Bee-Musings

ProfessorRoush doesn't have a nice, neat patriotic theme for you on this July 4th.  I suppose I could walk out the front door and grab a few pictures of the pure white phlox 'David', and the bright red 'Wave' petunias at the foot my of driveway, add a snapshot of a bit of Russian Sage or lavender from the other side of the house to approximate the blue, and then I could contrive a nice rousing image of a celebration of independence with those pictures, but my writer's muse just won't cooperate today.  The country's mood, and my mood, doesn't seem to be one of celebration this July Fourth, but of turmoil and division, uncertainty and strife.  Or maybe that's just me.

I'm thinking a lot about bees this year, and on this 4th day of July, for some subconscious reason that I can't yet name, I'm thinking of them again.  I"m photographing bees on flowers everywhere, I'm reveling in their presence in my garden, and I'm rejoicing in every little buzzing busy bee that I find, and I don't know why.  For whatever reason, bees are reaching my happy center this summer, spreading joy with wings and all their six legs.  Everywhere I look, there they are, crawling over the delicate petals and flying from each ripe blossom to the next. And every time I find a bee on a blossom, out comes my camera and a picture is born.

I'm always happy that there are bees in my garden, but this year their presence seems more special to me.  Have I somehow internalized my concern over their well-being, over the very-real threats to their survival?  Am I searching for saneness, for certainty and assurance that the world is not on the verge of collapse as it sometimes seems?  Does the world make more sense with bees in the picture?

Why, on the 4th of July, are bees my subject?  It's quite a stretch to connect bees to a patriotic holiday, notwithstanding the existence of the "Patriotic American Flag Honey Bee T-shirt" and its clever superimposition of a bee silhouette over an American flag.  And I must admit, I chuckled over another Amazon-sold T-shirt emblazoned with "All Hive Matters."  Bee-keepers are a society unto themselves, I guess.  But other than noting these shirts as possible surprise gifts for the beekeepers in my life, I can't consciously make a case for Patriotic bees. 

Perhaps, deep inside the quirky recesses of my id, bees DO represent normalcy.  Maybe I'm secretly craving this year a unified society where each has a role for the good of all.  The queen, the drone, and the worker, all working as one, in one direction, as one strong society.  Don't, I beg you, take that sentiment as any calling for communism or socialism.  ProfessorRoush tries to avoid political subjects on this blog and flowers only mix with politics when the flowers are in a politician's lapel hole.  Bees should matter, but I'm not going to say so, or wear a shirt that says so, because who knows who one might offend these days.  People aren't drones, and while many of us are worker bees and a few of us may be royalty, we have choice and we should exercise it and grow each to our greatest potentials.

Well, I'm far afield in my ramblings and rants on this day, Independence Day 2020.  You can just enjoy the bees, along with me, and forget all about the rest of this.  Or we can all gather a little pollen today, a little goodwill for all, and take it back to support our hives, working separately but together, all to survive from this year into the next.   God knows, if we don't learn to work together, we're going to get a little hungry this winter.          

Hope Lost and Found

Hemerocallis 'Blue Racer'

Life, as gardening, is a constant struggle, a process of waning and waxing hopes, heart-breaking failures and all-too-infrequent successes in a never-ending circle.  Without warning, we occasionally slam headfirst into low points, spiritual nadirs that test the strengths of our soul.  A pandemic disrupts our daily routines, throwing the world into chaos with our very lives perhaps dependent on the potential danger of a trip for groceries.  A senseless killing rips apart the fabric of a nation, leaving looted cities and downed monuments in its wake.  In my own world, yesterday, a cousin, a grown man struggling and in turmoil, committed suicide on an impulse, leaving his family devastated and lost.  Hope, at such times, seems a distant mirage, far off and never closer.

Hemerocallis 'Beautiful Edgings'

Gardening mirrors life in its roller-coaster of summits and valleys.   We fight daily against drought and heat and ice and flood, relentlessly watching for enemies, ceaselessly searching for beauty.  ProfessorRoush has been wanting for rain from cloudless skies for weeks, carrying water to quench the thirst of the weakest, ripping weedy competition from the ground, watching for leaves wilting and rolling.  Hope leaks away as the buffalograss browns.

