Too Soon to Bloom

"Dear Christmas Cacti, ProfessorRoush is not in the habit of complaining about flowers, but you have jumped the gun, premature in your pretentiousness, too fast in your florescence.  I understand that Walmart may have out their Christmas merchandise in full display, but it is not even Hallow's Eve and yet here you are."   Of course, I should remember that these epiphytic and lithophytic plants are native to Brazil, at coastal half-mile altitudes, where they are known as Flor de Maio (May flower), and their flowering is triggered by the onset of cooler air and dwindling sunlight.  

Imagine my surprise yesterday to see that most of our Christmas cactuses (cacti seems so abrupt as a plural) were blooming, some in full display, others just starting, and half still dormant, but all contributing to a sudden explosion of color in the sunroom.  I hadn't been watching closely and they snuck the buds in without my noticing.  Schlumbergera in the sunroom seems like poor environmental placement, but these are behind opaque blinds that shield them from the summer Kansas sun.  

I neglect these for the most part, watering every other week or every week as I remember them, turning the pots occasionally so they grow symmetrically.   They are one of those plants that respond, evidently, to inattention, because most of these specimens are pot-bound and always on the verge of a little too dry.  Oh, if every other living thing was so easy to care for!  I can only feed the heck out of these and hope they bloom in cycles as they did last year, colorful from Thanksgiving to Easter, before they peter out and rest for the summer.

I've been, as you know, collecting colors as rapidly as the breeders frantically develop them, and although the classically-marketed Zygocactus was bright red (for CHRISTMAS), their palette range over the past few years has been greatly expanded.  I used to have a red and white striped one as well, but I don't know if it's just currently reluctant to bloom or if I lost it in the great house freeze of 2004 (or whenever it was).  

I like the new colors, truth be told, as much as the old classic red or white.   I feel the vivid fuchsia at the top is just to die for, and the orange of paragraph #4 is one of the most unusual. The salmon to the right is a subtle hue, and the soft yellow variety below is much more rich-colored in person.   Notice that I've long lost the variety names, if they ever existed, and merely describe them as the welcome color they are for the dreary months of winter.   Here in the sunroom, I can look out windows at the dreary dying garden beyond and my eyes carry this color outdoors into the landscape.

One wonderful part of gardening and blogging is that I'm always learning something and today I've learned that the Schlumbergera are divided into two main groups, the earlier-blooming Truncata, with pointed teeth,  horizontal stems and flowers and yellow pollen, and the later-blooming Buckleyi, with more rounded teeth, flowers that hang down, and pink pollen.  I appear to have primarily Truncata, since the pollen of all currently-blooming seems to be yellow and the flowers are all hanging down, and leaf shapes on the 7 plants not yet blooming seem similar to those that are.  I'll have to search for the Buckleyi, now knowing there is a difference. 

Accepting Miracles

The title is the subject for ProfessorRoush today, a meme on my mind for all this past week.   My week of miracles started a week ago on a warm Saturday as I was engaged in lots of late Fall work in the yard, mowing, trimming, bushhogging, putting up hoses, and fully engaged in the activities I lump into "Fall cleanup."  My first glimpse of the miracles to come was this late crocus, Colchicum autumnale, a single, annually reoccurring survivor of the few toxic bulbs of the species that I planted years ago and long forgot.   Old age and fading memories sometimes provide unexpected benefits to old gardeners beyond our creaky knees and grumpy exteriors. 

And then, the same day, sitting down outside with Mrs. ProfessorRoush while we chatted with our grandsons, I spied this little sprig of life, a baby juniper bravely growing in the middle of a clump of River Birch, shaded from the sunlight it so desperately wants but also kept moistened and protected in the embrace of the birch.   Can't see the miracle for the tree?   Look closer!

If I left it here, to grow in the rotting organic debris gathered in the birch clump center, will it survive?   Choke out the birch?   Wither eventually, starved for light?   The young scientist in my mind still wants to know so I'm going to leave it growing here in the true sense of "letting nature take its course" while I observe.   A good gardener should always know when to accept miracles when miracles appear.

The sun and earth also conspired in the parade of miracles this week to give me these views of home and prairie as I came home late Tuesday.   Sometimes the light on this corner of the globe overwhelms me, although perhaps poorly captured in these photographs, as it did on this day.   The right angle, the right moment, and the grasses and trees and house were all shining left and right of me as I opened the mailbox and I just couldn't let the miracle moment go uncaptured.

Thursday, another miracle presented to Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I as we came home from supper, a moment of marriage so like many others until we pulled onto the garage pad and I noticed this unexpected bit of Spring transported to Fall, a blooming sprig of common lilac, isolated and alone among a dry and beaten hedge, but full of fragrance and hope for the next Spring to come.  I robbed the bees by taking it indoors where, for a few days, I could smell lilac before it faded into time again.

And was Saturday again, a Saturday like so many others but as welcome as rain on the prairie after a summer of drought.   My Saturdays are miracles every week, miracles brought by a dog wanting only love and a little game of frisbee to break up its long days of napping.  Bella has lots of gray now on her muzzle but her soul is still that of a puppy and her love waits only for me.   I'm convinced this dog counts the days of the week, knowing when it is Saturday and our weekly drive to McDonald's occurs and that I'll stay home and play instead of disappearing until darkness.   This last miracle, Bella in my life, is one I treasure every day, a daily reminder of all the beauty and love and happiness that the world can hold.

