Rooting for Grootendorsts

'F. J. Grootendorst'

In normal times I respect and listen to Suzy Verrier on all things Rugosa.  After all, how can the author of Rosa Rugosa and Rosa Gallica possibly be mistaken?  Of the Grootendorst roses, however, she writes:  "I feel little to admire in these shrubs which are peculiarly not rose-like.  The growth is ungraceful..crowded blossoms do not have any particular beauty...all tend to attract pests and lack the disease resistance of most rugosas.....MIGHT BE DESCRIBED AS SOULLESS."

'F. J. Grootendorst' and 'Alchymist'

The past two summers in Kansas, however, have not been normal times.  In my garden during a fine Fall weekend, my three Grootendorsts were providing more than their share of color, perhaps out-classed only by an ambitious 'Earth Song' which seems to be blooming like it was a baseball player on steroids.  I grow the original red  'F. J. Grootendorst', pictured above in the closeup and blooming with 'Alchymist' to the left.  I also grow two of its sports, 'Pink Grootendorst', introduced by the same nursery in 1923 and pictured below at the right in my garden in 2008, and I grow 'Grootendorst Supreme', a deeper red sport introduced in 1936 but just planted into my garden this Summer as an own-root plant from Menard's.  There is a white sport of Pink Grootendorst as well, introduced by Paul Eddy in 1962, that I haven't yet purchased or grown.



'Pink Grootendorst'

The original 'F. J. Grootendorst' was reportedly introduced by F. J. Grootendorst and Sons in 1918, and bred by De Goey in the Netherlands as a cross between R. rugosa rubra and 'Madame Norbert Levavasseur'.  There is some controversy over the provenance of the rose, however, as Robert Osborne suggests, and repeats in his Hardy Roses book, that Dr. Frank L. Skinner may have been the real breeder the rose.  Dr. Skinner sent two packets of a seedling from the same cross, R. Rugosa X 'Madame Norbert Lavavasseur', to two separate locations, one of which never arrived at its intended destination, and then fifteen years later he saw the identical rose introduced from Holland.  Oh the intrigue hidden beneath the simple surface of a rose! 

The Grootendorst sports are all small-blossomed, very double, cluster-flowered roses, with an unusual petal shape that I refer to as "fringed".  These are shrub-type roses with small rugose foliage, in the 5X5' range of size here in Kansas.  The rose doesn't form hips, nor do the blossoms have any perceptible scent.  Yes, these are atypical roses, but unlike Ms. Verrier, I would have rated their disease resistance as outstanding in my garden, and if they do possess a soul, it is one reflected by any number of hardy prairie plants.  Certainly, I welcome both their profuse blooms, drought resistance, and their hardiness in my garden. 


Rosa Rugosa by Suzy Verrier

Times change and classic roses go in and out of style and favor.  All I can suggest for those who are intrigued by the Grootendorst roses is to try them and evaluate their performance in your own garden.  Suzy Verrier seems to be moderating her previous stance, since her North Creek Farm nursery currently sells 'Grootendorst Supreme' and 'White Grootendorst'.  Of the former, she comments that "Old prejudices aside, someone gave me one of these and I must admit Supreme has bloomed itself silly, been extra healthy, and I do like the bright deep saturated crimson-pink color in the garden."  My compliments to Ms. Verrier.  I've always felt that a true expert must be willing, at times, to change their opinions if new evidence seems pertinent.

Gardens of Caligula

This week my garden has been transformed into a den of inequity.

A couple of days past, I was peacefully walking through my garden, virtuous and wholesomely thinking only of the graceful lines of mature ornamental grasses and cherubic cement angels.  Suddenly, I stumbled across a garden orgy sufficient to satisfy Caligula.  Fornication!  Out in the open and here among the flowers!  What kind of brothel am I running?

I have a line of 'Matrona' sedum lining one of my beds, and on the flowers of those sedums were a writhing, panting mass of  Goldenrod Soldier Beetles (Chauliognathus pensylvanicus), most of them in flagrante delicto and completely unaware of my voyeurism.  I had an immediate flashback to a time over a decade ago when I was in Vancouver, Canada at a teaching seminar, exploring the famous Wreck Beach on my spare time, only to find out that the Wreck Beach was famous primarily for its clothing-optional section.  At least the insects on my 'Matrona' weren't playing nude volleyball, an image still seared on my eyeballs now some 15 years later.  One internet source noted that the insects mate "for extended periods on the flowers" although "the reason for their lengthy mating period is not certain."  The source did note that females in the act of mating are less likely to be disturbed by wasps than single females.  To that observation, I say "duh", because by my careful observation, what I presume is the male partner is always on top, his back exposed to the wasp, while the female hides protected underneath.

If these beetles were looking for goldenrod, their favorite food source, to homestead on, they are a little early in my garden, for most of the goldenrod hasn't bloomed yet.  Perhaps they are just getting the essential act of procreation out of the way before gorging themselves and fattening for winter, not unlike other species that periodically visit my garden. More likely, they are just the insect equivalent of pubescent humans, driven into ill-considered acts by overactive glands. The next thing you know, they'll be riding giant insect roller coasters just to impress pretty girls (ask me about that story sometime...). 

Goldenrod Soldier Beetles, also known as Pennsylvania leatherwings, are believed to be completely harmless to the flowers and in fact may participate in pollination.  Their larvae are also predators of aphids and other soft-bellied insects.  Several sources tell me the adult beetles secrete an anti-feedant, Z-dihydromatricaria acid, from 9 gland pairs on their abdomens, a defensive move to keep predatory jumping spiders away.   Their presence in this bed of my roses is thus a positive occurrence and instead of being shocked, I should welcome and encourage all the intercourse that they want to have.  I have concluded, therefore, that my best action is to allow them to continue their wanton behavior, averting my eyes from details of the promiscuous activity all around me with the tolerance of a saint among sinners.