Hemerocallis 'Space Coast Color Scheme' 

In gardening and in life, we must hold faith that the storms pass and calm mornings, like this one, will come.  A heavy rain filled the emptiness of the night during my sleepless tossings, and I rose to find the ground full and soft, and this year's first 'Beautiful Edgings' covered in jewels.  New daylilies, 'Space Coast Color Scheme' (Kinnebrew, 2008) and 'Blue Racer' (Stamile-Pierce, 2011), also greeted Bella and I on our rounds of the rain gauges, rejoicing with us at the modest 1.5 inches of heaven-gifted moisture and the cooler air.

Euonymus Scale

Three peaks and a valley this morning, the latter the finding of my 'Emerald Gaiety' euonymus suddenly covered in Euonymus Scale (Unaspis euonymi) and near death.  Twenty years of euonymus without scale ended in an instant, joy replaced by worry again to begin another cycle.

'Hope for Humanity'

This year, amidst despair, I cling to the thought and the survival of 'Hope for Humanity', the wishfully named Parkland series shrub rose with a prominent position in my backyard.  She has outdone herself this season, blooming with blood-red abandon, responding to my attentions and my efforts to give her more space and sunlight this spring.  I cling to the hope that, if we care for each other and for our world as I ministered to this rose, we can all keep a little 'Hope for Humanity'.  Just a little bright hope to grow with sunlight and push through hard times.  Shaun, I know you liked roses, I wish you'd known hope better, and I pray you find peace.

'Hope for Humanity' (the purple faded rose below and to the right is a nearby 'Dr. Hugo')

Brazen Rabbit

All right, that's enough!   ProfessorRoush has let this go on far too long. 

I thought it was bad enough when I spied one little rabbit in my front landscaping.  Then a few weeks later, Bella was staring out the window, watching it  play right on the front porch.

But, wait, I'm seeing double now!  Two rabbits?  I shudder to think what they're nibbling on deep in my perennial beds. (this one might move if you click on it...I forgot and the camera was on "Live").

Bella, get to work! They're breeding like....bunnies!

Thistle Excite You

'Kaveri'

ProfessorRoush would have a more witty and winsome post this morning, but the evening stroll last night with Bella left him speechless at the beauty.  We had a brief rain this morning and, little as it was, the flowers were all the happier because of it.   We needed the rain; even the buffalograss was about ready to call it quits.  Besides, I'm tired from swinging steel (I'll explain at the bottom).  Now I'll shut up and let you enjoy:









This 'Kaveri' lily, an Oriental-Asiatic cross I've had in the garden for 5 years.  She's tough, about 3 foot tall, and blooms her head off.   I've got several clumps and comes back year after year.  She just started to bloom, a little later than the Asiatics, a little earlier than the Oriental and Orientpet lilies. 

'Spider Man' daylily

And here, the first bloom of a new daylily for me, Hemerocallis 'Spider Man'.  This Award of Merit winner has 7 inch blooms of the brightest, most soul-quenching red you would ever want in your garden.  I'm pleased this spider-type daylily has joined mine.













These perennial sweet peas have never climbed and covered this makeshift trellis as I envisioned for them, but they bloom a nice happy shade of pink in the down season between the first bloom of the roses and the blitzkrieg of the daylilies.












I didn't plan this combination of daylily and 'Tiger Eye's sumac, but the momma sumac seven feet away suckered over next to the daylily and embraced it.  This is one of those fortuitous moments in a gardener's life that won't ever repeat, because next year this baby sumac will be too big to allow it to stay here.











Another great combination provided by the wiles of fate, this grouping of orange Asclepias tuberosa, yellow-orange Black-Eyed Susan, and the young blood-red Hollyhock all self-seeded themselves to this spot; two natives and a cultivated garden escapee.  The only thing I planted in this picture was the low-growing yellow barberry, 'Gold Nugget' which has been there for years.

Wavy-Leaf thistle

So, why am I tired?  Well, that's the fault of Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  No stop it, that's not what I mean.  Yesterday, she photographed this Wavy-Leaf Thistle, Cirsium undulatum (at least that's what I think it is), and she posted it on Facebook.  I'd been eyeing the thistles in the surrounding pasture, knowing that they were close but hoping they would wait a week to start blooming.  But no, this one had to start early, and Mrs. ProfessorRoush had to post it on Facebook right away, thus providing photographic evidence for the county authorities that I was allowing a noxious weed to populate the prairie.  I discovered late in the day that she had literally forced my hand and so I spent an hour last night swinging a machete and chopping off thistles, in the wet grass no less.  Thistles are one flower I just can't tolerate proliferating in my prairie, any more than I can abide a wife serving as an unwitting spy for the county.