A Walk Down The Road with Bella

Tall Goldenrod

(warning:  picture and link heavy)  Every once in a while, ProfessorRoush decides that Bella needs to lose a little weight and we embark on a program to walk nightly down the paved area of the road, about 1.25 miles total in a down-and-back walk.  This week, as we walked, Bella was willing to impatiently wait as I snapped photos of any blooming flowers along the roadside.

So consider this a short tour of the ditches alongside the road.  Of course, this time of year, Goldenrod is everywhere.  My plant identification is suspect as always, especially here given the number of native Goldenrods, but I believe the photos above and left are of Tall Goldenrod, Solidago altissima, although it could be Canadian Goldenrod, the former being a subspecies of the latter.

Snow-On-The-Mountain, Euphorbia marginata, is nearing the end of its bloom cycle, and not nearly as prominent in the landscape as previously this season.

Of course, Blue Sage, or Salvia azurea, one of my favorite wildflowers, is blooming everywhere now.  I thought this specimen looks a bit more faded then most.  It is also known as Pitcher's Sage, in honor of Dr. Zina Pitcher, a US Army surgeon and botanist.

Sunflowers, the state flower of Kansas, are still represented by the Common Sunflower,
Heliathus annuus.   I'm not anywhere near certain of the species name for this specimen, and I wouldn't have a clue at all without the marvelous kswildflower.org website.

There is a lot of White Sage, Artemsia ludoviciana. on the walk, everywhere in the adjacent prairie, its hairy-gray leaves befitting a plant adapted to drought and grazing.

Another white flowering plant,
Brickellia eupatoriopiodes, or False Boneset, is likewise a very frequent visitor to these hills, blooming in the worst of drought and leaving behind an interesting winter skeleton.  It's taproot is said to reach 16 feet in depth when necessary.

Nearly last, but certainly not least, clumps of the the most "garden-worthy" of the prairie plants, Dotted Gayfeather, Liatris punctata, "dots" the prairie with low light purple spires.  Butterflies love this plant, and often are above it in a swarm.     

Wax Goldenweed

A new Plant ID for me was Wax Goldenweed. Grindelia papposa, or at least I think that's what it is.  The plant is in the Sunflower family and is an annual named for David Hieronymus Grindel (1777-1836) a German botanist.  Livestock reportedly don't like it and I'll have to watch for it in the pastures to see if they avoid it.

And that is a walk down my late-September road everyone.   Not as literary-worthy as Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, but its none-the-less my own little "Walk Down the Road with Bella."

Dazzle Days

These August and September days in Kansas are what ProfessorRoush has always referred to as the "doldrums."   The hot, dreary, drought-ey days of the year when, most years, the garden dries up before it has a chance to really display the colors of fall and not much is blooming or growing.   Days when I badly neglect the garden and frankly don't care if it rains because I'm tired of the weekly care and mowing.   The only time the garden and I see each other right now are every few days when I carry water to a few young roses just to keep them alive until dormancy.  Everything else can wait as the heat dies away and a little rain returns.  Tonight and tomorrow, we have the first chances predicted for rain in weeks, so I'm hopeful and prayerful that its thirst gets quenched.   It probably won't matter to the prairie grass right now, which has recognized the changing season and is drying and storing nutrients for next year. 

Gardeners always seem to ask "what's blooming now?" of each other, and I'll confess that the only truly bright spot in my garden right now is this superb (in my opinion) combination of dwarf crape myrtle 'Cherry Dazzle®' and the 'Heavenly Blue' morning glory that I let self-seed everywhere.  At least, I think it's still 'Heavenly Blue" because it has seeded itself and in-bred so many years that it might just be the wild variety by now.   If you were to see my landscape around the house now, I'd only ask you to please don't criticize me for the rampant vines everywhere, but to wait until morning to pass judgement.  They look like heck at midday but they're a sight for sleepy eyes to behold in the morning!

The 'Cherry Dazzle®', also known as Gamad 1 (U.S. Plant Patent #16,917) is another matter entirely.   Most of the spring and summer I spend worrying that it has survived or isn't doing well, and then here in late August it is the shining red star of the garden.   Right outside my bedroom window, it catches my eye alongside the sunrise every morning, and I'm happy that it has its own spotlight moment.   'Cherry Dazzle®', if you're looking for a low-growing crape, grows consistently 2-2.5 feet tall here in Kansas each year, although described as 3-5 feet height at maturity elsewhere.   Introduced and named  by Professor Michael Dirr in 2006, it seems to be healthy and cold-hardy here, returning reliably from its roots each spring, and its leaves in most climates are reported to be burgundy-red in the fall.   Here, I recall they unfortunately seem to go straight from green to brown and fall off.   Incidentally, check out that link to Dr. Dirr, a University of Georgia horticulturist who has the distinction of his own Wikipedia page!

The busy bumblebee pictured above and at the left has no time for the dazzle of 'Cherry Dazzle®', intent only on darting in and out of the 'Heavenly Blue' blossoms for their nectar.  Taking these photos, I had to wait as it dived in each flower head first, brazenly showing only its backside until it bumbled backward and flew to the next.  I wonder, as I often do, what the bee sees?  The actual vivid colors of both, the shapes of the flowers, the contrast between the two, or something else, with its advanced bee senses, that I can't even fathom?   One way or another, arriving just as I began to photograph the plant, he/she didn't care about the gardener who was clicking the oblong black thing furiously at them as they went from one blossom to the next.  For me, the combination of both plants is incredibly soul-satisfying and I'm not sure if I really prefer the "heavenly" shade of blue or the dazzling cherry-red, but it's clear what the bee prefers.  One thing I am sure of is that I need to remember that the morning glory is not only important to me, but to the ecological health of my garden.