 

Thoughts From The Abyss

Wednesday morning I walked through my garden with trepidation, fearful that at any minute I would slip and fall into one of the drought-created crevasses that lurked everywhere, sometimes obscured by a tuft of bluestem grasses, often hidden by a thin bridge of grass mulch.  These clay canyons, pictured here and just below to the left, are deep, Grand Canyon-style deep, perhaps opening all the way to the bedrock below.  Last weekend I chose to water a few of the less-established roses and I poured water from the hose into one of these caverns for over 2 minutes and never filled it up.  Finally, I gave up and moved on, fearful that the water was just gushing through the Earth to China, where the accumulation of all the moisture might make the Earth lopsided and spin us out of orbit.

I can't fathom how so many of my plants survive, roots anchored into parched soil like this.  If I would slip an endoscope into these cracks, would I see bare roots spanning the abyss like a primeval bridge, or would I see broken roots, snapped off under the tensile strains as the soil dried and shrank?  Are there entire new desert ecosystems growing deep inside the chasms, xeriscopic fungi gardened by thirsty insects with hardened chitin shields?  However the manner in which the soil splits and cracks, the survival of most of my plants right now stands as a testament to the natural selection pressures over the past 12 years in this garden.  It also illustrates just how drought-tolerant established roses can be.  If you want flowers in Kansas, grow roses.

This morning, Thursday morning, there is a mist in the air and the 0.9 inches of rain that fell last night (the first moisture in over a month of hot days) has begun to erase the fissures.  Taken at the exact same spot as the first photo above, you can see in the photo at the right that the edges of the canyons are eroding, and that the soil, although not nearly wet enough to be classified as moist, at least appears softer.  Always the cautious gardener, however, ProfessorRoush stayed away from the rims of the abyss because he knows that the now unstable edges might crumble beneath his feet, sweeping me down into the depths.  I fear that Mrs. ProfessorRoush would just never accept that explanation of why I was calling collect from Canton, China.  

Quiet, Demure, and Uninspiring

'Quietness'

I've kept mum (pun intended) for quite a while about 'Quietness', one of the "post-Griffith-Buck" introduced roses that were reportedly bred by Griffith Buck, and I suppose I should finally say something about it.  It's not that I haven't noticed the rose in my garden or watched its every bloom develop and open, my silence simply stems from a lack of enthusiasm.  I just don't know yet how I feel about 'Quietness'.  I can tell you that I'm not stark raving mad, avid, or agog about it at the present time.  Perhaps all the Internet hype about this rose had me expecting more. 



'Quietness'

'Quietness' was introduced in 2003 by Roses Unlimited, and she quickly gained acclaim as a show rose and garden performer.  I have to agree that Quietness' is a good rose and that she is a good cutting rose for the house.  She is the light blush pink of a new baby's cheeks and very full of petals, a double rose of some 40+petals that is also blessed with a strong perfume.  I don't know the proper term for the petal shape, but I would call it a "bi-lobed" petal, with almost, but not quite, a fringed rim.   The blooms start out in classic Hybrid Tea form, open full, and are quite large, almost 4" inches in diameter.  Blooms are often, as pictured here, borne in clusters and may be seen in several stages on a cluster.  All these are carried on a healthy bush more Hybrid Tea-form to me than shrublike.  Leaves are moderately resistant to blackspot for me, with <25% loss this year for me (as always, without spray).  This rose grows tall, 4-5 feet, but is not terribly wide in my garden at present.  Overall, I'd say she is lighter pink, slightly smaller, and more double-flowered, but otherwise resembles 'Queen Elizabeth'.  Is that an endorsement or a slight?

Esteemed rosarian Paul Zimmerman, writing from South Carolina, raves about 'Quietness', saying she is the easiest keeper in the garden of one of his friends, and "If you are looking for a stunning, soft pink, non stop blooming, smell-o-rama experience, than Quietness is the rose for you."  In an even more impressive endorsement, Peggy Rockerfeller Rose Garden curator Peter Kukielski  and his staff at the New York Botanical Gardens rated 845 roses for 3 years for hardiness and disease resistance and the winner was 'Quietness'(!), just ahead of 'Home Run' and 27 spots ahead of 'Knock Out'!   So perhaps, my specimen just isn't quite old enough to shine yet, or perhaps 'Quietness' does better in other climates such as the Atlantic seaboard, than it does in the MidWest.  If the latter is true and she performed adequately but not spectacularly in Dr. Buck's Iowa State proving grounds, that could explain why Dr. Buck didn't release the rose during his lifetime.  Right now, based on my experience this year growing a number of young Griffith Buck roses and as I noted earlier, I'd have given the best-newcomer nod to 'Chorale', another light pink, and for me, more rapidly repeating, Buck rose.

Update 09/27/2013;  Okay, I take some of it back.  Looking at 'Quietness' again, I realize that I overestimated its blackspot and that it actually has practically none and has retained all its foliage while 'Chorale' has lost about half its foliage.  I stand by the observation that 'Chorale' repeats its bloom faster.

Griffith Buck Rose Chart

I'm sorry, I am aware that this is a somewhat unusual post for Garden Musings, and it completely lacks any attempt at literacy or style, but I'm too excited to show you something.  I spent most of yesterday working on a talk I have to give in late September at the annual Extension Master Gardener state continuing education conference, and I put together a handout listing the Griffith Buck roses that I'm pretty proud of:

The sample above is a small screen clip to show you the chart I made.  It lists what I think are all the roses (99?) bred by Griffith Buck and introduced to commerce either prior to or after his death.  As many rosarians know, there are a couple of Buck roses that were introduced over the decade following his passing,and then approximately 8 more, collected from his friends, were introduced in 2010 by Chamblee Rose Nursery of Tyler, Texas.  To create the chart, I pulled together information from several web sources, my own experience, and, most prominently, an old xeroxed description of cultivars that is of unknown provenance and dates back at least to 1987.  Even so, there are still some gaps in info.  In case you are wondering, the "grey" background items are Buck roses that I've never seen or grown.  The "white" are roses I currently have in my garden, although many aren't mature yet.

