Kon-Tiki Seasons

When I considered the suggestion by horticulturist Kelly D. Norris to take pictures repeatedly of the same view in the garden (see my blog titled "Sometimes a Diversion"), I realized that I had presciently taken that advice, but only in regards to one or two specific places in my garden.  And "The Head" was one of those places that I haven't yet written about.

The Head, an Easter-Island-type statue I obtained from a local garden store, has been in my garden since the beginning.  It was the first statue of any size that I placed in the garden.  I keep the somber Head on a pedestal in the middle of two yellow 'Rugelda' rugosa hybrid roses, backed up by the white 'Marie Bugnet', and facing, of course, due east on the compass.   There it waits daily for the sunrise and stands watch for me to spread the alarm in case of the return of the Gods.

I'd always thought The Head provided a handsome conversation piece, flanked by the glory of the 'Rugelda' roses, but since I purchased it, it was always a point of ridicule for me from my loving wife, who despises it.  The last laugh was mine, though since the identical piece of concrete appears frequently on HGTV in the garden of Paul James, the Gardener Guy, forever muting my better half's questioning of my gardening tastes.  Anyway, when the 'Rugelda' fades, pink 'La Reine Victoria'  and blush white 'Comte de Chambord' are there to pick up the slack.

The Head is a good soldier, standing firm in the face of thunderstorms, prairie fires, and the ever-present Kansas wind (at least after I finally created a stable concrete foundation for it to keep it from slowly listing and falling off the pedastel).  It takes the harsh eastern sunrise on its face and the full burning Flint Hills non sun on its hatless skull without complaint.  And even when the ice comes down and glazes its features, it stands silent, immune to the world.

 

But I have seen The Head, in the depths of winter, weeping with me at the cold damage to the naked rose canes surrounding it and its poor perennial friends shivering in the show. The Head is always a good garden companion for the plants and for me alike. It doesn't talk to me though, really it doesn't.  At least not that I'm telling.  And I'll let you know if it informs me that the Gods have returned from space.

Hope for Humanity

'Hope for Humanity'.   If ever there was a rose named to increase sales to the WEE (wild-eyed environmentalists) and the Birkenstock herd, it is certainly 'Hope for Humanity'.  It's fortunate for the more cynical human personality types, including the many gardeners that prefer to spend time with plants rather than their fellow Homo sapiens, that 'Hope for Humanity' is also a healthy and beautiful rose so that we can claim we appreciate it for something other than its name.

'Hope for Humanity'

'Hope for Humanity' is a 1995 introduction in the Parkland Series from Agriculture Canada that was released to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Red Cross Society. Appropriately for that commemorative purpose, she is not the muddy magenta-red rose color that many "red" roses have, she's a deep vivid crimson red that makes the bush appear to be studded with enormous rubies.  The Red Cross had exclusive rights to market the rose until 1998 when it was released to sale by commercial outlets.  Like most of the Canadian releases, you will most often find 'Hope for Humanity' growing on its own roots, increasing the hardiness and survivability of the rose here in Kansas.  She blooms continually with those blood-red, fully double blooms held in trusses of 4-5 blossoms about 3 inches in diameter.

There seems to be a lot of recent interest in this rose on several gardening forums I frequent, particularly among the zone-poor gardeners like myself who are denied the less cold-tolerant rose families.  As I stated in an Internet posting recently, I constantly fight a bad case of zone-envy and regret that I can't grow tea roses or Noisettes, or camellias or gardenias outside of my house. And there's a lot of confusing information about 'Hope for Humanity', particularly in regards to height.  Agriculture Canada lists this rose as growing only 2 feet high, but numerous internet gardeners describe their specimens as being from 2 feet variably to 6 feet high.  Here in Zone 5B, my 'Hope for Humanity', about 6 years old at present, has never been cut back and is about 4 1/2 feet tall at present, with a half-dozen strong canes.  It is reportedly hardy to Zone 3 (it should be since it was developed at the Manitoba-based Morden Research Centre by Colicutt and Marshall) and I can confirm that I've seen no winter-dieback at all here in Zone 5. There's also some argument as to the repeat flowering of this rose, with sources listing it anywhere from 2-3 repeat cycles during the growing season to continuous flowering.  As I said, mine is continuous flowering from May through September and into October, rarely, if ever, without a bloom.  And it's a disease-free rose;  I never spray it and it gets only mild blackspot in the most humid weather.  It has survived wind storms, ice storms and the determined cane-gnawing by a family of rabbits in its short time with me.

If you're a suppressed Victorian who prefers hybrid-tea roses and is turned off by the shrub-like form and floribunda blooming of 'Hope for Humanity', another Canadian rose that might better fit your desires is the less sickly-sweet named, red hybrid-tea style 1967 introduction named 'Cuthbert Grant'.  The majority of internet sources list 'Cuthbert Grant' as another Parkland series rose, but the rose is named after the Métis explorer and leader.  'Cuthbert Grant', the rose, is a good hardy performer in my climate (also rated as hardy to Zone 3), of almost the same red color but perhaps a little more venous than arterial blood-toned in its particular red.  Growing a trifle taller to six feet and a bit faster, Cuthbert is also more suited to bringing into the house in a vase for display and has a better fragrance than HFH.    

Luckily there's a rose for every fool, a fool for every rose, and still some 'Hope for Humanity.'

