Beautiful Beginnngs

The rose year here in Kansas has begun, and almost every Old Garden Rose and Rugosa is showing at least a bloom or two to heighten my anticipation.  It's going to be a banner year of riotous color here, as it seems all my peonies, irises, and roses, with a few mere exceptions, are going to bloom at the same time.   'Marie Bugnet', 'Harison's Yellow', and 'Therese Bugnet' have already peaked and begun their slide from the limelight and I'm sad about that.  But still to come are the highly-anticipated newcomers, all those new roses who will be introducing themselves to me for the first time.

Today, in fact, I gathered in the first bloom on 'Centrifolia Variegata' and I'm smitten, entranced, enthralled, and simply instantly and deeply in love with this demure lass.  She is foreign-born, a legal immigrant to America that I obtained from a Canadian nursery last year, but I'll excuse her use of "eh?" and "loonie", and her love of Poutine if she keeps blooming like this.  Don't you think her gentle stripes of cream and light pink are just the jam buster of perfection?   This is the rose that I hoped 'Leda' would be.  My one concern is that the fragrance of 'Centrifolia Variegata' is supposed to be strong, but I was underwhelmed by the bouquet of this first blossom.

'Rosa centrifolia variegata' goes by many aliases, among which are Belle des Jardins, Belle Vilageois, Dometil Beccard, and Cottage Maid.  She may also be sold as Village Maid, but some believe that Village Maid is a Gallica of earlier origin.  'Centrifolia variegata' was bred by Jean Pierre Vibert of France in 1839, and even as a first-year bush for me, she just survived one of the driest, coldest winters we've had recently, a winter that knocked established Rugosas back to the ground.  Her very double 2" blossoms open into cupped forms and then quarter or flatten in some instances to display a nice little button center.  My year old bush is about 2.5 feet tall, but I gave her ample space to reach her 4' to 6' foot potential.  Her foliage shows a Gallica heritage, and is rough, matte, and medium-green in color.  There was no blackspot here last season.

Whatever name she goes by, 'Centrifolia Variegata' is striped and everyone knows my weakness for striped roses of any flavor.  They capture the heart of ProfessorRoush like a Canuck loves beavertails.

Bursting with Promise

No, this is not a photograph of a psychedelic alien landscape from a light-lifetime away, nor is it a scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I promise that neither Gene Wilder nor Johnny Depp is going to pop up from those hairy green pillows and sing to you.  And for those who were young adults in the 70's, you should not worry that this is a flashback from an old LSD trip.  This candy-colored scene is brought to us by way of a 1956 single-flowered peony introduction by Falk-Glassock, the aptly named 'Scarlet O'Hara'.

I'm not intentionally trying to imitate Bob Guccione, but these are, in fact, the....ahem....sex parts...from one of my earliest and most favorite peonies.  And what a brazen display Ms. O'Hara is giving us!  She has erected bright red walls to enclose and protect the participants in today's drama.  Inside the scarlet petals, tall golden stamens loaded with pollen are crowded around the shockingly-pink stigmas atop each pistil, a beacon to beckon the bachelors forward.  The swollen pistils beneath the stigmas are already soiled, basking in the afterglow, their hairy buxom surfaces dusted with the golden packages of chromosomes.  I'm not even going to mention the presence of the white foam at the base of the pistils.   But can't you feel the excitement in this photo, the promise of new seed forming and new life beginning?

'Scarlet O'Hara' is a peony that should be in everyone's garden, She stands right now about 3 feet tall, and wide, a crimson beacon shining across my garden.  There is no other scarlet red flower blooming right now for me, and certainly nothing to match the size and vivacity of these 6 inch diameter blossoms.  The photo of the whole plant at the right displays the usual poor reproduction of red tones by a digital camera and it doesn't adequately communicate the true brilliance of color of this peony, but it does give you an idea of the impact of these flowers in a landscape otherwise filled only with green Spring foliage, the blues and golds of irises and the white clusters of a few remaining viburnum blossoms.

Perhaps a  recent wide-angle view of my "peony bed" will emphasize the importance of 'Scarlet O'Hara in the garden.  There she is, at the top of the photo, glowing ahead of the hundreds of bulging buds of other peonies, all aching to follow her lead and explode into 2015.  'Scarlett' O'Hara' exposes promise for us on a microscopic level; the promise that reproduction will always go on, au naturel and without shame for appearance or wantonness.  The other peonies of this bed show their own macroscopic promise of a massive display a year in the making, a spectacular future fireworks created from sunshine and rain and chlorophyll.  Over it all, a concrete cherub urges the peonies to turn their bacchanalia into a more quiet party, to turn a pretentious display into a coordinated and respectful celebration.  Behind the camera, ProfessorRoush, garden voyeur extraordinaire, breathlessly awaits the chorus to come.      

Promise within and promise without.  Of countless such moments, a garden made.

Cynical Composting

Some years back, ProfessorRoush ran across some compostable water bottles at a Starbucks in Seattle and, because of the skepticism deeply embedded in my academic soul, I thought it would be a neat idea to try to bring them back in my luggage and test their compost-worthiness at home.  Unfortunately, the TSA must have deemed the empty bottles in my checked bags as a potential terrorist threat because the bottles were not in my suitcase upon my arrival at home.