UPDATE:  I was able to add the table to page 3 here on this blog.  It doesn't format as perfectly as my Word document pictured above, but at least I can keep it updated better than a jpg file on Photobucket.  It provides the pictured information such as color, height, etc on each one, as well as my best estimate of blackspot resistance in my mid-continental climate. The legend for the chart is at the bottom.  I hope everyone finds it useful and I plan to update it as I receive more information.Enjoy!
 
I left this paragraph from the original post in case you want to download the original table jpg's, but this info will not be updated:    Since I thought that this information might be useful to others, I've posted page 1 of the list here, on Photobucket, and page 2 of the list here.  Once opened, if you click on them again, they will be less fuzzy.   I think these will print out fine although the small subscripts get a little lost, but I couldn't figure out how to post a PDF to either here or Photobucket.  If anyone else has a better idea, please let me know.   The chart is two pages.

Yes, I'm Ready

On first read, I disagreed with Meghan Shinn, opining in this month's Horticulture Magazine that it was time for the gardening season to end.  The young and beautiful Ms. Shinn said she was tired of it all and that the garden had run its course.  I disagreed initially because I wasn't sure I was ready yet for the end of the roses, for the finish line of the grasses and asters.

But Meghan's editorial did come during a week of 100+ temperatures here in Kansas.  And the drought is back in full force and I'm beginning to think about carrying water to young plants and I just don't want to do it.  I'm not young and energetic like the fresh-faced Ms. Shinn, I'm old and achy, tired of summer and tired of weeds and tired of endless cantaloupe that need picking.

Well, maybe I'm not quite that washed up, but as I mowed yesterday, I did decide that I should welcome the wisdom of Horticulture's current editor, not question it.  Perhaps it was dusty, drought-stressed grass, unmowed for two weeks and sprouting unsightly seedheads as the single lure for me to the mower.  Perchance it was the sight of yet another rain cloud passing around me to the North, my dessicated and weary soul fruitlessly begging for relief.  Maybe it was the incredible harvest of crabgrass thumbing its nose at me from the edges of all my garden beds.  Perhaps it was the skinny, unattractive legs of some of the less-blackspot-resistant members of the rose troupe that were spoiling my mood.  The hordes of grasshoppers didn't help, hopping madly on me in the thousands as I mowed, and their efforts to advance my discomfort were aided by biting flies and large nearly-invisible spider webs.  Maybe it was just the heat.

My garden is still attractive, I think, although it has morphed into a white garden and I'm not that fond of monochromatic gardens.  As you can see from the picture above, and see better if you click on the picture, the overall garden is dominated by the white panicled Hydrangea to the left and the tall central column of white Sweet Autumn Clematis, and the Boltonia sp. blob amid the ornamental grass bed and the several white or near white Hibiscus syriacus scattered around the beds.  Add in a few tall white-edged "Snow-in-Summer" milkweeds that I purposely allowed to survive, the remnant blooms of a white 'Navaho' crapemyrtle, and a few pale pinks of various roses like 'Freckles' and 'Amiga Mia', and there's entirely too much white drowning out the more colored roses and Rose of Sharon.  Even my 'Sally Holmes', normally a decrepit specimen that I somehow allow to keep photosynthesizing against my better judgment, has decided to add an unusual number of blossoms to the mix.

After reflection, I think Ms. Shinn is right.  I'm not built for a California or Hawaii climate, with year round weeds and flowers.  I'm a child of the four-seasoned Midwest, always ready to move along with the flow of the seasons.  I'm ready for the first frosts to bring on the end of mowing the relentless prairie grass.  I'm ready for the leaves to turn and drop, ready for the rush to gather the last perfect roses before they are covered by snow.  I'm ready again to dream of those first tender green sprouts of Spring, the world borne anew and damp and fresh.

 

Hydrangea Heaven

Kansas gardens are living proof that not all hydrangeas are created equal.  I have always been a miserable failure at growing the more common blue or pink Hydrangea macrophylla, countless numbers of which I have purchased, watered, fertilized, protected, cursed and eventually mourned over.  My experiences with the more cold- and drought-resistant panicled hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata) have been much more promising, however.  Here in the dry sunny Flint Hills, these large shrubs are dependable focal points for the August garden.

 

 

 

'Limelight'

Without a doubt, the most floriferous display in my garden this week is 'Limelight' a fabulous panicled hydrangea that dominates its corner of the garden.  'Limelight' is an introduction from Holland patented in 2002, and it can make an enormous eight foot tall deciduous shrub in the garden, although mine seems to have maxed out at approximately 5 foot tall and wide.  The drought of the past two years seems to have worked in my favor this year, bringing the plant into a display that surpasses any other year.  'Limelight' grows in full sun and on an exposed site for me, completely unprotected from the Kansas climate, and it is cold-hardy to the tips.



'Limelight' Hydrangea

Some of the cone-shaped flower panicles of 'Limelight' are almost a foot long and 6 inches wide. They start out light lime-green and then fade to white and finally gain some pink tones in the fall, and the foliage seems to be resistant to insect and fungal damage here, although the leaves occasionally get a little crisped on the edges by the hot July and August sun.  I only regret that there is only a negligible fragrance and that the shrub is seemingly sterile in its environment, unattractive to bees and other valuable garden residents.

'Pink Diamond'

I grow several other panicled hydrangeas.  'Pink Diamond', pictured to the left and below, was labeled at purchase as a Hydrangea microphylla, but I can't find H. microphylla as a recognized species and online sources list it as H. paniculata.  'Pink Diamond' also provides a good floral display, and individual flowers turn pink quickly at the base of the panicles.  My 'Pink Diamond' shrub is about the same size overall as 'Limelight', and it sits at the opposite end of the same bed, forming white bookends at this time of the year for the other plants in the rest of the bed.

'Pink Diamond'

'Vanilla Strawberry'

H. paniculata 'Vanilla Strawberry' grows almost in the center of the same bed, and this has a much more subtle display than its show-off cousins.  At maturity, it is around four feet tall and wide, a little smaller than the H. paniculata cultivars, perhaps because it grows in the shadow of a towering  'Sweet Autumn Clematis' (seen to the left of the picture below) that also insists on trying to colonize everything within it's reach.  A note of caution is in order about the H. paniculata's:  Wikipedia states that hydrangeas are moderately toxic if eaten, with all parts of the plant containing cyanogenic glycosides.  Human beings sometimes try to smoke H. paniculata leaves, an often fatal action due to cyanide inhalation.  So, kids, don't smoke hydrangeas.