The Undaunted Garden

I had occasion recently to re-read Lauren Springer's (now Springer-Ogden) first text, The Undaunted Garden.  What a treasure trove it is of gardening information for the Kansas gardener beset by wind and storm and ice.

Subtitled "Planting for Weather Resilient Beauty," it remains one of the most readable and beautifully illustrated garden-related books I've ever read.  First published in 1994, the text and photographs were all created by Ms. Springer in an obvious labor of love and belief in what she was producing.  It has become a classic garden read, first, I believe, because the writing is aimed not at the highbrow level of garden designers, but at the dirt's-eye level of the struggling gardener.  Second, the lessons for plant selection and plant survival on the Great Plains are well thought out and presented in logical order and in language easily understood by all levels of gardening experience.  Lastly, Springer's Undaunted Garden heralded her embrace of native plants, and further yet, her recognition of "adapted" plants as a means to transform gardens in the prairies and Colorado foothills, beginning her reputation as the premier garden designer and writer she has become.  Until this book, I don't think that I had ever seen the concept that one can create a garden that smiles through the worst of a climate by not planting just with natives, but by extending a home to plants that are adapted to similar climate conditions, whether those plants were found bordering the Mediterranean or in Australia.

I've always sympathized with her opening thought "I don't understand the concept of the low-maintenance garden...to desire a garden that requires no time spent except the occasional stroll in well-laundered clothes is like having the most beautiful and appetizing food laid out on a table before you and not wanting to take a bite."  Ms. Springer invites us in, and then teaches us, with named examples, to select plants that survive the extremes of drought, hail, wind, and driving rain, all while keeping an eye on the design of a bed or garden.  My favorite chapter, Roses for Realists, increased my own interest in Old Garden and hardy roses, to which I was especially susceptible after only a few short years of beginning gardening where I learned that Hybrid Teas were perhaps not the best choice for the Flint Hills climate.  And the last section, Portraits of Indispensably Undaunted Plants, which is a glossary of Plains-adapted plants, provided us all the tools we needed to reform our own gardens.  In reviewing that section, I found that I have tried most of the plants highlighted for sunny exposures.  It was the first time, for instance, that I ever heard of Knautia macedonia, which is now a mainstay of my front border.      

I see from the Amazon.com site that a revised second edition is coming out soon, expanding both the photographs with new additions and increasing the number of highlighted plants from 65 to 100.  Although the bibliophile in me will always prefer my first edition hardcover, I may have to fork out the money from my gardening budget to get the revised edition as well.  I can always consider another 35 recommendations for my garden from an established expert, particularly one writing, it seems, especially for my Flint Hills weather. 

Just Cut It Out

I must admit there are times, even though I'm a plant fanatic first and a garden designer second (or, truthfully, last), that I am forced to see the folly of my ways and can even grow to hate a given plant. I don't often hate the plant for being a bad plant, mind, I usually just hate a specific specimen because of my own error of putting it in the wrong place or underestimating its ultimate size or for not providing the proper maintenance, or some combination of all of the above.

At such times, the longer I garden, the more willing I am to face facts and sever the apron strings; or in this case, the plant's stem.  Look if you will at the 'Josee' lilac (Syringa x 'Josee') in my front garden (arrows).  Now five years old, it has grown far bigger than the tag suggested, it obscures a window, and it is out of proportion with the rest of the front shrubs and perennials.  I tried cutting it back severely once, but a year later it is right back where we started; too big. To make my distaste for this plant worse, although I planted two of these beauties because they were the only reblooming lilac on the market (one in this bed and one in back of the house), neither has rebloomed well;  they do have a nice bloom in the spring towards the end of the period of the S. vulgaris hybrids, but then they have only a few sporadic small blooms over the summer and fall.  Now I could be partially to blame for that problem since the front bed of my house faces almost due north and so this particular lilac gets too much shade except in the summer, but the specimen I planted out back doesn't bloom any better and it gets southern exposure, full-day Kansas summer sun. 

So, on my list of things to get done this fall, I included banishing this lilac to a far bed on the property, perhaps never to be seen from again if it doesn't survive the move.  As you can see in the second picture, my front garden benefited tremendously from not having this behemoth squatting and pouting in the shade, and you can now see the house has a third nice window on that side.  And I'm happy, oh so happy, to be rid of that display of my horticultural ignorance. 

Sometimes I think I just need to let my surgeon side shine through more in the garden.  Amputation or excision is almost always the best first choice for treating a cancer and I know that, at least on a professional level.  Remove the tumor, cleanse the soul.    

Sometimes a Diversion...

...is just what a gardener needs.

As the active gardening year is winding down (I say "active" gardening year because the fantasy gardening season pf winter is getting ready to begin in Kansas), I had the wonderful opportunity today to see a really exceptional gardening presentation by Kelly D. Norris, of Rainbow Iris Farms. The occasion was the annual Extension Master Gardener continuing education meeting here in Manhattan and Mr. Norris gave the keynote address, titled "Zoneworthy."

Kelly is a young guy, full of vigor and excitement and knowledge, but best of all, a great presenter with lots of beautiful pictures and sarcastic humor thrown in to spice up the lessons.  If fact, he had everything I love to see in a speaker, except maybe a sense of deep cynicism, but since he's young and not a jaded, tenured professor, I guess I can forgive that. 

