Tulip Trysts

A recent post by Carol, at May Dreams Garden, reminded ProfessorRoush that he previously started a draft blog entry on the species tulips in his landscape, the few colorful little clumps that add very little to my overall garden ambiance, but which mean so much to me as they sneak back into the garden each year.

Species tulips, you see, are one of my garden guilty pleasures, a little niche of my garden that others seldom discover, visible and yet hidden behind the more blatant garden performers.  In my garden, alternatively Zone 5 or Zone 6 depending on the whims of weather and weather maps, a few species tulips return reliably, while large and showy Dutch tulips return in annually diminishing numbers until they finally just don't return at all.  

'Little Beauty'

Such a species tulip is Tulipa hageri 'Little Beauty', photographed at left, a  4-6 inch tall dwarf (or to be politically correct height-challenged), fuchsia flower with a slate- or cornflower blue star-shaped  center inside a narrow white zone.  A daytime lover, 'Little Beauty' can be enjoyed only in the sunshine because she opens up her flowers every morning and closes them every evening, an exhibitionist by day and shy at night.  She is supposed to naturalize well, but mine seems to have confined themselves to a single clump, her survival in Kansas perhaps dependent on some combination of light, moisture and soil unique to that spot in my landscape.  

Tulipa clusiana var. chrysantha

A similar "one-bunch" species tulip for me is Tulipa clusiana var. chrysantha, the "Lady Tulip", originally thought to be native to the Middle East, but some more recent authorities believe it to be native to Spain.  Many T. clusiana are red and white, but my variety, 'Cynthia' is a subdued red and yellow blend, brighter if the springtime has been cloudier on average.  A little taller than 'Little Beauty', about 8 inches in my garden, the buds are also larger and longer and they also are shy to display their beauty at night or on rainy days.  To search for mine, you need to go to the westernmost point of my front landscape, where they return year after year to greet the afternoon sun.

If you're in search of a similar guilty garden pleasure, I'd recommend planting both or either of these little ladies in an out-of-the-way place of your garden.  You all know what I'm talking about; a spot with a gardening "no-tell-motel" sort of feel, away from the beaten path, a seedy spot where you can sneak away and enjoy some brief illicit pleasure, just you and them.  The best meeting times between gardener and species tulip are always, as one would expect, in the middle of the day, a gardening nooner of sorts.  Mea culpa, with these little Sirens in my garden, I can easily be be accused by a careful observer of slipping home more often at noon for a couple of weeks each April.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush thinks the frequent visits are for her company, but you can keep a secret, can't you?   

The First Rose

When, oh Lord, did the first rose bloom?
Bright and shining 'neath a cloudy sky?
Stolen sunrays captured live,
Emerald green brushed deep inside.
Golden stamen columns round,
Over saffron pistils mound.

How and why did the first rose bloom?
Was it raindrop's sweet caress?
Sunshine, laughter coalesced,
Warmth and loam joined in success.
Graceful petals slow unfold,
Scent released from newspun gold.

Who was it saw the first rose bloom?
Felt the joy of world renewed?
First Man chose a rose to woo,
First Woman, love and home ensued.
Rose be blest, God's will be done,
Endowed to man by blazing sun.

Harison's Yellow, my first rose of 2016, opened two days ago beneath a rainy sky, the end of our lack of moisture and my drought of roses after a long winter.  I did not yet expect to find gold in this confused garden, this garden askew from whipsaw fluctuations of temperature and frost, but there it was, right where I knew it should be.  The coming of this captured sunshine was foretold by tulip and iris and forsythia, trumpets heralding the triumphant return of a favorite child.  I'm pleased for once, at rest again, patient now for the return of life, anticipating the joy of friendships renewed.

Prairie Rapunzel

This blog entry, to many readers, will seem silly.  Pedestrian, pathetic, tired, and trite.  Let me assure you that, however bromidic and banal you see these digitized yellow gems, they represent the song of my soul, the apex of my gardening prowess.  For in my garden I, ProfessorRoush, have a living, blooming tree peony.  For this, I have slaved, suffered, and labored, entrenched and focused on the path to garden nirvana, heedless of setbacks and temporary defeat.  This lemony chrome beauty, this shining yellow, is the reward of my persistence, six years of toil for six immaculate blooms.  Triumphant, the gardener basks in their glowing glory, satiated and content in this moment of recompense.




I know, I understand, that many of you live in climates where tree peonies grown as carefree as dandelions.  You've stuck a desiccated, decrepit, cheap Big-Box tree peony in the ground and forgotten about it until it astonished the neighbors.  Not here, my friends, not here in Kansas.  Until this success of mine, I knew of one living, thriving tree peony in town.  One.  There are loads of Stella de Oro daylilies, purple barberries, junipers, and Knock Out roses around town, but tree peonies are as rare as a mild Kansas day.  The only more rare gardening plant in this vicinity would be a clump of Meconopsis.