'Vanilla Strawberry' covered by C. paniculata

Although I've previously neglected to mention the garden usefulness of H. paniculata and other hardy hydrangeas as stalwart shrubs in Kansas, I would never leave them out of my next garden.  Right now, I've got high hopes for a yet small 'Pinky Winky' cultivar that I planted two years ago, although it has struggled in the drought and heat of its first two summers.  I'll also disclose that I've failed previously with H. paniculata 'Quick Fire', and with 'H. quercifolia', and 'H. quercifolia 'Little Honey',  but I think the latter native species deserves another try before I give up on it entirely.  It is supposed to have nicely-colored fall foliage that would be a good addition to my October garden.

  

Perfumed Prairie Sunrise

'Prairie Sunrise'; typical bloom

Have you ever had a rose that begged you to photograph it every time you passed?  One that you couldn't stop photographing even when you try to resist its siren call?  One of my new roses this year is 'Prairie Sunrise', and I think I might have taken at least one photo of every bloom it has developed since this rose grew from a tiny little band.  The latest photograph, of several solitary blooms (see the bottom photo of this entry), was taken on my iPhone this week.  As you can see,  'Prairie Sunrise' is just flat gorgeous, aptly named for the full blooms of pink, orange, and amber tones.  And also aptly named for its resemblance to a prairie sunrise such as the one below that I captured on 6/27/13:



'Prairie Sunrise'; first bloom for me

'Prairie Sunrise' is officially an apricot blend Shrub rose bred by Dr. Griffith Buck prior to 1992, but it was not introduced by him.  Helpmefind.com notes that this rose was introduced in 1997 by Sam Kedem Nursery and Garden, the latter a Minnesota-based mail-order nursery that I frequented in years past. Listing the rose as "apricot" doesn't really do justice to the coloring of this very double (50 petals) rose.  In colder weather, I see a lot of pinks and yellows in this rose, while in very hot weeks the blooms are almost amber, with pinkish tones banished to the outer petals.  The large (4 inch) blooms display as singles or in small clusters and are very fragrant, among the most fragrant of the Griffith Buck bred roses.  They are so full as to be quartered when fully open, with an occasional confused golden-orange center.  The bush is healthy, with dark green glossy leaves and the rose develops minimal blackspot.    At maturity, 'Prairie Sunrise' is supposed to be approximately 3 feet tall and wide and winter hardy to Zone 4.  Mine is about 2 feet tall at the end of its first summer.  'Prairie Sunrise' is an offspring of 'Friesia', a Kordes-bred Floribunda, and 'Freckle Face', a 1976 Buck rose.

'Prairie Sunrise'; after a week of cool nights

'Prairie Sunrise' has already won a permanent place in my garden and likely will be a rose I propagate to proliferate across my garden wherever I need a compact shrub rose.  Between the camera-catching blooms and the unbeatable fragrance, you can't go wrong by trying this one, which Sam Kedem described as in the running for the title of Rose of the Century.  I'm going to have to agree with you, Sam.

Best Laid Plans

The best laid plans so often lay an egg, don't they?  Several weeks ago, the hummingbirds arrived to my garden, resulting in a massive increase in the amount of time I spend staring out the window at the feeder, enjoying their grace and acrobatic flight.  My hummingbirds often seem to arrive late in the summer, coinciding with the bloom of the blue sage on the prairie and in my garden, and this year was no exception.  My only regret as I watch the hummingbirds has always been that I don't have the proper long-range camera equipment to get a decent picture.




Wait a minute!  I've got a game camera in my garden that's pretty good at candid photographs of impromptu garden visitors!  Why haven't I trained it on the hummingbird feeder?  I'll bet that I get thousands of great hummingbird pictures in just a few days!  Imagine my excitement as I set up the camera just a few feet away from the feeder below my bedroom window.  Imagine my anticipation as I witnessed (from the window) hummingbird after hummingbird visiting the feeder, right under the "nose" of the camera.

Alas and curses.  My execution of an excellent plan had a few flaws, not the least of which was that a game camera is not made for close-up photography.  I knew that the near focus was probably farther back then I wanted, but I was too lazy to search for the pamphlet to tell me the correct focal length of the lens, so I guessed.  I guessed wrong and placed the camera too close and thus got a number of semi-blurry photographs.



You also likely already have realized that the birds in these pictures are not hummingbirds. It seems that I also experienced the minor problem that hummingbirds don't seem to be either large enough or warm-bodied enough to trigger the game camera.  Despite the frequent visits of hummingbirds to my feeder that I was witnessing with my own eyes, all I captured over two weeks was these repeated visits of American Goldfinches (probably females or males in non-breeding plumage) to my feeder, visits that I never witness in person.  On the chance that this particular question keeps you up at night, you should know that I have decent evidence that the Goldfinches were not just perching on the feeder, but they were occasionally sipping the droplets of feeder juice spilled by tipping the feeder with their weight.  Who knew?

In two weeks, I collected 50 pictures of drab Goldfinches (why couldn't there been at least a few golden-yellow males in breeding plumange) and, finally, a single blurry picture of a Ruby-Throated hummingbird.   The latter was way too late and way too unimpressive for me to get excited about.  All I really gained from this experiment was a good excuse to give to Mrs. ProfessorRoush when I drop a wad of cash on a new digital camera and a big long-range lens.

As a consequence of my failures, I've moved the camera back to other parts of the garden, where it can document more exciting discoveries than the syrup-pirating drab Goldfinches.  The photograph below was taken just before I moved the camera from its original spot and it is remarkable for two reasons;  First, the presence of the coyote, captured at 9:58 a.m. in my garden.  Coyotes are supposed to be primarily nocturnal, a fact that I can confirm since they frequently awaken me by howling at night.  Second, please observe the date and the temperature printed on the photo.  Who has ever heard of Kansas being 63 degrees at 10:00 a.m. on the 8th of August?  Now there's an oddity worth documenting! 