Being somewhat local to me here in Kansas, from western Iowa, Kelly certainly understood what we go through to garden here in Kansas.  I've taken several lessons and witty comments to heart from his lecture, including:

"Nobody plants something thinking, gee, I wonder what this will look like covered in ice?"  I've never heard a truer statement about Flint Hills gardening, and Kelly accompanied this with a great picture of an ice-covered plant in his own garden.  As shown by the picture of  the ice-covered 'Heritage' English rose on the right, and of my front garden pictured below in December, 2007, I'm right there with him.  It never occurred to me to picture rose hips on 'Heritage' with a half inch of ice on them when I purchased it.

"There are five gardening seasons in the Midwest; spring, summer, fall, winter, and hell.  No, actually there are six; spring, summer, hell, fall, winter, and hell."  The first season of "hell" was defined as being the last week of July and first week of August, and the second the last two weeks of January.  Absolutely an accurate description of my climate, except I'd add that spring and fall are only two weeks long each. As an example, we just went from the 95 range to the 67 high of today in less than two weeks.  Tonight it's supposed to get down to 35 and we've got a chance of frost.

"Grow know-maintenance versus no-maintenance plants."  Kelly's point here was that there is no such thing as a "no maintenance" plant, so we should select plants knowing what their maintenance requirements are and if we can fulfill them in our gardens.

"Stop looking to see if a plant merely survived through a year and stop celebrating when it does."  His point being that we should select plants that not merely survive in our gardens but we should seek out those that THRIVE there.  Zonal denial is not a healthy state of mind for a gardener.

"Take pictures of the same spots in your garden over and over."  Great advice for a guy who likes to take garden photographs anyway.  What better way to see the seasonal progression of our gardens.  I'll start today.

There were lots of others, but that should give you a sampling of the wisdom of a good gardener and a great presentation.  If your garden group needs a speaker, take it from this old Professor who lectures for a living and get Kelly to come down your way.  I'm betting I just saw the guy who will be the next Paul James or P. Allen Smith of gardening circles.  

 

Pictures for Ourselves

Do you take pictures of your own garden?  If you don't, I'm going to take this moment to demand that you go find or purchase a camera and get to it.  If you already take pictures of your own gardens, then I'm going to request that you take them more often.  Nowadays, with digital cameras, hundreds of pictures cost pennies, so the downside of have developing and printing costs decrease your budget for plant purchases are no longer an excuse.  I promise, you'll see your garden differently through a camera lens.

I find myself in the garden more and more often with a camera in hand, and I never regret the time spent taking or looking at those pictures.  I catalog plants by their photos, I document my garden's growth and development in pictures, and I mark the change of seasons and the frequent Kansas storms with pictures of their majesty and their damage paths in my garden. But most of all, inside all those pictures, instead of seeing the garden through the eyes of its gardener, I see the garden through the eyes of a visitor.  I can experience the garden, instead of experiencing the process of gardening.

    

We find it difficult, the "we" of gardeners in general, to separate our vision of our gardens from the little things that irk us  I can't look at my garden and not see the occasional weeds, the faded mulch that I know is there, the drab grass clippings, the phlox I should have deadheaded, or the blackspot on the roses.  But through the camera, I forget about all those things and I'm able to see the garden through different eyes; the eyes that can appreciate the garden instead of the eyes that work in my garden.

For example, I was thinking lately that my garden, here in September at the end of a hot summer, was lacking color, a little drab, or maybe a little beaten up.  But look at the picture of my front garden above, facing away from the front door of the house, taken on September 25th.  Boy, was I wrong about the color!  Look at combinations of the 'Betty Boop' rose on the left, the 'Emerald Gaiety' euonymus of the foreground, the burgundy foliage of 'Wine and Roses' weigela in the background, the two varieties of sedum in bloom, and even the bright red rugosa rose 'Hunter' out of focus in the far right background.  I also know that on the left, just out of the picture, are the still-blooming remnants of the white phlox 'David' and to the right, the red Canadian rose 'Champlain'.  How much more color could I expect?  With my "gardener's eye" I just couldn't see the color separate from the sidewalk, the mulch, and the surrounding fields.  With my camera's eye, I can see the beauty that others see.

If I'd just been bright enough to remove the dead daylily scapes before I took the picture it might look even better to me.

Good Grief; 'Griff's Red'

It never fails, does it?  A gardener gives up on a plant and then low and behold there it comes again, fighting its way back from oblivion.  Right after you've planted something else in its stead, of course.

I've had a 'Griff's Red' rose for several years while it struggled along (the most charitable way I can put it) in my more formal "hybrid rose bed" in the shade of  three taller roses, a 'Variegata de Bologna', a 'Prairie Star', and a 'Prairie Harvest'.  It has meagerly clung to life in the shade and clay, barely putting up a cane for two years running.  This spring I decided to move it to the front of another bed (to replace yet another failed rose) where it would get more sun and better attention from the gardener.  Again, it put up a single cane about a foot high, limping along with one bloom to reward me for the summer, and then in July, a high wind took out the final cane.  I waited and waited for signs of life and finally in late August, I gave up and planted one of the new Paul Barden gallicas, 'Marianne', in the spot (see my blog titled I Dream of New Gallicas).

But, as I'm fond of quoting, "life found a way."  The picture above is of the 'Marianne' on the right, in the ground only a month, and the 'Griff's Red' on the left, the latter looking healthier than I've ever seen it with two young canes.  As soon as the August heat left, up popped 'Griff's Red' to remind me why I choose to grow own-root roses as often as I can find them.  Of course, I moved the  'Marianne' immediately, fortuitously to a new rose bed I had started with four other Barden roses.  Griff deserves another chance.

