Miscellanies

 In his latest attack...er...foray into his second favorite world, the literary dimension of Half-Price Books,  ProfessorRoush came away with an embarrassing number of additions to his "collections."   Of the coveted group, however, I've been most pleased, surprised in fact, by the easy readability of a 2003 text, The Secrets of Wildflowers, by Jack Sanders.  Addressing approximately 74 different wildflowers, one might think initially that this would be a dry field guide, but it instead is composed of 2-3 pages about each species, all common to North America but not necessarily native here, written in what turns out to be entirely conversational style.  It is as if Mr. Sanders was sitting here in the room with me, telling me the most interesting facts about each.

I give you, for example, the first page of the entry about Rudbeckia hirta, the Black-Eyed Susan, as an example.  A little history, a little botany, a little information regarding propagation, and several pages later, one looks up and then is drawn to the next wildflower, Bindweed in this case, in sequence.  I was enticed to purchase the bargain hardback, by the way, by its description of Goatsbeard, page 113, noted for "two kinds of clocks."

Otherwise, it is just a typical lazy Sunday in Kansas.   We had an 80% chance of rain today and didn't get any (thankfully, for once, we don't need any), but I did venture out to snap this picture, taken from my front steps looking northwest, which perfectly illustrates the capricious nature of rain in the Flint Hills.  Somebody on my horizon WAS getting rain, although likely it was only a single property, or group of solo properties in a Northwest to Southeast line.   The small downpour illustrated here missed us, anyway.  Click on the picture to see and magnify the area of rain in the center.

We've had enough recent rain that my yard is sprouting these mushroom caps everywhere.  I'm inclined to leave this group alone, hoping that it is the beginning of a new "fairy ring" that will spread in this lawn long after I'm gone.  Of course, I'd like to know the proper scientific name of this fungus, but I'm afraid that my identification of the above-ground appearances of mycelial colonies is inadequate for the dozens or hundreds of possible fungi that manifest in lawns as "fairy rings."  I'm content to observe it, leave it alone, and certainly promise to not consume any of it.  Additionally, I was horrified enough by finding this pamphlet listing fungicides approved for fairy ring elimination from lawns, that I'm considering starting a National "Save the Fairy Ring" Foundation.  What nature-hating, environmentally-unconscious kinds of people write these things?  Fungi are people too.

Weeding Sounds

It's a difficult thing to put into words, but you've heard it too, haven't you?  The distinct noise, a screech really, made when one successfully tears a weed whole from the earth, intact roots sliding from soil in a grating exasperated sigh?  A gasp really, a scream of indignation at the gardener's audacity, our murderous intent; the shriek of defeat heard, yes, by the ear, but also transmitted through touch and sight and empathy. To a gardener, no sound is more satisfying to our souls, no human symphony can match the finality, or provide the sheer release of tension  as that resulting from the surrender of a weed to our will. 

A daylily overwhelmed by native Goldenrod 

The pleasurable wail of a weed is a quite different noise and feel and emotional outcome than the sharp snap of a weed as it breaks off, root still nestled in soil to grow another day, this sound a musical phrase ending in notes of laughter rather than lamentation.  The crack of a weed stem is a herald trumpeting the gardener's defeat, an abrupt notification that one has won a tactical victory but lost the strategic skirmish, desired ground still occupied by the enemy, sure to regroup and renew the assault, a Pyrrhic victory and an uncertain future.

  

Wild Lettuce removed with intact roots!

Weeding, to me, is an immersive act, a retreat from the greater garden into the smaller world and environs of the plants.  ProfessorRoush rarely stands above the foliage when I weed, bending to the earth like other gardeners; I crawl instead, a predator at ground level stalking the prey, the unwanted and unloved interlopers in the garden.  I also prefer to weed with bare hands, tactile senses on full alert as I search among familiar textures and shapes, identifying and removing the aliens in a subconscious dance of mind and limbs and fingers.

Barbs on Wild Lettuce

It's a rare Monday morning when I'm not removing barbs from my fingertips or nursing inflamed skin after a weekend of weeding.  Wild Lettuce (Lactuca canadensis), rampant this year, is a particular problem to bare hands, its stem studded with awl-like barbs that I've learned will yield to slow pressure and a brave hand without piercing skin.  Bare-handed weeding is an act of faith, a concession of a little extra pain in exchange for admission to the Weeding Plane, the spiritual space of gardening where hands do the work and the mind is free.    Occasionally jerked back to awareness by a thorn or unexpected nettle, I happily trade the risks of sore hands and splinters for the improved outcomes as my fingers follow the weed to its base, instincts finding the right grasp and angle to wrest the weed from the ground.    