'Knock Out' Purgatory

I suppose that I should have expected it, should have foreseen the horrors. Once 'Knock Out' became ubiquitous in the suburban landscape of America and moved beyond usefulness to cliché,  I should have known that this paradigm-changing rose was inevitably destined to be even more misused, abused, and perverted; to ultimately be used in manners so hideous as to defy the imagination of gardeners born with a vestige of good taste.

I was still shocked, however, to stumble across the mutilated specimens shown here, these professionally scalped and shaped green rectangles and balls that I fleetingly mistook at first glance for privet or yews.  These, my friends, are not evergreens, yews, privet, or box.  I was horrified to realize that these monstrosities were 'Knock Out' roses, identifiable by the sparse murky red blooms visible at the back of the rectangular-shaped specimen.  For a fleeting moment that recognition caused me to reach for my eyes in a fruitless effort to gouge out the offending images from my soul, but alas, I was too late, my sensibilities pushed over into the abyss, plunging into the bottomless pit of 'Knock Out' purgatory.

What was he or she thinking, this misguided landscaper?  I assume this job was "professionally" done since these misshapen demons lay next to the door and walkway of a large medical center whose working doctors and nurses are not likely to moonlight as hedge-trimming psychopaths. But these blobs were even trimmed "wrong" as hedges; the tops and sides wider than the bottom, shading out the lower leaves and destining them to naked stems and thorns.  Why remove the blooms?  'Knock Out' cycles rapidly enough that spent blooms go unnoticed amid the off-red tapestry of current flowers.  Does no one realize the value of orange rose hips for winter appeal?  Where do we go next to misuse this rose?  'Knock Out' topiary?  A nice 'Knock Out' elephant with a red saddle on its back and a red stripe along its trunk?  A 'Knock Out' clown face with bright red hair?

Please, I beg of you, those who just must plant 'Knock Out', at least give it freedom to still be a rose; to branch stiffly and awkwardly, to bloom a spine-grating red shade and to retain dingy orange hips.  Give it the freedom to be more than another green gumdrop in our landscapes.  We've got enough shrubs that can be shaped at will into your favorite football mascot.  If 'Knock Out' it must be, leave them unfettered and free to grow as they were meant to, as random unshaped colorful masses in our lawns.  Please.

Ode to Chiggers

There's a red spot on my tushy, itching like the very devil,
There's another on my hiney, now I'm scratching with my shovel.
Itch and torment on and on, both spots keep on getting bigger,
Weeping, mashing, slapping, slashing, this must be a goldarned chigger.

Experts say they bite and leave, but I'd like a sec to quibble,
All this fuss and pain and scratching can't just be from chigger dribble.
I believe that chigger's head, must be buried deep inside me,
Biting down and clawing round, worse than any doggone dog flea.

Maybe chiggers were the Fire, used to banish Eve from Eden,
Chased us out from Paradise, chiggers on our nether regions.
Followed Moses cross the Red Sea, chiggers biting on our tail,
Puritans' itching, wasn't witching, chiggers all down Historys' trail.

Soap and water does no good, Calamine just dries my skin,
Alcohol is no solution, just won't work on where they've been.
I believe in clear nail polish, thick and shiny on the bump,
Some say it don't make no difference, but it soothes my itching lump.

Pray for frost and spray your poisons, that will knock them chiggers out,
There's no one good way to get them, burn or spray or freeze the louts.
High in Heaven, up on clouds, please God make a place for diggers,
Give us respite from our itching, don't let in those damned old chiggers.



I don't know about where you live, but the chiggers have gotten bad around here this summer.  And yes, I know that the "experts" claim that nail polish won't work, but I, for one, swear by it as a chigger remedy.  If it is only just a placebo, then I'm happy to embrace it, nonetheless.   And how, you might ask, is the blue thistle photo at left related to chiggers?  Well, it's not.  It was just a pretty picture to draw you in.  Happy scratching, friends!


  

Lichen Enlightment

I'd like to take this moment to confess my doting admiration for one of the simplest symbionts of all that exist on this lovely planet, the lowly but enduring lichens.  Here on the dry Kansas prairie, I had almost forgotten the existence of these composite organisms until I happened on this healthy lichen plantation growing on the north side of the trunk of my young pecan tree.  I do see lichens everyday in Kansas, manifested as ugly black scale on the limestone of the K-State campus buildings, but there is hardly anything to admire about dirty-looking limestone, so please excuse me if I've almost forgotten their more attractive cousins.

Lichens are partnerships of a fungus (the mycobiont) and an algae or cyanobacterium (the photobiont), that grow in some of the most inhospitable environments on Earth; bare rock, arctic tundra, and hot deserts.  They're so tough that they can survive the vacuum and cosmic radiation of space and they will grow in a Martian simulator, suggesting that they will be of use someday as Mankind terraforms Mars.  The fungus surrounds and sometimes penetrates the algal cells, protecting them from dry environments, while the algae are photosynthetic and provide energy and food to the partner.  Cyanobacteria in the cyanolichens serve to fix nitrogen, sharing this important building block with their mutual fungus partner. 

I should also confess that ProfessorRoush was (and is) one of those weird kids who was often found reading a random volume of a paper and ink concoction formerly known as an encyclopedia.  My parents once owned an entire set of a 1964 edition, purchased by my mother from one of the sweet, clean, predatory college students who used to travel the country each summer taking money off of  doting mothers of budding science and space travel nerds.  Today, I frequently satisfy that urge to explore new worlds with a Wikipedia search, clicking from subject to subject in a seemingly endless journey.  Lichens are certainly a fertile search muse for some fascinating hours of Wiki-diving.  For example, I learned that Swiss scientist Simon Schwendener was the first to discover the symbiotic nature of lichens (in the year 1867).  I also found out that lichens reproduce by the dispersal of diaspores (which contain both algal and fungal cells), and that there are three types of diaspores;  soredia, isidia, and what are essentially just dry lichen fragments that blow around in the wind.  If by chance you are not yet fascinated by these organisms, it might thrill you to know that there are experts in Lichenometry, experts who can determine the age of exposed surfaces based on the size of lichen thalli and who regularly measure glacial retreat in global warming studies.  Wouldn't we all love to have that job so that we could easily pick up girls at a cocktail party?  One more factoid for the medical marijuana crowd;  certain species of lichens contain olivetol, a substance also found in the cannabis plant where it is a precursor for the production of THC.  Lichen brownies, anyone?