'Griff's Red' is a hybrid-tea style rose bred by the late Professor Griffith Buck at Iowa State University and introduced in 2001.  In fact, it's one of the "lost Buck roses," which means it was introduced after his death, by Dr. Buck's wife and daughter from the Buck rose-breeding stock.  Of the Buck roses, it's the best, brightest red, the four inch double blooms colored a fine ruby-red.  It's a well-refined bush, reaching only about three by three feet maximum and hardy to Zone 4.  It seems to be fairly resistant to blackspot and mildew, since I've never seen either on it, but I'm at a loss to explain my struggles with the plant except that I never gave it a chance to get going well, I guess.  I got mine from Heirloom Roses, which, last I checked, still offers the rose for sale.

Next time, I'll wait longer.  I promise.

Reblooming Iris?

Are there really reblooming irises? It does sound like a great concept, primarily because irises are ALL ABOUT the FLOWER;  after the spring bloom, the foliage, with a few notable exceptions such as I. pallida 'Variegata', doesn't add much to the garden and in fact, can look pretty ratty at times.  I've yet though, to my chagrin, to find the intersection of good care and good weather that will allow irises to rebloom consistently here in Kansas.


Earl of Essex

I first became aware of the possibility that some irises could have fall rebloom a couple of years back and once the concept sunk in, I sought out and planted a row of eight or ten varieties that were labeled as "reblooming" on the edge of a raised west-facing bed.  I now find that it was not as simple as it sounded.  The Reblooming Iris Society (yes, there is one), actually lists several types of reblooming irises including "cycle rebloomers" which bloom spring and fall, "repeaters" that produce new flowers right after the first spring flush, extending the spring bloom to one or two months, and "all-season rebloomers" which produce flowers irregularly over the season.  Unfortunately, most retailers, including some specialty nurseries, don't distinguish between these types and call them all "rebloomers", so you takes your chances.  I also have learned that gardeners in zones 3 and 4 can forget it;  little or no rebloom is seen in those areas ('Immortality', a white reblooming iris that is almost continually blooming in Southern California  may be the exception for cold areas).  And tropical areas may not see rebloom because cooler weather is needed to set off the second part of the cycle.  Finally, some varieties take a couple of years to start reblooming, so, once again, the gardener is asked to be patient. Luckily for us, selection for patience in gardeners is a Darwinian process. You are either patient, learn patience, or you don't garden long.  

This fall, my ' Immortality'  has produced a couple of anemic-looking blooms and the iris 'Earl of Essex', pictured above, did save the day with a few gorgeous and fragrant specimens.  Thus, two out of ten varieties that should rebloom have given me back a little bit for my efforts so far.  Even then, the 'Earl of Essex' was a bit aggravating because that particular plant in that place should have been the purple 'Grape Accent'.  I've become a fanatic about recording plant positions in my garden (because I long ago lost the names of most of my daylilies and the once-blooming irises) and when I put the new reblooming irises in the bed I made a special effort to get their positions right.  And, somehow, I still got them messed up.  Fiddlemuffins.

If you're going to try the reblooming irises, they require just a little more attention because they are said to grow more vigorously.  They benefit from a little low-nitrogen fertilizer in spring and fall and they should be watered more often during the summer to prevent dormancy.  And, of course, since water tends to make iris rhizomes rot, it is recommended to keep the rebloomers separate from other iris and to take extra efforts to make sure the soil drains easily.  They also need to be divided more often than usual for best results.  And good luck.  Schreiner's Iris Gardens lists 65 iris varieties that consistently rebloom in Oregon, including three iris that I grow with my regular iris and which I've never seen rebloom, and then they follow the list up with the admonition to "remember that remonancy is NOT guaranteed."

Garden Game

Recently, O.N.E. at her blog "Onenezz" or "One with Nature and Environment" challenged me to list ten things I enjoy doing as part of a little "Garden Game," which is in reality a little gardening blog ponzi scheme.  Okay, what the heck, I'm game:

Ten Things I Enjoy (in no particular order):

Planting

Despite the horrific clay mixed with flinty boulder soil that I have to dig in, I love to plant something new.  Particularly something that I've never grown before.  It's a little like giving birth, over and over, with the expected amount of sweat but not with all the icky fluids associated with animal births.

Reading

I'm a reader, always have been. As you can tell from my blog, I follow most of the better known garden authors, and beyond that I read fiction and mysteries and current events and biographies and generally most everything I can lay my hands on.

Browsing Garden Centers
There's nothing better to waste time than browsing garden centers. Doesn't matter if I've got a need, I can always make another hole to plant something in. That I enjoy this is something long recognized by my family, who refuses to go anywhere with me unless I promise I'll stick to a route that doesn't pass a garden store. Once, when we pulled up to a store and parked, my three year old daughter exclaimed "Oh No, Not More Roses!" with the same timber and pitch that a Titanic passenger would have exclaimed "Heaven Help Us!"

Waiting for the First Bloom

The first bloom on any new plant is always an anticipated joy.  Okay, sometimes it's a disappointment, but most of the time it's a joy.

Eating Strawberries

When the Greeks talked about ambrosia, I think they were referring to Strawberries.  Particularly sun-warmed, and eaten directly in the garden.  There is no fruit above them, in my opinion and they're the only fruit really worth all the trouble to produce.  Felt that way since I was a small boy. 