I was more fortunate last year when I ran into these certified compostable cups at a pizza parlor in Fort Collins, and I was able to ultimately get them into my 65 gallon Lifetime tumbling compost bin by sneaking them home in my car past the marijuana-alert sentries on the Kansas border.

These Eco-Product® cold cups are, as printed on the cups, certified by the BPI, or Biodegradable Products Institute, to be compostable in a municipal or commercial composting facility.  The BPI is a "multi-stakeholder association of key individuals and groups from government, industry and academia"....that tests products by written ATSM standards and certifies them.  I should reveal here that whenever I see the popular buzzword "stakeholder" these days, my cynical hackles are immediately raised and my blood pressure rises.  Materials tested by the BPI must include the ability to "biodegrade at a rate comparable to yard trimmings, food scraps and other compostable materials, such as kraft paper bags," and they must "disintegrate, so that no large plastic fragments remain to be screened out."

I placed the new cups pictured in the top photo into my tumbling compost bin on 5/26/2014, along with mature compost and grass clippings.  You can see immediately above this paragraph several periodic photos taken over last summer, a time span when numerous additions of kitchen scraps, grass clippings, other organic materials, and water were composted in the pile alongside these cups.  The cups did not disintegrate, as you can see, although they flattened and tore, probably from the repeated tumbling alongside wet and heavy clumps of compost.  The organic materials in the bin repeatedly became decent, black homogeneous compost with which any gardener would be happy.

This week, almost 11 months after the start of the experiment, I again opened the compost bin and found the cups as photographed yesterday and shown at right.  Now, in fairness, I should note that the BPI website states clearly that these products are not meant for home compost piles, but only for "well-managed municipal and commercial facilities."  Home composters "typically do not generate the temperatures needed to assure rapid biodegradation of this new class of materials. For this reason, claims are limited to larger facilities."

That's all well and good, friends, and I can accept that ProfessorRoush is likely a terrible composter, but shouldn't we at least expect that now, 11 months later, the ink would faded and illegible?

Furthermore, and while I'm on a rant, what exactly constitutes an "acceptable municipal facility?"  Does my local county recycling facility, which routinely composts leaves and other materials, qualify?  It isn't listed at the findacomposter.com website printed on the cups, nor is any other facility within 50 miles of me.  How many of these cups would actually make it into a "well-managed commercial facility" anyway, rather than just being tossed into the restaurant waste cans with all the other debris and taken to the usual county shredding facilities?  How much more energy and chemical processing is involved in making these cups over the standard red plastic cups that we love to make so much fun of?  Which is more likely to be recycled and have the least long-term environmental impact?  Is this merely more marketing misinformation to muddle the minds of the masses?

I can't help thinking that while compostable cups make us all feel good, this whole certification system seems designed just to keep us from noticing the man behind the curtain while we slurp the Koolaid of environmental ecstasy.  It is only a matter of time before we'll hear offers for a free carton of these cups with every thousand carbon credits we purchase.

Snakes, Rats, Rain, and Thunder

Mindful of President Bush's somewhat premature declaration of victory in Iraq over a decade back, I'm not ready to declare victory against the pack rats, but I'm winning.  My current casualty count is up to eight pack rats with the addition of a nice plump peanut-butter loving rodent this morning.

However, during my disposal of said carcass from the battlefield, I glanced down to find this quite docile little cutie trying to hide next to the rocks.  There's no size scale to the picture below, so you probably can't tell that he was only about a foot long .  If he was contemplating swallowing the nearby pack rat carcass whole, then I'll give him credit for courage because that would be quite a feat for a pencil-thin snake.

This is a ringneck snake (Diadophis punctatus), probably a southern ringneck (D. p. punctatus).  It lives almost everywhere in the United States, but is nocturnal and seldom seen because it spends most of it's time hidden under rocks, logs, or debris during the day.  I've seen exactly three in my lifetime.  This one, another little 4 inch long baby that was under a stepping stone that I moved last week, and the third, another small one seen about 8 years back when I lifted a stone.  Are my two recent sightings a coincidence or a sign of increasing population density?  Gracious, perhaps it was caused by global warming!

In Kansas, a long-term mark-recapture study of snakes was performed by naturalist Henry Sheldon Fitch (1909-2009), the former Superintendent of the University of Kansas Natural History Reservation.   Professor Fitch estimated that ringneck snakes commonly exist at densities greater than 700-1800 per hectare (2.47 acres) in this area, suggesting that on my 20 acres there are likely over 6000 of these little guys slithering around.  Thank God that I'm no longer scared of snakes, partially desensitized after a zillion encounters with them here on the prairie.  Ringneck snakes are both predator and prey in this ecosystem, and mildly venomous due the presence of a Duvernoy's gland behind their eye, but of no danger to humans. They eat earthworms, slugs, amphibians, lizards, and other small snakes during their nightly forages.  If you want to know more about how many snakes are likely living in my backyard, you can read Professor Fitch's paper, Population Structure and Biomass of Some Common Snakes in Central North America  online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.  Just don't tell me about it because I'm probably better off if I don't know the actual numbers of other snake species around me.

I wish now that I would have reached down and given this little guy a nudge (with a stick of course), because the dull brown top of his body hides a beautiful yellow underbelly that they expose when touched.  On second thought, however, maybe I'll just keep from forming a habit of poking snakes.  With 6000 of them around, you never know what they might dream up together as a form of revenge.

