Happy Surprises

Gardening is full of surprises.  Although I've just said it, I think most gardeners already know that.  I've been both pleasantly surprised and unpleasantly surprised,  however, by the notion that the longer I garden, the more surprises I get.

This "Surprise Lily", hidden behind a dwarf Alberta Spruce and in front of a struggling clematis, is an example of the mixed benefits of garden serendipity.  I love Surprise Lilies because they pop up and glow at a time of summer here when everything else looks tired and worn out.  I also enjoy the slightly naughty feeling that this old man gets from having "Naked Ladies," as they are sometimes called, randomly showing up in my garden.  I didn't get any titillating joy out of finding this clump, however, because I'm pretty sure that I never planted any bulbs here.  And I've never heard that they can self-seed and spread themselves around a garden, other than by lateral bulb-lets.  So that leaves me the choice of either accepting another bit of evidence that my memory is fading, or that I've witnessed a garden miracle of reproduction.  Because neither of these are likely explanations, I think I'm going to settle the mystery and tell others that a squirrel dug up some bulbs and transplanted them here, even though the nearest tree large enough to support a squirrel is over 1/2 mile away.   

I've also been surprised this summer by the performance of a pair of $5 misnamed roses purchased at Home Depot.  As I mentioned previously, I saw this striped rose mislabeled as 'Love' back in May on a "two for $10" sale, took a chance, and bought two.  Both bushes have settled in, are repeat blooming their heads off, and have no blackspot at all.  I don't know what they really are.  I initially thought they were two different striped cultivars, but now I think they are the same variety.  Their rebloom cycle is too rapid for any of the remonant old garden striped roses I've grown.  They're fragrant but not as tall nor as fragrant as 'Honorine de Brabant' and they are also shorter and more Floribunda-bush-form than my 'Ferdinand Pichard'.  Regardless, if they make it through winter unprotected, for $10, I've got two great garden roses that I will always enjoy.  Now there is a surprise without any reservations to spoil it.

Fifty Tools

Somewhere in my busy summer, I found time to read this recent tome, A History of the Garden in Fifty Tools, by Bill Laws.  I actually paid full price for this recent release (February, 2014), rather than my usual modus operandi of browsing the used book shops for garden reads.  I tend to like to read about gardening tools and their variations, and I was pretty excited to get hold of it.  

In A History of the Garden in Fifty Tools, Bill Laws covers the history of just about every garden tool you can imagine and some that you probably didn't know about. The history and information presented about each tool was interesting, and Laws covered the development of most of his chosen tools from the Stone Age to modern times. The tools are organized into 5 chapters, the flower garden, kitchen garden, orchard, lawn, and ornamental garden, which sometimes made me feel that some tools were a bit misplaced in order because I use some differently than Laws placed them.  I also have to admit that I was disappointed by the time I finished Fifty Tools.  I think my biggest issue is that the info was dryly presented and began to drag a bit for me a bit as I got used to the format.   I'll tell you this, I didn't count them, but by the time you finish the book, you'll think you've read about more than 50 tools.

I confess that I had built up a lot of anticipation for this book, and to give the author the benefit of doubt, perhaps the problem lies with me, rather than the reading material.   I just never got into it; reading page after page like it was material from a textbook, rather than a summer novel.  It's one of those books I finished, but I struggled to maintain interest, somewhat like I've done  in the past with long Stephan King novels.  By the time I'm too far in to quit, I'm thinking, "God, just let me get it over."  If you're just nuts on garden tools, you may like this book, but my suggestion first would be to read Tools of the Earth by Jeff Taylor and Rich Iwasaki.  I read the latter years ago and it is so good that I will probably read it again soon.

Conrad Ferdinand Meyer

If there were a rose that I would describe as a "mixed blessing", it would have to be  'Conrad Ferdinand Meyer', a 1897 cross by Dr. Franz Hermann Müller between seed parent 'Germanica' and a seeding from a cross of 'Gloire de Dijon' and 'Duc de Rohan'.  Classified as a Hybrid Rugosa because of the 'Germanica' parent, the popular 'CFM' is mentioned in almost every magazine article that lists Rugosas.  Still, having grown it myself for a number of years, I sometimes wonder at the sanity of those who grow it.  Perhaps the mental instability of its namesake, Swedish poet and historical novelist Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, has rubbed off on the rosarians who grow the rose.

'CFM' does have many positive attributes to separate it from other Hybrid Rugosas.  The double blooms and soft silvery pink color are more similar to a "modern" rose than other Rugosa hybrids; the latter often flattened, semi-double mauve-ish flowers in form.  The blooms are large (more than 4 inches in diameter in my garden), borne in small clusters, and repeat sporadically over the season.  'Conrad Ferdinand Meyer' is also very, very fragrant, even for a Rugosa.  The bush is cane-hardy in my garden, with only minimal tip dieback in the worst winters.  All of these, but especially the fragrance, are reasons why I grow this rose.  No one who sees this bush questions my sanity. 



But it has a number of negative attributes as well.  Blooms tend to ball up like the picture at the right, especially in cold weather.   The matte foliage is not as blackspot resistant as more "rugose"cultivars such as 'Blanc Double de Coubert' or 'Purple Pavement', and my 'CFM' will drop about 75% of its leaves in mid-summer if I don't monitor it.  In areas where rust is common in roses, 'CFM' is notoriously susceptible.  I also wouldn't call it a vigorous rose;  for years I grew it in the middle of native prairie and the nearby grass competed for enough moisture and nutrients to keep it spindly and on the constant verge of death. The thorns are sharp, flat out dangerous and guaranteed to draw blood if you are not careful (I suppose that's a positive if you plant it in front of the window of a teen-age daughter).  The bush is tall, stiff, and ungainly.  The 'CFM' in the Reinsch Rose Garden of Topeka grows over 8 feet tall and wide, magnifying the ugliness of the bush.  My specimen, even after I moved it to a more cultivated bed where it has less competition, has stayed around 5 feet tall and not as wide.   

I do have one final personal observation in favor of this rose.  We don't often see roses included in a list of "deer resistant" plants, but I'm here to testify that 'Conrad Ferdinand Meyer' can take a deer licking and keep on ticking.   You'll recall that Conrad Ferdinand Meyer seems to be the choice of deer that graze in my winter garden.  In the winters of 2012 and 2013, I lost count of the number of pictures my game camera took of deer sampling directly from the bush pictured above and at the left.  And yet they didn't seem to cause much damage on the rose that I could find.  Maybe deer are drawn to it, but the thorns ultimately fend off those velvety deer lips.  All I know is that year after year it looks and performs the same regardless of its dietary contributions to the browsing deer.  The first picture of the overall bush was from May of 2013 and the second from May, 2014, still standing tall after a really tough winter from both deer and weather.