Garden Sounds and Fragrances

Nothing like closing my eyes and listening to the rustles of the Kansas wind in the Cottonwood trees. Or the Meadowlarks singing on the prairie in the morning. Many of the plants I grow are grown for their fragrance. Honeysuckles, Sweet Autumn Clematis, Roses, Peonies, and Iris all work best on the Kansas prairie for providing scent.

Writing

Writing follows as a natural consequence of reading and gardening and it also is an integral part of my work as an academic veterinary surgeon and educator, so I write during a significant portion of my time in one way or another.  That won't be new to those who have been to this blog before, nor will it be new to those who read the Garden Musings book that came before the blog.

Veterinary Orthopedic Surgery

What can I say? I'm lucky that I like what I do for a living. Surgery is a place where I immerse myself in a smaller world without the greater world's troubles, a world of anatomy and bone and muscle that is fixable and finite and leaves me at the end of the day with a feeling of accomplishment.  It's a Zen thing for me.  And I think the dogs appreciate it.

Watching Movies with my Wife

Dating, for us, was always a movie and it still is. Almost every week.  Not a lot of talk, just some popcorn and quiet time spent in proximity to one another.

Target Shooting

Yeah, with guns.  I won't try here to analyze the Freudian implications, but late in life, I've come to enjoy the concentration and satisfaction of placing a lead projectile into a small area of paper from a distance. Maybe it's a surgeon thing;  doing something carefully and accurately, the first time and every time. 

I've invited  the bloggers listed below to join in the game.  For those invited, the rules are simple:

a)  List ten things you enjoy doing.

b) Tell who invited you and where they blog

c) Invite another ten bloggers (or thereabouts) to join in.

A Photographer's Garden Blog
A Way to Garden
Fold, Fallow and Plough
Gardening Gone Wild
Hartwood Roses
High Altitude Gardening
May Dreams Garden
The Citrus Guy
This Garden is Illegal

And good luck.  In the meantime, we'll all get to know each other better, right?

Ban the Dust in the Wind

I thought I'd heard the pinnacle of supreme bureaucratic overreach when I learned about the EPA considering the banning of our annual spring burn (see my blog titled Burn the Prairie!) but it seems the EPA was just getting warmed up.

Recent frantic headlines and editorials across the Midwest, all something on the variation of "EPA to Crack Down on Farm Dust," have alerted anyone with the slightest interest in current events that the EPA is reevaluating the dangers present in the air we breathe; particularly regarding PM (particulate matter).  Twenty-one farm state US Senators signed a letter on July 23rd opposing changes in PM standards.  The local news picked it up about 5 nights ago and the local Manhattan, Kansas newspaper even ran an editorial on the subject late this week.   

All the hubbub is about the Policy Assessment for the Review of the Particulate Matter National Ambient Air Quality Standards (released to the public via the Federal Register on July 8, 2010).   Now, I'll tell you, even with my generally good scientific background, the 357 pages of this report are tough to read.  And it's difficult to take away anything that suggests that this is a farm issue.  The word "farm" only occurs in the report when discussing past litigation of standards and listing the American Farm Bureau Association as being one of the parties to the litigation.  And "agriculture" is only mentioned referring to a previous study that found that western airborne "contaminants were shown to accumulate geographically based on proximity to individual sources or source areas, primarily agriculture and industry."  In fact, all I can essentially glean from the report is that it is a comprehensive review of the evidence that particulate matter has detrimental effects on the cardiovascular, respiratory and visual systems, among other important body stuff.  All the hype about farmers having to wet down their fields before harvest and all dirt roads needing to be paved is coming from somewhere else, not from the report.  The big news that I can understand comes in Appendix 2, Table 2A-1 where it's revealed that under current PM standards, 12% of US counties (and 24% of the population) fail the standards, while the alternative standards being considered would result in anywhere from 29% to 79% of the counties (accounting for the living area of most of the US population) failing the new standards.  

So, I don't get it, myself, but out there in the public view there's a fairly dry report on particulate matter standards by what I'm sure are a bunch of highly knowledgeable, well-meaning scientists working for the EPA, and somewhere, some other intelligent scientists, who can draw conclusions from that report far better than me, are raising alarm sufficient to rile 21 US Senators that the EPA is trying to destroy America. 

I don't know how all this will finally shake out and whether we'll all just agree in the end that we can't really control (or it's too expensive and cumbersome to control) agricultural dust, or whether the EPA will establish new standards that will either lead to the total destruction of agriculture and business in the US or to another Revolution.  In the meantime, my feeble brain is pretty aware of the fact that "all we are is Dust in the Wind" to quote the famous rock song by Kansas.  Since most of the problem here is recognized as being created by human action, maybe People are the dust that the EPA will ultimately recognize should be banned.  Seems we're heading in that direction.  

Idiot-Proof Scanner Photography

For all those poor souls who, like me, sadly have the artistic ability of a donkey no matter what the canvas, I've got to show my first results with a new technique; using a computer and scanner to create collages with my garden bounty.

I became aware of scanner photography through the GardeningGoneWild Bloom Challenge website which had wonderful examples and was itself linked to a blog containing the works of photographer David Perry titled A Photographer's Garden Blog.  The breadth of possibilities and expression demonstrated on Perry's blog inflamed my obsessive-compulsive nature and, although pausing for supper, I spent the evening after my discovery choosing flowers and vegetation and trying the technique out my home scanner, and after a little photo editing, I created, among many others, the images here.