One final thought; the drought seems to be ending here today.  At noon today we had a year-to-date total of 5 inches of rain, with a deficit-to-date of 2.95 inches.  But it rained buckets all afternoon and the local news at 9:00 said an official total of 3.65 inches fell today in Manhattan and it is still raining tonight.  Even better, there are chances of rain (good chances!) for 6 of the next 7 days.  It will take about that much to refill the groundwater reservoirs here, so you won't hear me complaining until the day I need to start building an ark; or until the pack rats and snakes float into the house, whichever comes first.

Pack Rat War; The Second Front

Okay, okay.  I'll end your suspense over the two unaccounted pack rat deaths that I claimed in my last post.

Sometime in late January, I noticed that my John Deere tractor (which I had thought was safely housed in the barn adjacent to the donkey stall) seemed to be sprouting wisps of hay around it.  Hay that I initially thought was just stray debris from carrying bales around it while feeding the donkeys. At one point, however, I chanced to lift the hood off the tractor and found the entire engine compartment stuffed with hay, and bits of donkey food, and rat droppings, and, most irritating of all, blocks of unchewed rat poison that I had placed in the barn this fall to guard against such an occurrence.

Further investigation revealed that there was a pack rat midden growing beneath a mower deck against the wall, and that my tractor was merely a forward position for the pack rat duo who had evidently made my barn their home.  I also realized, as I began to clean out the engine, that a lot of wiring had been chewed bare by the pack rats in their quest for food.  Revenge fueled by anger became my quest.  If they wanted to be fed, then so be it.  I banished the donkey's from the barn, sealed it, and placed out a more enticing table of D-Con pellets mixed with peanut butter.  The initial offering, two entire trays of poison, disappeared in the first night.  Three days later, no more food was disappearing.  At that point, I celebrated my partial victory, kept the barn sealed (sorry, donkeys), and awaited warmer weather.

Recently, I reentered the battlefield, cleared all the debris from the tractor by hand, coated the bare wires with electrical tape, replaced several wiring connectors, and then, with a hose running nearby and several fire extinguishers at hand, I started the tractor quickly and moved it from the barn for a more further cleaning.  Once the tractor was safe, albeit jury-rigged, I backed it into the barn and moved equipment around until I could lift the mower deck off the midden and destroy it.  I found the pair of pack rats at the center, long dead, and I unceremoniously tossed them out into the prairie.

In retrospect, I should have recognized that something was out of hand when I first noticed these cute footprints in the dust on the seat of my tractor.  The brazen little thieves obviously had no concerns about leaving evidence behind that would enable me to track their crime spree.

And, for those now wondering if it was wise for me to throw rat carcasses full of poison onto the prairie, you should know that I had no problems with pack rats in my tractor last year when I had two wonderful cats living in the barn during the winter.  Two wonderful cats that were  likely casualties of the coyotes that roam the prairie at night.  The same coyotes that might just possibly chew on a rat carcass or two if they came across them.  In unconditional war, one uses every weapon available to win.

ProfessorRoush 6, Pack Rats 0

Among my spring chores, one of the nagging little tasks that I kept putting off was the formulation of a siege and eventual frontal attack on a pair of pack rat middens that have encroached across the neutral zone onto my garden.  In particular, the evil pack rat empire has practically destroyed my beloved 'Red Cascade', pictured at right from last year, and I could no ignore the necessity of the mission.  Thus, I carefully planned, and then executed a  temporarily successful campaign.   Believe me, JFK was much less subtle in dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis than I was in my blitzkrieg on the midden.

I began first by surrounding the middens with baited traps since I wanted to eliminate the rats before attacking their castle.  There is, for your information, actually a better mouse trap that the world should be beating a path to.  Those traps, in both mouse and rat sizes are the TomCat Secure Kill Rat Traps, which are easy to set without endangering your own fingers.  In full disclosure, I have received no payback from TomCat, but I'm still endorsing them   The score, in three nights; ProfessorRoush 4, Pack Rats 0.

In a second wave two nights later, I marshaled my tools of assault and began the sacking of Pack Rat Troy. I first used loppers to remove the camouflage that hid the nest so well (left, above).  Now you can see the midden more clearly (photo to the right), and you can see where most of last year's hardwood mulch from the bed has been moved.

I then pulled, raked, and swept all this structure from around and among the rose, cutting canes further down as each layer came off, until I was left with a clean and very much shortened miniature climber (photo to the left).  I'm hopeful that a little sunlight and water and fertilizer will restore this rose soon to its former glory.  As a trophy of war, I also transplanted two self-rooted starts of 'Red Cascade' from near this pile to another part of the garden, an activity that might not have occurred if I had not been provoked into action.  Silver linings and all that.






I know this whole activity seems somewhat cruel to those who hold Nature innocent and feel that its activities should be held beyond human interference, but other innocent bystanders had fallen in harm's way, innocents such as this young nearby hosta that was providing the fresh greens of the pack rat diet.  I couldn't stand by while the rights of neighboring living creatures were eaten away.

Oh, and if you're wondering if I can count and don't know the difference between the casualty rate I claimed in this blog's title versus in the text (6 vs 4), tune in again in a couple of days and I'll tell you how two other pack rat villains met a recent demise in my garden.