I had a full afternoon of weeding last week, a chore too long-delayed for a garden bed verging on chaos.  I seem to have a bumper crop this year of both Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius) and the Wild Lettuce, both deep-rooted and determined to grow, solely intent on forming seed and world domination.  So I dove in among the daylilies and iris, steadily advancing as I grasped and pulled, placing the weed corpses back down among the daylilies as mulch or casting them to the beds edges.  I didn't take a "before" picture, but you can view the aftermath here, the bed rimmed in weeds torn from the soil.   I finished the day by running the lawn mower around these edges, chopping the full weeds into smaller pieces to prevent a dying weed from focusing its last energies on seeds.

I should feel guilt as the weed gasps, more sorrow at the weed's mournful admission of its demise, more regret at glimpsing intact roots exposed to air, but I am remorseless, a machine intent only on my own goals, my own control. The daylily at left, the same one as pictured above, looks much happier freed from the goldenrod and I'm sure if it could talk it would approve of my methods.  I slept soundly that night after weeding even while the music of the displaced weeds replayed in my dreams, content and relaxed in my momentary mastery of this garden bed.  But I also recognize that somewhere out there, on the prairie in the darkness, torn roots are plotting revenge and beginning regrowth., the never-ending dance of the garden and the forces of chaos starting anew. 

Yellow Prairie Beauties

Yellow Sweet Clover

"The holy eye is the one who is able to see the extraordinary beauties of the ordinary days."  Mehmet Murat ildan  

ProfessorRoush came across this quote this week and thought it worth sharing along with a few photos of the current floral life of the Tallgrass prairie.   It's YELLOW out there, everywhere, as Spring begins to close out and Summer rushes in.   Even the birds are yellow, as evidenced by this American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) hanging upside down on my feeder.      

Yellow Sweet Clover

This airy yellow forb (and the one on the top left) is Yellow Sweet Clover (Melilotus officinalis), a biennial legume which is one of the first plants to colonize disturbed ground.  And if I wasn't an avid reader, or didn't know about kswildflower.org, I wouldn't know that its leaves release a vanilla odor when crushed.  I'm just not in the habit of crushing random plants, but perhaps I should learn.

Sulphur Cinquefoil

The bright yellow of Yellow Sweet Clover is mirrored by the yellow of the aptly-named Sulphur Cinquefoil (Potentilla recta) a non-native species which can become a noxious weed in some areas but seems to behave itself in competition with the prairie grasses.  This plant, a member of the Rose family, or Rosaceae, won't bloom but for a few weeks, but I welcome its "happy face" during late May and early June.

The purple-eyed yellow wildflower pictured on both sides here is another introduced species named Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattariais), another biennial which is, thankfully because it is a non-native, rare on my prairie.  This single specimen, in fact, was the only one I saw this morning, but it's delicate petals were easily spotted above the still-shorter grasses.  Apparently, it can have either pure white or yellow petals, but surprisingly, kswildflower.org doesn't mention this color variation in the text.  

The Wikipedia entry for Moth Mullein correctly describes the color variation, as well as the faint purple tinge on some petals.  Wikipedia also described an experiment by Dr. William James Beal, that, after 121 years of storage, had a 50% germination rate from 23 Moth Mullein seeds (which the skeptic in me questions because how do you get exactly 50% germination of 23 seeds?   Perhaps 11/23 seeds germinated and they rounded up?).

Goat's Beard

A final, easy-to-spot yellow nonnative "weed" blooming now is Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius), a tall and ubiquitous member of the Sunflower family that I am pulling up by the bucketfuls from my garden beds.  I leave it alone on the prairie, but, oh how I wish that it didn't spread everywhere by floating seeds similar to a dandelion.  Pulling it barehandedly, the sticky latex sap of this plant is a slight irritant to my palms and really gets my goat. Kswildflowers.org says specifically that it's not an aggressive weed, but I disagree.  Goat's Beard has a long deep taproot that grips firmly when the soil is dry and often just breaks off, but it will pull up intact and whole after a rain, if I'm careful.

Canada Warbler

I'll leave you today with one final spot of yellow, this very young Canada Warbler (Cardellina canadensis) that I found near the College sitting patiently on the ground as if it had fallen from a nest and couldn't fly.  You may be seeing more birds here in the blog, periodically, because this summer I'm on a bird-watching and bird-feeding journey and I'm noticing them everywhere now that I'm looking for them.  I hope you'll indulge my newest passion while I learn; I won't stop blogging about gardens, but every new enthusiasm makes me only better able to grasp and enjoy the "beauties of ordinary days."