You've just got to try this technique out.  To get started, you need only a computer, scanner, and some garden material and after that, the sky is the limit.  Literally.  As far as tips go, I've already got a few from my brief experience:

a)  Use only perfect blooms and foliage;  the scanner will pick up every little imperfection.

b)  Keep the scanner surface perfectly dust- and streak-free.  Again, any defect will mar the final picture.

c) The only perfectly focused items will be right on the scanner surface. Items and blooms even slightly off the surface quickly lose focus.

d)  For pictures without a background, keep the room lights off and do the scanning at night to get a background that a little photo manipulation will turn to seamless black.

e)  You can try colored or patterned backgrounds, but in practice, I found it tough to make the textures of these backgrounds fit the pictures.

f) The photo editing software need not be sophisticated, but you will need some editing capability.  I used Microsoft Office Picture Manager for these pictures.

Give it a shot;  you'll amaze yourself and stun the friends and family who've given up on ever seeing your artsy side!

Ravishing Madame Hardy

Over forty posts into this blog and I am remiss by not admitting that while I don't, as a general rule, pick favorites for most things, I do, however, have a favorite rose.  I confess publicly that I love the delectable purity of Madame Hardy.


Madame Hardy

'Madame Hardy' is an 1832 Damask rose that is probably one of the most unique and recognizable roses of all time.  The first indication of her delicate nature is the unique fringed sepals that surround the developing blooms. The blooms open flat and completely, normally revealing a fully double rose of pure white petals around a central green pip, but  in cool weather Madame Hardy seems a little embarrassed about revealing so much of herself at one time and there will be a slight cream or pink blush when she first opens.  Those perfectly formed blooms are held above a light matte green foliage on a bush completely unlike that of modern roses.  Instead of coarse, thick-caned, thorny and stiff legs, Madame Hardy has a perfect vase-like form, with thin long canes that seldom branch, but run from foot to head, and her thorns are reserved and ladylike in their lack of aggressiveness.  And the fragrance!  Sweet honey with overtones of lemon, Madame Hardy has a perfume that is strong and at the same time light upon the senses.  She doesn't beat you with fragrance like an Oriental Lily, she entices you, she lures you, and finally seduces you into worship.  If I were to chose a single word to describe this consummate lady, it would be "elegant."  She blooms only once a year, Madame Hardy, but when she blooms the angels have come to earth and blessed us with a glimpse of heaven. 

Madame Hardy was known to be a special rose from the beginning.  Her breeder, Monsieur Jules-Alexandre Hardy, was the Superintendent of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris and an acknowledged expert on fruit trees, dabbling in roses on the side.  Some references, including Michael Pollan in Second Nature, a Gardener's Education, state that Monsieur Hardy was the head gardener for the Empress Josephine's rose collections at Malmaison, but the timing seems a bit off to me since Monsieur Hardy was born in 1787 and would only have been 25 years old by the time Josephine died in 1812.   All sources agree that Monsieur Hardy named this rose after his own wife, a testament to his devotion for eternity, and if that was his intention, he couldn't have chosen better.  One source states that the original name for this rose, after his wife, was 'Félicité Hardy', while another source gives the wife's name as Marie-Thérèse Pezard, but regardless, the rose has come to us down the ages as 'Madame Hardy'. According to Alex Pankhurst, in Who Does Your Garden Grow?, "by 1885 there were over six thousand varieties of rose available....that year a French rose journal recommended 'Madame Hardy' as one of the best..."  More recently, the celebrated British rose expert, Graham Thomas, wrote, “This variety is still unsurpassed by any rose.”

Alas, for all rose fanatics, Madame Hardy remains chaste in the garden and won't form hips or contribute pollen to other roses.  She would have undoubtedly been a great source for breeding a line of fantastic modern roses, but leaves us with no rivals, only her own beauty to be admired.

A Little Piece of Texas

Like most of the US population, Kansans sometimes exhibit a little bit of Texas envy, manifested in the gardening population of Kansas by a desire to grow Texas Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrush.  Since neither of the forementioned plants are reliably hardy in my climate (don't think I haven't tried!), I've turned to another native Texas plant to satisfy my yearnings; Red Yucca, also known as Texas Red Yucca or Red False Yucca.

Of course, since I've only been in Texas once, not counting a few hops through the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, I was introduced to Red Yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora) in Las Vegas, where it serves as a common xeri-landscape plant.  I'm sure any native Las Vegans, if in fact there are any, could identify the plant on sight, but I suffered on that particular trip from being in a foreign climate where a) I had no real idea what I was looking at, and b)  neither did any of the people working for the hotels and casinos that I asked.  From experience, I'm guessing that casino dealers and hostesses as a general rule don't spend a lot of time admiring the casino landscaping.  Identification had to wait for my return home and access to a computer, where I recognized Hesperaloe on the High Country Gardens website as the plant I'd just spent three days lusting after.