It's a Yellow Kind of Day

But, it's a good yellow kind of day.  I was stupendously cheered up last night when I noticed the first few blooms on 'Harison's Yellow' were open.  The recent rose massacre, both from winter and my culling of rose rosette-infected roses, has been dragging down my spirit in the garden, but now as the early roses come storming back, I'm feeling my strength return minute by minute.  Honestly, who could not look on the sunny yellow face of 'Harison's Yellow' and not be smitten by joy?  I'd normally caution you not to sniff this offspring of R. foetida too closely, but in the vicinity of this bush last night, all I could smell was its sweetness.  Perfection, thy name is 'Harison's Yellow'.  At least as long as I don't have to prune you or fight those vicious thorns to cut out deadwood!


My 'Yellow Bird' Magnolia also continues to bloom and please the dickens out of me.  I've got to tell you, the longer this tree is in my garden, the more impressed I am by its winter hardiness, drought resistance and stamina.  There are probably places in the country where it won't thrive, but I strongly recommend it for the Midwest.  It originally started out  for me 5 years ago as a 3 foot tall seedling, but it has now topped me in height and is 6 feet or better, finally outgrowing the top of its protected cage.  Additionally, the bloom period this year has been exceptionally long.  She started blooming this year around April 7th.   I took the picture on the left, below, on April 17th, just after I felt the tree was reaching its peak bloom and right after a rainstorm knocked off some petals.  Yet a week later, on April 24th as shown at the right, she is still blooming and just last night I was admiring the dozen remaining blossoms.  I apologize for the cage, but if you look closely towards the bottom of the tree, you'll notice the bare stems where the deer "pruned" the buds that were outside the woven-wire fence.  It's a necessity to protect this tree for a few more years.

 As I've said before, the "experts" seem to think the emerging green leaves distract from the beauty of the soft yellow flowers, but I disagree.  "Yellow Bird" has light green glossy leaves, which in my mind provide much needed contrast to the blooms and I greatly prefer this form to my bush magnolias who bloom earlier on bare stems.  "To each their own," as the saying goes.  Happily, "Yellow Bird" lives on in Kansas.

Anxious Anticipation

ProfessorRoush seems to have been a little whiny about droughts and diseased roses this Spring, so I thought I would bring a brighter note to the blog, at least for this brief instant.  It is far too early for blooming roses here, except for an errant and precocious 'Marie Bugnet' currently gracing my garden, but I'll show you two roses from which I am anxiously awaiting a return performance this year.

'Snow Pavement', or HANsno, pictured above and at the left, is a rose that I've tried several times to grow from a bit of root rustled from an established plant om town, but I failed miserably until I found a specimen at a big box store last year.  I absolutely love the health and the pale lavender-white blooms of this very rugose Hybrid Rugosa. 'Snow Pavement' was bred by Karl Baum and introduced in 1984.  She grew in my garden last year to approximately 2 feet tall and wide, and should reach her mature 3 foot girth this year.  I saw two bloom cycles last year and I hope I see a few more cycles as this rose matures.  There is a moderate spicy scent.  I am, however, wondering a little about the hardiness of this rose.  Although rated hardy to Zone 3b, our hard winter blasted it down to about a foot tall for me this spring.  Of course, this was an exceptionally bad winter and I've seen several other normally tough Rugosas also smacked down to size, including usually untouched 'Conrad Ferdinand Meyer', 'Purple Pavement', and 'Blanc Double de Coubert', so just this once I'll let it slide.

A seemingly tougher addition to my garden last year was 'Charles Albanel' (pictured at right), another Hybrid Rugosa that is part of the Canadian Explorer Series.  'Charles Albanel' was bred by Svejda in 1970 and introduced in 1982.  He was a very low plant for me all last season, never reaching more than a foot tall, but he doesn't show any winter damage now and is leafing out the entire length of his canes.  He should get taller this year (normal mature height should be about 3 feet).  'Charles Albanel' seems to be a typical but not exceptional hybrid Rugosa, with mauve-rose tones, and untidy blossoms,   'Charles Albanel' is a thorny little guy, however, so I'm glad I've placed him away from the paths.   Like 'Snow Pavement', he is very healthy and I saw no blackspot on either rose last year.

Well, that's as cheery as I can be right now.  Please brace yourself for an upcoming whine about my rat-ridden tractor.

Puddle in Pink

No, the photo at the left is not a diagram of the Florida peninsula that I have outlined in pink to indicate the nesting areas of flamingos or the winter homes of manatees.  Nor am I illustrating coastal erosion nor designating the position of the continental shelf off Tampa Bay.  All of those might be useful illustrations for a discussion or lecture on those topics, but I will refrain from expounding on any of those at the present time.

This IS a rain puddle on my blacktop just past the garage pad.  In fact, it is not just any rain puddle, it is THE rain puddle, the MOST IMPORTANT puddle, the puddle that I seek after every rain to provide me with a first estimate of overnight accumulation when I want to avoid walking to my rain gauge in the morning chill.  Over the years, I've come to know what each area and depth of this puddle means in terms of rain on my prairie.  Small puddle; less than 1/10th of an inch of rain fell.  Medium puddle; rain measured in 10th's.  Large puddle; might have to watch or I'll slip when walking down the hill.  Puddle overflowing the blacktop; so rare here as to be counted with hen's teeth.