To grow this particular Paeonia suffruticosa on the prairie, I've resorted to extreme measures.  Ridiculous, absurd, laughable, ludicrous, you provide the adverb, I've done it in pursuit of this yellow zebra.  The wind, the relentless prairie wind, is my sworn enemy.  Its allies are the intermittent drought, scorching August sun, and nibbling pack rats of my environment.  Although the photographs above are beautiful, the reality of my peony is far less spectacular.  It grows in solitary confinement, placed and viewed behind rows of chicken wire for protection from chewing winter rodent, rampaging deer, and clumsy dog.  It exists in a sheltered spot, shielded from hot afternoon sun by the house and from frigid North winds by a landscape wall of sun-warmed stone.  It is allotted extra helpings of mulch in the spring and frequent water in the summer.

This Rapunzel of my garden, this captured golden beauty, exists and blooms only for me.   There is no waiting prince to rescue her.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush has not noticed its 6 perfect blossoms.  She may have noticed, in deepest winter, that I have a chicken wire cage around a brown stick.  It is sad, somehow, that such a canvas of perfection can only be seen behind the ugliness of wire and steel, but like the endangered captive animals that adorn our zoos, its survival depends on protection and relentless commitment.   And love.  A love  whose name we dare not speak.  The love of a gardener for his tree peony, his princess, forever confined against the ravishes of the prairie.

Distractions

There was a repeated melody on the old television show Hee Haw whose refrain went "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all."  Well, I can  now sing that melody to "If it weren't for distractions, I'd get some real work done."

You see, last Saturday was a day filled with distractions from my gardening goals.  In the midst of achieving my primary objective, putting out the 56 or so bags of landscaping mulch that I had purchased, I was pulled off task by a seemingly endless stream of diversions.  First, there was this gorgeous clump of wildflowers (above left) surrounded by still dormant prairie grass.  The native flower in question is Sisyrinchium campestre, also known as "White-eyed Grass", a member of the lily family.  It occurs all over this prairie, although perhaps in less striking clumps in most places.  Oddly, you may find the species under the name "Prairie Blue-eyed Grass", although the "eye" or center is yellow and the flower petals are definitely pure white in this area.

Another momentary interruption from task was my sighting of the first yellow sulphur butterflies of the season, floating over the prairie sea from island to island of this plant displayed at right, the Ground-Plum Milk-Vetch (Astragalus crassicarpus).  You'll have to imagine the butterflies, because although I spent 30 minutes trying to get one fleeting photo of these flitting ground-plum fans, I was unable to produce even a single blurry yellow blog of them on an image.  The majority of the butterflies that day were yellow, although there were also a few white sulphurs.  Astragalus crassicarpus is a legume and supposedly an ancient food source, although it holds no major claim to human food chains today.  My minor nibbles of the "berries" suggest to me that a better description of the plant is that it is perhaps edible, but not palatable. 

While unsuccessfully searching for still butterflies, and before returning to mulching, I came across this hideous nest of Eastern Tent Caterpillars (Malacosoma americanum) in my 15 year old 'Royalty' crabapple tree.  I hate those nasty caterpillars with passion rivaled only by my disdain for pack rats.  Immediately upon spotting this budding metropolis of leaf-consuming spineless larva, I froze to avoid alerting them.  I slowly and quietly reached to my back-pocket for pruners, in fear that the creeping crawlers might startle and move a few micrometers in an effort to get away.  There, I grasped and smoothly produced my Felcos (slow is smooth and smooth is fast as in the best traditions of gunfighting), and I removed the offending branch from my eyesight, grinding it into the grass under my heel some distance away from the crab tree. Wild Bill Hickok, himself, would have been proud of my resolve and lethality. 

My quest of mulching completion was then further delayed for another half-hour while I examined every tree in the immediate vicinity of the house and dispatched two more disgusting nests in similar fashion.  The 'Royalty' crab survived the necessary amputation and will live to display its sickeningly muddy-purple blossoms yet another season.  'Royalty' is not a crabapple that I'd recommend to other gardeners.  While some texts describe the tree as "particularly loaded with dazzle...covered in such rich, deep-pink flowers that it will literally stop traffic,"  I would describe the tree as a dull-purple blob with dull pink-purple blossoms framed by dull purple leaves and not worth any substantial cost outlay.  Not my favorite crabtree, but I'm still not willing to throw it to the non-mercies of the Tent Caterpillar.

All this and many more yet un-disclosed diversions, and I managed only to empty and spread approximately 30 bags of mulch before exhaustion and larval caterpillar hatred took their toll.  Still, as you can see in the photo below, I think the front landscaping looks better with its new makeup foundation base, ready for the finishing touches of rose rouge and dark green holly eyeliner as the season rolls along.  A garden, as a woman, can certainly be naturally beautiful, but a little foundation and highlighting nearly always help improve the allure.  With the exception, of course, of Mrs. ProfessorRoush, perennially perfect in complexion and grace.