Hesperaloe parviflora 'Yellow'

Red Yucca is found native to the Rio Grande and northern Mexico area, in the Chihuahuan desert, where it matures to a 2-3 foot high and 4 foot wide succulent mound with narrow blue-green leaves and filamentous edges.  The plant flowers over a long period with inverted bell-shaped flowers of coral red, and it is well-suited for xeriscaping by its drought-tolerant, full-sun requirements and its preference for alkaline soil.  I was happy to see that it's a favored plant by hummingbirds and requires little or no maintenance beyond cutting down the flower stalks.  In fact, one helpful Internet gardener commented that it grows in very poor soil, "virtually no soil," so it seems made for my Flint Hills clay.  It's supposed to be hardy to zone 5, and evergreen to boot, so I'm giving this one a chance in my garden.  I've planted two different varieties from High Country Gardens, the red Hesperaloe and a yellow form (Hesperaloe parviflora 'Yellow'), both in somewhat well-drained poor-soil areas. Both survived the hot, dry summer we just had and needed minimal extra watering for establishment.   The yellow form, pictured at left, is doing great and probably has doubled in size since June, although it hasn't yet bloomed. I have great hope for it as I've seen reports of it growing in Denver, Colorado, and Shawnee Mission, Kansas, the latter just a hop, skip, and dead plant away.

So, once again, I'm stepping out into the murky waters of zonal envy and pinning my dreams for garden excellence on a whimsically-chosen plant glimpsed in someone else's climate.  You'd think I'd learn, expecting providence while staring from warm September down into the depths of a Kansas winter.  You'd think all gardeners would learn, but gardeners, more than all other human strains, seem to remain eternal optimists in the face of repeated failure.

BumbleBee Harvest Time

Ornamental grasses are all the rage in the fall garden these days and gardeners also crave any shrub whose foliage turns red, orange, or yellow to light up our fall landscapes.  As we design our landscapes solely to ease us softly into bitter winter, however, we should not forget that while it's harvest time all over Kansas and the Midwest for the grain needed to sustain mankind though the winter, it's harvest time for all the other creatures of Earth as well.

While fall gardeners still value flowering plants for adding color to the garden, there is no better reason to keep fall-blooming plants in your garden than to provide that final fall burst of energy for the many creatures who need nectar for winter stores, whether it's the hummingbirds migrating south for the winter or it is the bumblebee at the right, sipping at the 'Blue Mist' caryopteris.  In fact, take a closer look at that blue-collar workaholic bumblebee; covered in pollen from the many visits, it doesn't have time for a shower or a deodorant spritz, it's just buzz buzz buzz till the cold saps its energy.  Bumblebees store only a few days energy in the nest and each individual must reach a certain weight before entering their hibernation state if they are to survive the winter.  Astonishing efficient and cooperative, they leave a little scent deposit on every flower they visit, a gentle way of communicating to the next bumblebee to come along not to bother wasting time at that particular blossom.  In the fall, they benefit most from lavenders, asters, sunflowers, hyssop, sedums, goldenrods and salvias, which accounts for the activity around my lavenders and for all the Blue Sage (Salvia azurea), goldenrod, and sunflowers blooming all over the Kansas prairie right now.  I've not had a lot of luck with heather here in the Flint Hills, but a dense patch would help shelter the bumblebees in inclement weather so it might be worth a try in a sheltered area. Several sources noted that honeysuckles are also valuable in fall as a rich supply of nectar for bumblebees.  And I noticed just this weekend that my 'Florida Red' honeysuckle was blooming again.  Smart vine, that honeysuckle!

Of course, other flowers and plants are useful for these and other visitors.  The  Buddleia sp. keep up their display to attract butterflies like the late season Thoas Swallowtail pictured at the right.  The milkweeds sacrifice themselves for the greater glory of the Monarch.  And of course, nothing likes the honeysuckle better than the migrating hummingbirds.

Every plant has its favorite pollinator, every insect a favored plant, all synchronized to mix and mingle just at the right time to keep them all going, year after year, eon after eon.  Seems like there's a Grand Plan to all this, doesn't it? 

Seventh Generation Gardening

Jim Nollman, in "Why We Garden"  tells a unique story in the chapter on his Sequoia tree garden.  He relates that whenever the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy held a council meeting, the  Haudenosaunee (Iroquois tribal government) took a moment to invoke the presence of the seventh future generation.  According to Nollman, under the Great Law of Peace, any vote among the living council members also included an equal vote for the needs and dignity of those who would live in the seventh generation to come. 

Isn't that just a great concept?  If in everything we did, in everything done by our system of government, there was a voice or a vote by a representative for the Seventh Generation, how would that change the debates?  What would it mean for US environmental policies?  For drilling in the Arctic tundra?  For saving the Spotted Owl?   At the turn of the 20th Century, would it have saved the Ivory-billed Woodpecker?  Or the Carolina Parakeet?  If the Executive Board of British Petroleum had a member whose sole duty was to represent the Seventh Generation, would the Gulf Spill have happened?  Unfortunately, the modern expression  of the "Seventh Generation" idea seems to have only spawned hype for any number of modern products and outcomes, from the green cleaners and laundry detergents made by Seventh Generation Inc., to the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development, to the proposed Seventh Generation Amendment (Common Property Amendment) for the US Constitution.

 Unfortunately, it also all seems to be based on a myth.  I'll admit that I'm cheating on the research effort, since I've only searched the Internet, but in two different translations of Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois available to me, the word "seven" is mentioned only twice, both times in relation to how thick a skin a council member should have, and the future generations are only invoked in a vague sense, as in Article 56 "They therefore shall labor, legislate, and council together for the interest of future generations,"  or in another passage that states, "Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground."  And in practice, I suppose the idea of a representative for the Seventh Generation wouldn't work in our government.  Who would speak for the Seventh Generation?  Al Gore?  George Soros?  Rush Limbaugh?
 