As this modest puddle illustrates, however, this past weekend did bring blessed, life-giving rain to us in several small spurts.  First there was 1/10th on Friday, then wind, then another 5/10th's on Saturday morning, then wind, then a bit more rain on Sunday.  I think we got a total of just over an inch.  We need more, meaured in feet, not inches, but at least we are now back above 50% of expected average rain for this time of year.  And the prairie is no longer coated in fine powder like the surface of the moon, nor does my clay contain cracks that Bella might fall into.

The small pink petals outlining the Saturday (larger) puddle and now floating in the smaller Sunday puddle are Redbud blossoms blown down from Mrs. ProfessorRoush's favorite tree.  Yes, the Redbud flowering period has come and again, regrettably, gone here on the Kansas prairie.  Time moves on and the gardener needs to get all those final Spring chores.  I think I saw the first blossom on 'Marie Bugnet' last night from the window.  If so, it is several weeks early, and I am running several weeks late..

sesoR deredruM

In homage to my daughter's love of The Shining, and for Danny Lloyd's great child acting in the movie of the same name, you should read the title of this entry backwards to find the true meaning....

I had a sad start to this gardening year as I assessed the damages done by our recent cold dry Winter and still dry Spring, but I still had to face the worst moments of the season last week during my garden spring cleanup.  This Spring will hereafter live in my memory as "The Year of the Springtime Rose Massacre."  I set forth a couple of weeks ago with sharpened secateurs, honed trimmers and spade, intent on ridding my garden of any visible signs of Rose Rosette disease.  'Amiga Mia', 'Aunt Honey', 'Frau Karl Druschki', and 'Benjamin Britten' were ruthlessly ripped at young ages from my Kansas soil.  Shovel-pruned alongside them were 'Altissimo', 'Gene Boerner', 'Grootendorst Supreme', 'Calico Gal', 'Golden Princess', and 'Butterfly Magic'.  I was particularly sorry to sacrifice my favorite siblings 'Mme Isaac Pereire' and 'Mme Ernest Calvat', and I will miss their intense perfumes and come-hither blossoms this summer.  A once-blooming climber from a previous rose rustling episode was yet another casualty, forever destined to be an unnamed memory.  With malice in mind, I also took advantage of the wholesale slaughter to rub out 'Sally Holmes'.  "Sally Homely", as I refer to her, was only showing questionable signs of Rosette disease, but I pruned her on principle, a token offering to the God of Healthy Roses.

Only 'Folksinger' remains as a possible Rosette Typhoid Mary in my garden, on life support since I know she was previously infected, but in her defense she has shown no further signs since a low cane-pruning early last year, and her new growth all looks healthy at this time.  Of note, 'Golden Princess' was the second I have lost to unmistakable signs of Rose Rosette.  Out of 200+ individual roses, is that a coincidence, or is this cultivar unusually susceptible to Rose Rosette?  And stalwart survivors 'Purple Pavement' and 'Blanc Double de Coubert' died back to their roots this year.  Did these tough old Rugosas succumb only to the cold and drought of winter, or are they also silent casualties of Rosette infection?  Both appear right now to be growing back from their roots, but I've never seen the slightest winter kill before on either rose here in Kansas.

Today, I aim to continue the rose carnage, but this time I'm facing a different foe.  My beloved 'Red Cascade' was a victim of a pack rat blitzkreig this winter and I'm going to destroy their nest and free him from bondage,  You can see the mulch-formed mass of the nest in the center of the picture at the left, surrounded by all the dead and sick 'Red Cascade' canes.  I'm sure my counterattack will involve a great loss of innocent young rose canes, but I will not rest until the fascist pack rats have been pushed back to their prairie homeland.

Gifts of Spring

Spring has arrived, according to both the calendar and the plants here at GardenMusingsLand, but the gardener is only reluctantly going along with the flow.  I just can't seem to get into the season while the absence of rain keeps the green world subdued and the dust rises every place I touch the earth.  On a positive note, I'm about 75% through all my Spring chores, including trimming back most of the roses.  The roses were hit hard this year between the continuing drought and the early cold November and the Rose Rosette casualties.  I'll post more detail on the latter subject at a later date.

You can see, however, from the picture above, taken yesterday, that my garden has decided to move on without me.   While the winter was tough on the roses, the lilacs seem to be having a glorious year.  'Annabelle', at the lower left of this photo, is spectacular in bloom next to the beloved redbud of Mrs. ProfessorRoush and the full-bloom of the 'North Star' cherry tree in the right foreground.  If you stand in front of my garage doors right now, the fragrance from the 7 lilacs behind 'Annabelle' is almost overwhelming.  I don't even mind the stupid compost tumbler photobombing the picture.

Spring, and the kindness of strangers, has provided other gifts to my garden.  The bulbs at the right are 'Kaveri', a new OA (Oriental Asiatic' lilium hybrid  from breeder Ko Klaver and Longfield Gardens.  They were provided to me just yesterday for evaluation from the Garden Media Group and I planted them shortly after arrival.   OA hybrids are supposed to combine the high bud count and early bloom time of the Asiatics with the fragrance and size of an Oriental.  I'll let you know how they grew here in the summer once they have bloomed.