I'll stop here with the satisfaction that I know more today than I did yesterday.  Even though it's possible that I could have continued my existence without ever learning more about lichens, it is probable that we owe lichens our very lives for their actions of converting rock to soil, thus allowing plant life to flourish on Earth, and ultimately enriching the lives of gardeners.  Oh, and by the way, lichens don't hurt your trees.

Try to say "Swiss scientist Simon Schwendener searched soredia in the Seven Seas" three times fast.

Trojans and Carrots

ProfessorRoush was lucky enough last week to happen across a paperback copy of How Carrots Won The Trojan War, by Rebecca Rupp, and my TV viewing has suffered ever since.  It grabbed me from the start, as I was just browsing in the bookstore, and it is the first nonfiction garden-related book all summer that has monopolized my free time.

This 2011 nonfiction work is a well-researched and referenced series of chapters about 20 common vegetables (although some are technically fruits).  The history of each garden plant is revealed, from the first human use of the native species through its introduction into Western Culture, and along the way there are fascinating stories about how each plant was viewed in different eras and how it may (or may not) have influenced history.  As an example, she relates that the introduction of beans as a protein-rich food source coincides with population growth at the end of the Dark Age and later she ties the early success of the Burpee Seed Company to an enormous cabbage variety.

Most importantly, this is not a dry scholarly tome, but a very readable and interesting presentation of history related to food production.  Gardeners will like it, history buffs will be fascinated, and foodies will compare ancient cooking techniques to modern fare.  Of course, the reader's attention is frequently captured and held because the early uses of most of these plants are related to their aphrodisiac (asparagus or celery) or pharmaceutical value (beans and beets).  It's a sure-fire marketing technique;  tie anything to sex or drugs, and someone, somewhere is sure to get interested in a hurry.  Trojans and carrots, by the way, are not related by some pre-Modern sex-education demonstration (think about it), but because Agamemnon's warriors supposedly ate purple carrots to "bind up their bowels" while they were concealed in the Trojan Horse awaiting entry into Troy.  That's yet another marketing technique;  human toilet habits are almost as fascinating to some, particularly the aged, as sex and drugs are to the young.

 I haven't read other works by Ms. Rupp.  I found that she is primarily a childrens and nonfiction writer, but a couple of her earlier works (Red Oaks and Black Birches, published in 1990 and Blue Corn and Square Tomatoes, published in 1987) also sound quite intriguing to this old gardener.  I'm going to have to check the local library for a copy of each.

Gee Whiz, That's Incredible!

'Incredible'

Help, ProfessorRoush has a problem!  No, not that problem. No, not that problem either.  My current problem centers around that fact that I have two new Griffith Buck roses that I can't tell apart for love or money.  'Gee Whiz'!  That's 'Incredible', you say?   Yes, those are the two roses,  'Gee Whiz' and 'Incredible'.  I know perfectly well what they were labeled when I received them from Heirloom Roses and I've got them accurately mapped out.   I just can't believe that these two roses are so similar.

'Incredible'

'Incredible' is pictured above and to the left.  Although it is registered simply as 'Incredible',  it is also known as 'That's Incredible'.  She is a yellow blend shrub rose bred by Dr. Buck in 1984. The helpmefind.com listing for 'Incredible' lists her as a yellow and pink blend, also stippled, with occasional repeat. 'Incredible' is an offspring of 'Gingersnap' and 'Sevilliana'. The Iowa State Buck Rose Website states that 'Incredible' should be double, 25-30 petals, with 4-4.5 inch blooms of barium yellow streaked with vermilion. The blooms are born in grandiflora-type clusters on a 3-4.5 foot plant.

'Gee Whiz'

'Gee Whiz', pictured to the right and below, is also a yellow blend shrub rose bred by Dr. Buck in 1984. He is officially described as having stippled orange and yellow petals, with a double (17-25 petal) bloom form and occasional repeat.  Also an offspring of 'Gingersnap' and 'Sevilliana', at maturity (my bush is only a few months old), he should be 2.5-3 feet tall, slightly shorter than his sister. The Iowa State Buck Rose website listing for this rose states that the blooms are also borne in clusters but are slightly smaller than 'Incredible', at 3-4 inches diameter.

'Gee Whiz'

Confused yet?  I assure you that I am and I've got them growing side by side in my garden.  Both bushes are identical so far in growth and bloom rate, both have dark green leaves that start out with copper tones, and they are equally blackspot resistant.   The blooms of both roses open quickly and fade a bit lighter, but so far, I think 'Gee Whiz' retains slightly more orange tones than 'Incredible'.  I'd hate to hang my hat on that, though.  So, apart from counting petals or waiting to see if the ultimate size of the bushes are different, I guess I'm going to have to trust Heirloom Roses that they sent me two different roses.  And also trust that Dr. Buck, in the later years of his career, wasn't playing a joke that would live on long after him.  I wish there was a record available, straight from the professor's mouth as it were, that tells us why he released two such similar roses in the same year.  Perhaps, like me, Griffith Buck just loved stippled and striped roses and couldn't bear to shovel prune one of these beautiful creations into oblivion.
  

Guilt Trip

I tell you, it's enough to give a guy a complex.  ProfessorRoush spent the early summer thinking that the two-year drought had eased, only to watch June and July turn completely dry in this area.  I can't count the number of storm fronts that I've seen split and go north and south of us, or watched as they came in from the west and petered out at the edge of the Flint Hills.  By Sunday, July 28th, this area was 2 inches below our normal July average, 4.92 inches (22.8%) below average for the year.  Tuttle Creek Reservoir, just north of Manhattan, was at a record low elevation of 1074.49 feet.  I was beginning to feel like a pioneer Kansan of the late 1930's, praying for rain,  not for the crops, but so that the six-year-olds can see water fall from the sky.