Luckily for gardeners, the Seventh Generation concept does work well in our own gardens.  When I planted a slow-growing Scarlet Oak at the back of my garden, who did I think would benefit from its shade?  Not me, surely, for 8 years later it still barely lifts its branches four foot above the ground.  When I plant a pecan tree, what generation am I expecting will finally be the beneficiary of the nuts that will rain down sometime in the distant future?  Do I maintain my Purple Martin houses and Bluebird trail for my enjoyment, or so that there will be a chance that Eastern Bluebirds and Purple Martins will always return to this bit of Flint Hills prairie with each Spring? How long will vanity let me leave the volunteer milkweeds alone, creating a shamble of my garden design, but providing food for the dwindling Monarch butterflies?  
 
Whether or not the story told by Nollman is true, please plant something today, make a new garden bed, or put up a new birdhouse, I urge you, for the Seventh Generation. 

Garden Tranquilizers

If, my fellow gardeners, you missed the news while you were out digging and planting, Science has recently discovered that gardening is addicting, or at least responsible for our generally cheerful moods, and even better, that gardening might make us smarter.

Stupid scientists.  We already knew both those things, didn't we?

It's all about a natural soil bacterium called Mycobacterium vaccae.  Previous research studies have shown that heat-killed M. vaccae injected into mice stimulated growth of some brain neurons that resulted in increased levels of serotonin and decreased anxiety.  Serotonin, for the medically uninitiated, is a neurotransmitter that helps us sleep, regulates our body clocks and our body temperature, and regulates our daily cycle of endogenous cortisol, calming us down at night. So, in essence, due to bacteria we're exposed to as we dig, gardening is just a big dose of anti-depressants for its stalwart devotees. It's also true that LSD acts through stimulation of serotonin receptors, so draw your own conclusions from there to some of the gardeners you know.

More recently, a study presented in San Diego by Dorothy Matthews and Susan Jenks at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology reported on the ability of mice to navigate a maze after being fed the bacteria..  The result;  M. vaccae-fed mice negotiated the maze twice as fast and with less demonstrated anxiety behaviors than control mice.

As gardeners, we're constantly exposed to M. vaccae through breathing or ingestion (for those who garden with an open mouth), so, in theory, every time we dig into the dirt, we relax a little bit and we get a little smarter.   I, for one, am happy to keep digging (or I'm digging to keep happy)  to get my daily fix of M. vaccae.  I'll leave it to the WEEW/OGB (Wild-Eyed Environmental Wackos/Organic Nut-Balls) to promote eating dirt clods or drinking muddy water for the "natural" benefits.

Follow-up experiments by Matthews and Jenks showed that the increased intelligence effect was temporary (diminished after several weeks)  if the exposure to M. vaccae was withdrawn, suggesting that it is important for us to keep digging regularly and perhaps explaining why Northern Hemisphere gardeners are so depressed during winter months.  Rebecca Kolls of Rebecca's Garden TV show fame was always telling us to "Keep those hands dirty!" wasn't she?   If nothing else, we now have some evidence why gardeners should be better at getting around those corn mazes that crop up everywhere in the Fall.

Green Rose Surprise

I'm sure we've all seen those cheap, small, sad-looking supermarket roses that we either pass by or we purchase on a whim, keep indoors until the blackspot denudes them, and then toss on the compost heap.  But how many of us ever consider planting one out in the larger garden?

In a moment of late summer weakness last year, and knowing I had a few square inches in the miniature rose bed, I was hijacked by the striking appearance of one of these little orphans which appeared to have, I'm not kidding, light green petals.  I did a double-take after noticing the green buds and examined it further, knowing that a green rose was impossible (except for the mutant Rosa chinensis viridiflora that has no petals and lots of sepals).  I suspected that the soil was dyed to temporarily create this appearance, but, despite feeling foolish, I purchased the little creature (partially influenced by the fact it was marked down from $6 to $3). 

Honora™

This particular rose is Honora™ also known as 'Poulpah051', a PatioHit® rose released in 2007 from Poulsen Roser A/S, and it has more than lived up to my expectations and further, surprised me again and again. Planted into my garden and on its own roots, it first surprised me by surviving a Kansas winter. And not just surviving, it was cane hardy in my zone 5 climate.  It has bloomed in several flushes this summer, and it still maintains the light mint green look in the outer and younger petals while the inner petals are white with a very light pink blush. Honora™ is classified as a miniature, but it has very large, fully double flowers (about 3-4 inches when fully open).  I'm at a complete loss to explain where the green tinge comes from, but I don't really care as long as it stays.  I haven't sprayed Honora™ all summer long and the foliage is completely immune to blackspot.  But the biggest surprise of all is the vase-life of this rose.  The spray pictured here was cut from the garden in the middle of a 95+ degree day FOURTEEN days ago.  I've done everything you do when you don't want to prolong vase life; I didn't cut the stem under water, there are no preservatives in the water, and it's sat by a window at room temperature.  But here it is, still shining and in perfect form two weeks later.  When was the last time you were able to keep a cut rose in good shape that long?  Poulsen Roser has included this rose in a trademarked group known as Long Decorative Value™, evidently for very good reasons.

I've got another of the PatioHit® roses, a bright orange rose named Estepona™, or 'Poulpah028', which also survived the winter and decorates my garden.  Who knew that those dumb little supermarket roses would do so well outside?  So, bottom line, when you get a chance or a bargain, don't dismiss these little jewels just because they are sold in mass at the supermarket.  They may just surprise you.