Similarly, now that the ground has thawed and I am planting again, I finally had the chance to try out these "Honey Badger" gloves sent to me last Fall.   They're a clever idea, but in full disclosure they need much finer and softer soil than I can find in this area.  I found them much less useful than a stout trowel in my hard clay soil, particularly where the flint chips are mixed in.  Kids, however, would absolutely love them for digging, so if you've got grandchildren or neighbor children "helping out" in your garden, they are great for a memory.  The clacking sound you can make with the claws is a bit entertaining as well, but old gardeners need no help to futher their eccentric persona.

Sheaves of Miscanthus

♫Bringing in the Sheaves, ♪Bringing in the Sheaves, ♪ProfessorRoush Rejoicing Bringing in the Sheaves.♫

This was a glorious golden day here in northeastern Kansas.  Gentle sun, mild wind,  A mid-day high of 66ºF.  Perfect for a work-starved gardener who was aching to get his hands into the dirt again.  It was one of the spectacular dozen days we get here every year, the majority in early Spring, with two or three left for September.  That's right, twelve perfect days a year is all I can count on here and one is already gone.  Actually, at least three are gone because there were two great days this week that I missed entirely while I perfected my indoor fluorescent tan at work.

I was almost sidetracked today by an early morning veterinary emergency, but I was home by 11:30 a.m. and in the garden by noon.   My first move was to uncover my formerly beautiful strawberry patch, praying that green budding strawberry plants would lay beneath the straw and deer droppings.  And there they were, rumpled and a bit put out from missing several good days of sunshine, but seemingly game to get going.  Since the ground was dry clay powder to the depth of 2-3 inches, I watered them, and surrounded the unsheathed shade house by a stretch of snow fence in an effort to keep the deer from sampling the new foliage.   My strawberry dream is still intact, still safe despite the very real potential of late snows, marauding creatures, drowning rains, drought, and perhaps a plague of locusts.

You can see from the picture above that I also cut back the majority of my ornamental grasses, shortening the average height of my garden by half in a single afternoon.  Tying each bunch into a sheave before cutting it off  is a little trick I learned several years ago to help me keep the garden tidy (or, more truthfully, to keep Mrs. ProfessorRoush from complaining about my habit of strewing grass stems all over the garden).  As an added bonus, seeing all those sheaves of grass standing and waiting to be cut touches an ancient spot buried deep in my psyche, connecting me to those first agriculturists who decided that grain might be a little tough to chew, but it was surely better than being trampled by a Mastodon.  Indeed, Mastodons may be gone from Kansas, but the grasses and strawberries and I struggle on, rejoicing in each perfect golden day that we can..

Begging On My Knees

Even the strongest relationships have to dig through rocky ground from time to time, and the bond between my garden and I has been similarly strained to the breaking point.  I admit that I have neglected her over the winter, lavishing my attentions on other interests, and, in turn, she has given me only cold and brief bitter love for the past few months.  She, too, has turned to others, allowing deer to roam over her surface at will, letting pack rats and rabbits nibble her most delicate stems, while showing me only unmade beds and unkept tresses.  Here, in early March, I've experienced weeks of cold beds and stony silence and we are, understandably, no longer on good speaking terms.

Yesterday, I sensed a slight thaw to the distance between us, and I took advantage of the first warm Saturday in eons to shower my darling with attention and patch up our difficulties.  Although my enthusiasm was low, I put on a brave face and began cleaning up the front landscape, removing the blemishes of winter, kneeling at the feet of the Goddess Gaia and freshening her couture.  Out went the flattened peonies, the rattling Babtista seed pods, and the hollow stalks of long deceased lilies.  I wrestled with dead thorns and desiccated clematis, shaped willow and arborvitae, and trimmed iris to flattering fans.

Yet still, beneath the warm mulch, her ground is frozen and hard.  There is little life there, little stirring in her heart.  Oh, a few infant sedums are hiding deep in the mulch and the snow crocus pictured here are trying to lure me back, but Spring is far away and the daffodils have just broken ground and the peonies are absent and tardy.  Other years, I would have been planting seed by now, planning for the ripeness of early June.   This year my garden is making me earn back her love, making me beg for forgiveness, demanding penance for my neglect.

I had a quiet conversation yesterday with  my young, 'Emperor 1' Japanese Maple.  I scratched his bark to its green core and assured myself of his survival, and we agreed between us that the love of a Garden is often fickle and fraught with communication issues and wandering attentions.  Consoled with the companionship of another lucky winter survivor, I put my tools back away, biding my time while her affections thaw, another patient suitor who hopes that time and attention will heal the bonds of love.

  

Paradise Lost

I escaped this week from the howling winds,
Fleeing from the tempest in the Northern Plains.
I couldn't bide the bluster of a Polar plunge.
Couldn't face the sleet and snow and absent sun.
I followed skeining geese, I set my compass to the south,
And nested in the orange groves next to Sandhill Cranes.


I spent a week in Paradise, lying on the shores,
Hiding from the storms that reached the Southern Plains
I relished in the glow of tropic sun upon the sand.
Spent time among the skimmers, working on my tan.
I rested like a sleeping bear, I lived the life of ease,
And feasted in the orange groves free of winter's chains.