Then, last Monday morning, July 29th, I started north at 4:30 a.m. for a business trip to Omaha Nebraska.  It began to sprinkle on me when I was 10 miles north of Manhattan and it rained all the way to Omaha (3 hours drive).  According to the paper, by 7 a.m. Monday morning, it had rained 0.98 inches in Manhattan.  By Tuesday at 7 a.m. it had rained another 2.1 inches.  On Wednesday and Thursday there was minimal rain, but Thursday night there was another 1.89 inches.   I came home Friday night to a 5 inch rain gauge by my vegetable garden that had overflowed.  No more deficit presently for 2013. We now have a surplus of 1.85 inches for the year-to-date.

I'm now feeling a little guilty for not leaving town sooner.  We rarely get Spring-quantity rains here in July and August, and if I'd been here watching the storms, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have rained in any measurable quantity.  Others may have recognized my odd recent power over the weather as well.  I texted a friend late Tuesday, saying "Evidently, all I had to do was leave town," and he replied "well, you can come back now, we're drowning."

The result of all this rain in my garden is a previously dormant lawn that now needs mowed, some very happy roses, and the rising dominance of the fungi.  The large one pictured above, and the others sprouts shown here, have popped up in the location that I usually see them, an unusually damp spot along my "viburnum" bed where the grasses are always a bit greener.  I fantasize that it must be the site of an old buffalo wallow.  Or perhaps there is a subterranean spring lurking just below the surface here;  a "dowser" witched out the spot last year and told me I should drive a well there.  I'd have been more impressed by his abilities if the grass where he was standing wasn't emerald green while the grass 10 feet away was as brown and dry as a paper grocery sack.

I'm now afraid that if the weather turns dry again, I'm going to wake up to neighbors with torches and pitchforks ready to run me out of town.  If so, I plan to use this blog as an emergency beacon, so please monitor it closely over the next few months and be ready to rescue me from the lynching townsfolk.  Or just give me a quick ride out of the area.

Turkey Crossings

Or should it be "turkeys crossing?"  ProfessorRoush came across this delightful family troupe on his way to a local Iris sale early Saturday morning.  I hope everyone appreciates the pictures, blurry though they are, because taking them made me miss the mad initial rush of iris fanatics into the piles of iris starts, and thus I missed out on all the best iris cultivars.  Certainly the drivers of the two cars that passed me as I was stopped in the middle of the road and taking pictures with my iPhone must have thought that I was a mad as a hatter.

The Wild Turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, is native to North America, although by a quirk of history it was named "turkey" because the trade routes from North America to Britain in the 1500's were routed through Constantinople, and thus the British associated the bird with the country, Turkey, and the name stuck.  Wild Turkeys are certainly prevalent in Kansas, and I often find them visiting my garden in early Spring, although sightings this time of year, when they are keeping their broods to the woods, are unusual.  They don't seem to harm my garden (with the sole exception of one previous incident noted here) , and they can be quite entertaining as they strut from bed to bed.

If you are the sole remaining American that hasn't heard yet, Benjamin Franklin wanted to make the Wild Turkey the national bird because he thought the Bald Eagle was lazy for stealing fish from other birds.  It is unfortunate in some ways that Wild Turkeys didn't win out over the Bald Eagle.  Turkeys get a bad rap for being stupid, but that's just because of our impressions of their big, fat domesticated cousins.  Wild Turkeys are exceptional citizens and good parents.   Just take, for example, the wisdom exhibited by the three hens in this covey.  They've kicked the bothersome polygamous males out of the group and they are sharing the burden of herding and henpecking the five youngsters, much like the soccer moms of our own species.  As I drove up on them, and by them, they kept the little ones in the center, pushed them to the edge, and then put themselves between their offspring and my car, offering their last feathers as protection.  Obviously the poults are not yet into the turkey equivalent of their rebellious teens or the hens wouldn't have been quite as blindly devoted.

These Wild Turkey's are probably the Rio Grande subspecies (Meleagris gallopavo intermedia) because of their geographic location and the buff, light tan color of the tips of the tail and lower back feathers.  They have longer legs than other subspecies, presumably better adapted for the tall grasses of the prairie, although I don't know if their legs are longer so they can walk better among the grass or because long legs make the females more attractive to males for other reasons ("Don't preen for that one Fred, her legs are so short and stubby that the grasses cover up her tail feathers").  Darwin's Natural Selection is still likely active though, although our human reasoning may fail in understanding the true mechanisms.  Heck, it's a well-known fact that most human males prefer human females with long slender legs over short stubby ones, and no one really knows why (I'm going to refrain here for my own good from the usual side reference to Mrs. ProfessorRoush).   Human females don't spend much time strutting in the grasses these days, so the height of the prairie grass probably isn't the driving issue. Well, I don't think so, anyways.

Three Years and Blogging

Earlier this week, ProfessorRoush noticed the proximity of his third anniversary of blogging on Garden Musings and began toying with the thought of a deep, reflective blog entry to commemorate the occasion.  Since then, I've mulled over ideas and chased after flickering images and begged the garden deities for a theme.  I wanted to find a way to tell you (and me) what I think I've learned from blogging; to tell you how 525 blog entries have changed me and changed my writing and why I may not quite be done.  Alas, a useful blog muse just kept eluding my efforts.   Until Friday morning, that is, as I was leaving for work and experiencing an odd feeling that something was undone.  Something was calling me from the garden. 

Since I was not in a frantic hurry to make a living that morning, I took a moment just to walk out back onto the slightly wet patio and listen to what the garden had to say.  My back garden, softly lit from the glowing dawn and covered in glistening jewels from an early morning sprinkle, waited patiently for me to find its secret.  Glancing around, I focused quickly on a Northern Bayberry, a fine and nondescript green shrub of my landscape, that I otherwise rarely notice.  This time it drew my attention by shouting at me, a dying branch brown against the rest of the thick olive-green foliage, demanding attention.  And there it was, suddenly there.  My blogging metaphor.

