brief pictures yesterday, I established that it was working well and focusing better on auto than my Canon and it was going to help improve my photos.  But I was in for a big surprise.  In selecting cameras, I tend to ignore the bells and whistles of camera special effects because I was trained on film, where the best you could do was manipulate F stops and shutter speed unless you used a filter.  These new cameras are entirely another animal.

This morning, playing for 20 minutes while I walked the dog, the special effect modes are sucking me into the depths of an exciting new world.  Some of them are simple.  The picture to the right shows deep red 'Kashmir', taken this morning in low light on automatic exposure.  Like all digital cameras I've ever known, this Nikon has a problem with reds, oversaturating them. The picture at the top, however, of deep red 'Kashmir', was taken with the "low-key" effect.  Much better for color, don't you think?

There's another special effect that I already know is going to get ever more use as well; the "selective color" effect.  Take the non-descript peach daylily to the left above.  If I use the camera to pick out the yellow of the throat and use the selective color effect, I get a pretty boring photo like the one to the left.



But if I take a photo of a more vivid pink daylily with a yellow throat like the one at the right, and then, keeping the effect on and using the yellow chosen from the first yellow daylily above as a selective color, I get the picture below:

Like, Wow!, right?  The possibilities for just this one special effect are almost endless and I have a feeling I'm going to be spending a lot of time hunched over with a camera in my garden in the next few days.  The pictures above are all just exploratory photos taken within my first half-hour of using this camera, not really worrying about holding the camera still or picking the best bloom or lighting.  There's a whole new garden waiting out there.  And I'm chomping at the bit to see what the "super vivid" effect can do with a Kansas sunset!

Pleasing Combos, Native or Not

A recent post by Gaia Gardener about nice combinations of native prairie plants was timely and I made a mental note to blog this combination, of butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) and catnip (Nepeta cataria) that sprung up voluntarily in my back garden.  This one is for you, Gaia!   I now have 8 or so Asclepias volunteers around the yard and I've blogged before about my accidental combination of Asclepias and a 'Fiesta' forsythia.   The catnip simply grows everywhere.  I fact, I weed out more of the catnip than I permit to  grow.   I wonder if the daylily in the foreground will bloom in time to add to the display?








Gaia's post also reminded me to occasionally look beyond the roses and view the rest of my garden, and while I was in a mood to appreciate plant combinations, there were several other combinations that were particularly pleasing to me at this time of year.   Here is an iPhone photograph of a couple of  recently planted lilies against the backdrop of tall, stiff 'Karl Foerster'.  I'm not that fond of "Karl", but even blurred in the Kansas wind, as it is here, it makes a good foil for the flowers.  The pink blooms intruding at the lower right are Griffith Buck rose 'Country Dancer'.








You should always assume that any pleasing plant combination in my garden is the result of a happy accident because, well, because that's exactly what it is.  I'm a plant collector by heart and I tend to plop down any new plant that tickles my fancy into the next open available spot, full speed ahead and ignoring the dangers of clashing colors and inappropriate size differentials and wildly differing growth patterns.  They can always be moved if they prove they can survive the Kansas climate, right?  Here, one of the more colorful lilies has opened up against the fading 'Basye's Purple Rose'.  The deep reddish-purple rose makes a nice contrast to the more orange-red lily.






It's probably now obvious that within the past couple of years, I realized that Asiatic, Oriental, and Orientpet lilies are useful to fill in the dreary period between the end of the first wave of roses and the cheery summer daylilies.  I'm seeing the payoff from planting a lot of lily bulbs into the beds the past two summers.  Here, a nicely colored lily blooms in front of a Yucca filamentosa 'Golden Sword', both in the foreground of a nice, light pink 'Bonica' shrub rose.

Soon, the lilies will fade and other accidental combinations will quietly bid for my attentions.  The next round of blooms will be the colorful daylilies against other neighboring plants, and then the late summer flowers such black-eyed susans and daisies will hold center stage, and finally grasses will become the focus of the garden.  And then another growing year, along with all its fleeting combinations, will be gone. 

Glowing Fire

I'm sure that we all could cite an example of a great idea that was ultimately poorly executed.   In my opinion,  'Morden Fireglow', a Parkland Series Ag Canada shrub, is one of those great ideas that needed a little more refinement before it was rolled out to Main Street.

I've grown two 'Morden Fireglow' roses, one at the old house and one here on the prairie, and I really can't say enough about that eye-dazzling color (officially he is "scarlet red"), but the unique bloom color is where my enthusiasm for this rose ends.  Everyone who sees it wants to grow it because those bright, orange-red, loosely double blooms really stand out against the bright green foliage.  Neither bush that I've grown, however, is anywhere near what I'd call a vigorous rose.  It lives, and it doesn't have any appreciable dieback in cold winters, but it also has never grown over 2.5 feet tall or wide in my gardens. 'Morden Fireglow' starts out the season okay, but then seems to either suffer from heat or fungus or both.  It struggles. and then fades away in the late summer.  This is a rose that I have to occasionally spray for blackspot just to help it keep a few of those semiglossy leaves into Fall.   