I'm back now in the winds, the freezing cold I've joined anew,
North I came to bravely face the fact of Winter's reign.
I can no longer skip on life, no longer can I hide,
Duty called, dogs were lame, the donkeys thought I'd died.
I've gathered strength and stored up warmth, I've hid an ember deep,
And rested in the orange groves free from cold and ice and pain.

Bison Bust

ProfessorRoush often, perhaps almost monthly, has the opportunity to travel east of Manhattan towards Topeka on the major traffic tributary of I-70.   Just before Exit 328, on the south side of the road, is a metal shed with the slogan "Know God, Know Peace, No God, No Peace" in large letters that can't be missed by weary passengers from either side of the highway.   Of more immediate interest, to myself and perhaps others, is that the field next to this shed often contains a herd of 30-40 bison, grazing peacefully in the mornings against a virgin backdrop of Kansas prairie.



Recognizing the potential for a great photo or two, every time for the past year that I've headed to Topeka or parts beyond, I've tried to remember to bring my Nikon.  Unfortunately for me, the whole expedition has become an exercise in frustration, or, viewed in more charitable terms, an object lesson in the difficulties of obtaining a perfect photo.  Each time over the year that I have passed the field with a camera in the car, ready to pull over at the slightest glimpse of dark fur and stubby legs, there hasn't been a buffalo in sight.  Or it's during the middle of a thunderstorm.  Or it's too dark to get a usable photo.  On the one or two occasions that I've passed when every condition has been perfect;  buffalo present and during a dazzling and photogenic snowstorm, or in gentle morning sun with perfect light on the prairie, I have always managed to forget the camera.

It was with every good intention to remember the camera that I set out yesterday on the journey.  I was looking forward to the photogenic possibilities the January morning offered;  foggy, misting, and overcast.  The perfect conditions to create a nice mood image of ancient buffalo on the timeless prairie.

And then one mile from the exit, as I began to anticipate the buffalo, it hit me;  no camera!  What a professorial idiot!  Already 25 miles distant from home, I knew I was missing the perfect opportunity but there was no turning back at this point.  All I have, once again, is a haunting iPhone camera remembrance of what might have been the next Twitter sensation.  As I pulled off to the side of the highway, zoomed my lowly iPhone to full magnification, and tried to capture the wary expression of the adult male bison who guarded the rest of the herd, I knew only that once again I had failed miserably, soon slinking away on my travels with only the memory of a perfect photograph lost.

I'm Dreaming....

...that Christmas was white this morning instead of the golden but ubiquitous brown of the
Kansas prairie in winter.  Our White Christmas came a week ago in the form of 5 inches of heavy wet snow that melted within a day of it's arrival.  However fleeting, it made for a glorious morning while it was present.  How I getting out onto the pristine earth after a snowfall; the feeling of solitude and rebirth in a hushed landscape.

The local winter drabness is mitigated when the dried remnants of Fall are reduced to abstract ornaments on a white canvas.  My front landscaping bed might abound with color and texture in early summer, but I would argue that there is no more visual interest at that time than seen in this photo from last week. Remnants of phlox and yellow twigs of euonymous and a golden vase of dried grass contrast exquisitely with the frozen green pot and dark green hollies.   The mad sniffing dog, Bella, can be seen at mid-right, one long soft ear flipped over her head while she tracks some small, helpless, and probably long-gone creature around the hollies and burning bushes.

Bella and I were happy about the snowfall, but, thank you Winter, that's enough.  Leave us now and bring Spring in your wake.  It's hard for a proud dog to track when most of the interesting scents are buried beneath new snow, and it is hard for the gardener to siphon energy from a frozen landscape.  Today, Christmas 2014, is bright and sunny here in Kansas, but not a creature or green leaf yet stirs from winter slumber.  And I in my jammies, and Mrs. ProfessorRoush cooking madly over the stove, will just have to wait, yet, through a long winter's nap.

They're Inside the Perimeter!

In my ongoing series of skirmishes with the fluffy-tailed, cloven-hoofed denizens of my local prairie, ProfessorRoush must admit that some strategic and tactical setbacks have occurred recently.  To be more frank, in less carefully-chosen phrases, I'm losing the battles AND the war.

After my earlier discovery that the local antlered vermin had been feasting each night on my prized strawberry patch, I responded with efforts to fortify the electric fence and increase the nightly watch.  I recently discovered, however, that my trail camera surveillance system had been mysteriously rendered inoperative for the past month.  I've hypothesized that it might have been hacked, in like manner to the recent Sony incursion by the North Koreans.  I don't believe it is too far-fetched, based on current evidence, to imagine a command center of hacker white-tailed deer, sneering behind their computer scenes as they erase any digital evidence of their glutinous feasts and plan further raids.  Regardless of the exact cause of camera failure, I have no recent intelligence of the number and distribution of enemy forces who form nightly incursions into my garden.

Further, early today when I accompanied Bella on her morning duties, I saw, in the melting remains of yesterday's snowfall, evidence that the brazen venison-carriers are now venturing right up to the castle drawbridge.  The first picture, above, is evidence of a hoof print approximately 10 feet from the sidewalk in the front of the house.  The second picture, at left, shows a print mere inches from the front sidewalk, and illustrates that this enemy soldier is probably within range of sampling my infant Japanese maple.