Somehow, my garden chose to surprise me once again, as it does over and over, this time unveiling a volunteer Redbud tree within the bayberry, strong, 8 feet tall and healthy.  This adolescent woody treasure must be every bit of three years old and all this time it has been protected from my pruning shears, hidden within the heart of the nurturing bayberry bush.  Despite my claims that I pay close attention to my garden, this stealthy native has exposed the lie, laid bare the fantasy that I'm in charge of my garden.  It is completely out of place, this Redbud, and it will someday demand that the nearby lilac and cherry tree and perennials bow to its dominance, but I can't remove it now.  Such a will to live must only be respected and cherished.

And therein lies the story of this blog.  The entries are sometimes informative and sometimes inane, sometimes funny and sometimes foolish. There are bad pieces that simply bomb, as unsatisfying to me as they must be to you.  But occasionally, just as an occasional surprise to myself, I find a lyrical voice or pen a written phrase that lifts me up and calms my desires.  I hope and believe this is happening more often.  In a personal blog there are no copy writers, no editors to correct my mistakes, no rewriting once the "publish" button is pressed.  As it is cast upon the ether, the writing is either good or it isn't, but there it is.  Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, has made the observation that exceptional talent is not just born, it requires 10,000 hours of practice to arrive.  If he's right, then I have only 9500 more blogs to go before I'm complete.

As I wrote on the day that I started this blog, three years past, I write not out of narcissism or for profit, I write simply because I must write.  If you find it interesting to follow the twists and turns of my mental meanderings, then please, keep reading.  And I'll keep trying to surprise you, just like the shy Redbud popping into my garden.    

Pink Poppy Perfection

During the three short years of existence of this blog and its 520+ entries, I can't believe that I haven't written about or shown you a single photo of one of my favorite garden plants.  At least, I think I haven't, because one sometimes loses track of 500 blog entries and searchable text can only carry me on its back just so far. 

This beautiful salmon-pink pompom is present in my garden as a legacy, a descendant of seed given to my father by the father of a childhood friend of mine, who grew them in a large garden en masse for their "wow" effect every year.  I'm not positive of the exact species, but I suspect that this is a plant sometimes described as Papaver laciniatum, a highly double and deeply lobed variant of the bread poppy.  Notice how carefully I'm dancing around the likely accurate species name?  All I know for sure is that here and there in my garden, when the cold, wet soil is disturbed enough in early spring to allow this annual to take hold and grow, I get these gorgeous flowers back as a gift in mid-summer.  They pop up at random spots for me, often near desirable plants where I slow down my weeding enough to identify what living thing I'm uprooting.  They self-seed effortlessly, and all I have to do is to avoid hoeing them out when they are mere babies.

The plant itself  has a nice blue-green shade and healthy foliage, rarely shows insect damage or fungus, and doesn't care if rain comes often or doesn't come at all.  The leaves are lobed enough to be a mite prickly, although I can pull the plant bare-handed when I need to.  I don't pull them bare-handed though, because if you do, your hand gets covered in the sticky, white sap of the plant.  As they begin to flower, first you see these swelling, drooping buds, which later stand up proudly on their short day of open life.  After the petals fall, the seed head magically becomes a shaker that opens when the seeds dry so that a few seeds are flung by each gust of wind or nudge of a passing animal.  What a perfect plant to place in Kansas; a drought-tolerant self-sowing annual weed that is distributed farther each time the wind gusts get stronger!  Even better, they bloom at the height of heat and summer, as other flowers are fading and before the ornamental grasses claim the garden for their own.

I only regret that I am terrible at sowing them to come up where I want them.  I've tried mass plantings, but I sow them too thickly and they don't thrive, or I sow them too late and then they don't grow, or it is not wet enough for them to get established.  I also suspect that they may need a period of cold stratification to make them start to grow.  Someday, I'll figure out the formula and then I'll have a "wow" factor in my garden too.   Until then, I'm thankful for this passalong plant and the Kansas winds that spread it far.

Striped and Rugose

I have Scott Keneda of Red Dirt Roses to thank for alerting me to the fact that my lust for striped roses was missing a key player;  a striped rose that would rebloom consistently, wouldn't get blackspot, and would stand up to colder climates without blinking.  That rose is Ralph Moore's 'Moore's Striped Rugosa', a 1987 introduction with the registration name of 'MORbeauty'.

Ralph Moore bred 'Moore's Striped Rugosa' from a complex seed parent named "9 stripe" crossed with 'Rugosa Magnifica'.  According to rosarian Paul Barden, the stripes come from 'Ferdinand Pichard' four generations back in the seed parent.  It was not released until 2005, when it was introduced by Sequoia Nursery, Moore Miniature Roses Historic Archive, a long time to wait for such an exceptional rose. 

'Moore's Striped  Rugosa' is slow growing for me, about a foot high in its first full summer, but healthy, with nice dark green Rugosa foliage.  It has been an almost continual bloomer since it was just a single stick with leaves, those beautiful uniquely striped and fully double flowers popping up again and again.  The petals have a red and white striped upper with an almost completely red reverse; the red itself is slightly to the blue side, much like 'Ferdinand Pichard' in hat regard.  Blooms average about 3.5 inches in diameter for me, and have a mild Rugosa-like fragrance.  They start out with hybrid-tea form and end up a mildly disheveled cup form, and so far they stand up well to the worst heat of summer.  Most references tell me that the bush will grow 4-5 feet in diameter and the mildly rugose foliage tells me that it will be blackspot free here.  It certainly has been so far, and it survived winter unprotected and cane-hardy.

The nicest thing about 'Moore's Striped Rugosa' is that it is a welcome change from the strong Rugosa genes of mauve-rose-purplish roses and single or semi-double blooms.  I think this one will be quite a show piece when it reaches it's mature size.  Does anyone know if it sets hips?  Oh, that's probably too much to ask for, isn't it?   No rose is perfect.