'Morden Fireglow' was bred by Henry Marshall in 1976 and introduced in Canada in 1989.  It was a complex cross of [{(*Rosa arkansana x Assiniboine* x White Bouquet) x Prairie Princess} x Morden Amorette] x 'Morden Cardinette' according to Internet records.  He bears his small (3" diameter) blooms in clusters and blooms have a cupped, open, and loosely arranged form.  There is no fragrance that I can detect. I see three to four flushes over a season, with some periods of no bloom at all in between, and I wouldn't say 'Morden Fireglow' is an overly floriferous rose.  I agree with one Internet writer that listed 'Morden Fireglow' as the worst of a group of around 12 Canadian and Rugosa roses in their garden in terms of floriferousness.  The same source also stated, "Morden Fireglow is sort of weird in that the center petals don't ever seem to unfurl, while the outer petals do."  I think you can see what that individual is talking about in both pictures here on this blog entry.  Several references suggest that 'Morden Fireglow' has large hips in the Fall, but I don't deadhead my bush and I've never seen any on my bushes after growing it for 15 years.

If you can't live without adding this bloom color in your garden (and the pictures here are pretty representative of the actual color in my garden), then by all means go ahead and grow the thing.  Be advised, however, that 'Morden Fireglow' will take a bit of coddling and that, because of its low height, you'll need to put it in the front of a border for it to put on a display.

A Beautiful Blemished Rose

ProfessorRoush has waited for years to discuss 'Lèda', the classic painted Damask rose.  I've waited because she never seemed to have a good year; as a young bush she often had only a few flowers that would always be destroyed by Spring rains, fungus, storms, or various other environmental influences.  This year, I believed, was Lèda's year.  She was not hurt at all by our tough winter, keeping her three foot stature without dieback.  Hundreds of perfect buds followed, the bush loaded with the promise of delicate beauty about to be revealed for my world.  An early flower opened to tease me with a taste of heaven.


And then she disappointed me once again.  Rains in May, just as the photo at the right was taken, turned the rest of the ready-to-open blossoms to brown botrytis-blighted mops right as they began to open.  The few that opened completely were marred, beauty stolen in the night.  Hundreds were completely browned, with a very few only mildly disfigured, like the flower pictured below.  Even worse, I think her annual problems are entirely limited to me since she is raved about in every other reference I can find.  Perhaps the former Queen of Sparta is still mad about Zeus seducing her in the guise of a swan but for some reason she only displays her anger here on the Kansas prairie.



'Lèda', also known as the Painted Damask rose, is a near white Damask bred before 1827.  She has a strong fragrance and displays, when she's not marred, a very double, reflexed, button-eye bloom form.  Some sources say she has repeat later in the season, but I've never seen it.  That's too bad, because later blooms in my annual dry July or August might not be damaged.  In my garden, at 5 years old, she's reached 3 feet tall and across, a round bush with dark green foliage.  The foliage and bush, at least, are healthy.  

I'm about to give up on 'Lèda'.  Her beauty is either not meant for this world, or at the very least not meant for Kansas.  To paraphrase Longfellow, "When she is good she is very very good, but when she is bad she is horrid."

Persicaria polymorpha

Now that's a mouth full of Latin, isn't it?  I believe that you'll find that if you say it fast three times, Persicaria polymorpha is easier, however, than repeating "giant fleeceflower" quickly three times.  This beast of a plant lives in my front landscaping, near the walkway, and it always causes a scene when a visiting gardener sees it in flower.

I discovered it myself several years ago while on a gardening tour in the neighboring county where it was shining brightly and stealing the show at a friend's garden.  I immediately left the tour and proceeded to my then-favorite garden center to ask if she had any.  Thankfully, she had one small plant left over from a custom order for a landscape job and I took it home and planted into a nice spot.  One thing to admire about Persicaria;  a small plant will flower and one year later it will be spectacular!


I called my giant fleeceflower a beast, but, other than its size, it is an impeccably well-restrained garden citizen.  Actually a strain of knotweed, Persicaria polymorpha might flop on some more diminutive neighbors after a heavy rain, but it will soon stand itself back up (mostly) as it dries.  It helps if you don't ever fertilize giant fleeceflower, starving its growth to stay within the constraints of its genes.  It doesn't spread by runners or self-seed, as far as I can determine.  I've recently divided my now 5 foot diameter clump to start others in my garden and it is as simple as dividing a daylily.  Well, perhaps similar to dividing a slightly tough-rooted daylily.    I'd certainly recommend putting it among shrubs or perennials.  Standing alone in a lawn, Persicaria will just look like a big weed you should have removed.


Persicaria polymorpha was formerly known as Polygonum polymorphum.  Because of its good behavior, some speculate that it is a hybrid, rather than a species.  It grows about 5 foot tall, takes all the drought and sun you can throw at it, and is hardy in the worst of my Zone 5 winters.  A perennial, all the care that giant fleeceflower needs is to cut it to the ground each spring.  No pests seem to bother it, it blooms all summer long from early June through mid-September, and those creamy white panicles don't brown and enter an ugly phase.  Even in my hot Kansas sun, I might call them a little "toasted", but they primarily stay creamy for a long time and then turn reddish-brown in fall.  I leave them on all winter to provide some structure in the snows.