That is suicide bomber range, folks.  I mean DefCon 1, Emergency Alert status, zombie herd is coming, range.   Strap a little C4 to these fleet garden terrorists and they could take out command post and gardener in a single strike.  What am I to do?  I'm afraid the fallout from nuclear strikes in the scrub brush of the draw where they sleep would drift back over home.  I would just cry havoc and release the dogs of war, but my personal "dog of war," Bella the beagle, is a great alarm system but a coward at heart, and that won't work either.  I need a new plan.

Basil Indicator

ProfessorRoush is, at times, an incredibly bad gardener of houseplants.  I am usually able to keep them alive, but, with the exception of an occasional Pothos sp., they don't often thrive under my care.  There is, for example, an infamous episode some years ago during a period when I had approximately 20 thriving orchids and 10 Christmas cacti, all of which would even occasionally bloom.  I adjusted the thermostat when we left for a Christmas vacation and we came home a week later to find that I'd accidentally shut the heat off and the house was hovering at 33ºF.  Not a single orchid survived the episode.  The Christmas cacti sulked for a bit, but eventually decided to give me a second chance. 

I restrict myself these days to Zygocactus and Pothos.  Occasional gifted houseplants and the annual poinsettias are held prisoner and then offered as sacrificial lambs to the houseplant gods to curry their favor in the direction of my Christmas cacti.  In place of the ceremonial altar and a flint knife, I have substituted benign neglect and the arid, desert-like humidity of the natural Kansas environment, watering only when I see signs of wilt.

That practice has not been kind to the mandarin orange and lemon tree that Mrs. ProfessorRoush insisted I add to our floral menagerie.  Both trees spend their summers outdoors on the porch, where it is moderately humid and I frequently forget to water them. They spend their winters indoors where the humidity is very low and I frequently forget to water them. 

Recently, I noticed that my fairly spindly orange tree was wilting at the top (above).  "Wait a minute," I thought, "orange leaves don't wilt; they yellow and fall off."  And indeed, on a closer look, I recognized there was a second stem in the pot; a spindly sun-starved basil that presumably was an offspring from one of our herbs, which also spend summers in pots on the back porch.  You can see the second stem better here at the left.

I'm certainly not going to root up this volunteer.  If a weed is just a plant in the wrong place, this "weed" is in the right place.  Mrs. Basil has done me a favor by going to seed and placing an offspring here in this pot to be nurtured.  The rest of the winter, I think I'll just watch the basil as an indicator for watering this pot and the lemon tree next to it.  Maybe both trees will now have a better chance to live to see another spring.  Besides, the basil smells so good.   

 

Things My Dog Has Taught Me

1.  There should always be time for play.  In the midst of busy days and hectic lives, everyone should find an outlet for release; a doorway to rested minds and exercised bodies.  Bella greets me at the door every night with excitement, her entire body dancing and quivering at the simple joy of the moment.  She demands attention and love, but she has recognized that I subsequently need a few moments to step across the threshold, put down the mail and paper and winter coat, and kick my shoes off.  A minute later, however she'll be at my feet, holding her favorite ball, ready to play with free abandonment of the daily boredom.  If you need a refresher course to remember to live in the moment, watch your dog.


2.  There should also always be time for rest, and our days should align with the Earth's. After spending my early years with dogs who weren't allowed into the house, it is sometimes still astonishing to me that a dog, however well-loved, has become the driver for our household schedule.  Bella makes sure I'm awake early every morning with singular mournful howls of increasing intensity that we will not hear again for 24 hours.   Her "clock" however, is tuned to the sun and this alarm is progressively late as winter rolls on, and reverses as summer approaches.  At night, usually shortly after sunset and sometimes long before I'm ready, she picks up this pillow and then follows us with an expectant look, seemingly surprised that you're not as sleepy as she is.  The switch back from Daylight Savings Time throws her for a loop, and, like me, she still hasn't recovered.

3.  A good morning stretch followed by skin to skin contact is one of the most important pleasures of life and, deserved or not, we should all be able to find a good belly rub whenever we need it.  Every morning, no matter how long I let the howling go on, Bella stretches when I appear; luxurious stretches like she is coming out of a 20-year snooze and just being reborn into the world.  I envy those stretches, that simple re-acquaintment of the mind with the marvelous machinery of muscle and bone.  Afterward, she demands a good vigorous belly rub, simultaneously expressing grateful submission and a plea for a loving touch and warm embrace.  The skin to skin contact with another living being always puts us both in a better mood.  I am less successful in my own attempts to receive a belly rub, however.   I've attempted this insistent pose a few times myself before a sleepy and uncooperative Mrs. ProfessorRoush, and it never seems to work for me.


4.  True love is truly  best defined by the happiness of every moment spent with your love, and the lingering sadness of every moment apart.  My energetic and playful companion mopes when we spontaneously leave, lingering at the doorways until the garage door announces our return.  I find it intriguing that Bella knows the difference between the normal schedule of my leaving for work in the morning and the more spontaneous shopping or errand trips at unexpected times.  The former seems no more than an expected part of her day, while the latter is mourned as time stolen from a lover, precious moments noted by their absence.   As for the readers of this blog, I know I've been away for some time while the wheels of daily life have stolen my attentions, but I promise that the doorway will open a little more frequently and at least a few times each month, until the days grow longer again and sunlight and warmth wake up the garden to be my muse.