Purple Poppy Pain?

The little devilish side of ProfessorRoush sometimes enjoys asking the uncomfortable questions, just to watch the answer-maker squirm a little, to make them question themselves.   I'm not at all above playing devil's advocate either, espousing opinions with which I don't agree, just, once more, to draw out that philosophical moment of realization.

So I ask today, how many of you would give up the beauty of a nice stand of Purple Poppy Mallow (Callirhoe involucrata) in order to attain that perfect thick sheen of uninterrupted blue-grass of fescue that seems to be the suburban ideal?  Purple Poppy Mallow is a sprawling wildflower in my lawn, a smothering thug which makes it hard for the buffalograss to truly compete with it for light and water, but one which blooms in drought and in rain, reliably opening to sunshine and shutting down at night.   Yes, many, myself included, weed out the dandelions and thistles from our lawns, and some even fight a continual battle against clover, and many readers here would be horrified at the stand of Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius) that I'm letting grow in the "rain gardens" of taller grass in the side yards, but I believe we should and would all draw the line at purple mallow.  

One of the benefits of simply mowing the prairie grass and not starting a "lawn" when we built our house is that I've always had a long section of Purple Poppy Mallow (left) near the driveway, which is slowly expanding across the cut lawn and has jumped this year into adjacent areas.  I suppose I'm selecting for it by mowing high, and this year I'm mowing higher than ever with my new lawnmower.   Right or wrong, my old lawnmower, set at 4 inches, mowed a lot lower than the new one at 4 inches, and I'm taking advantage of the high cut to conserve moisture and to try to help the buffalograss to spread.   The mallow seems to like being mowed high as well, the sprawling or "reclining" stems surviving each mowing.

Despite the almost-complete perfection of Mrs. ProfessorRoush as a spouse, she does lack in her environmental awareness and has in the past complained about the mallow as a weed in her vision of lawn perfection.   We'll see this year if she notices as the Purple Poppy Mallow achieves June dominance in my blooming landscape.   Although she doesn't or rarely gardens, she's not above lodging complaints with the Gardener-In-Residence if she believes something doesn't measure up to her standards.

Are you squirming at the site of the mallow stand, pictured above?  Feeling a contentment that the world is still okay, or having a little discomfort or pain?   To Purple Poppy Mallow or not, that is the question!

Amusing Daily Moments

ProfessorRoush should not make fun of gardeners unknown and unknowing, but still, with all the many trials of life, one has to find humor where one can.   Just a few evenings ago, the humor gods presented me with a surprise gift at, of all places, the Arby's drive- thru.   Friends, I give you, pictured at right, the meticulously maintained landscape efforts present at my local establishment.   Their new motto will soon be "Arby's, we have the weeds."

I chuckled as I realized what the plant was, and I'm sure the drive-thru window server and the car behind me thought I was severely mentally deranged as I suddenly paused the car, whipped out my phone, and snapped this picture.  I simply was unable to stop myself.  It's not every day that a Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius) is so carefully tended and prominently displayed.

I sincerely hope that this planting is a soon-to-be-classic representation of Dunning and Kruger's "Unskilled and Unaware" hypothesis, inadvertently illustrated by a well-meaning teenager employed at minimum wage for the summer, rather than an intentional effort by a local landscaping firm hired by the restaurant.   One never knows, however.  It is only obvious that leaving this weed in place was purposeful, the perfectly-sited weed growing in an otherwise cleaned and weed-free area.  

Oh, how disappointed management is going to be when this blooms in a week or so, those small pale yellow blooms that will turn quickly into downy tufts of seed.  There are some definite downsides to using Goat's Beard in the landscaping as they spread everywhere and the sticky sap doesn't lend itself to weeding by an ungloved hand.  There are some upsides that I can see, however, as well.  First off, this particular weed is an obvious genius, placed here next to an unending parade of cars to hitch a ride on and enhance its procreation.  Second, I have an enormous crop of Goat's Beard seedlings in my iris bed that I can pull up and transplant for Arby's at a bargain price whenever they want.  I've always wanted to start a nursery and here I am, with a vast quantity of product ready to sell.  And a chain of thousands of restaurants to sell them to.    

June Native Wildflowers II

Oh dear, a potential obstacle has developed that might affect my plans to leave areas of the yard unmown so that I can "cultivate" the native prairie forbs this year.  I was walking the back garden last night with Mrs. ProfessorRoush and the Primary Rabbit- and Snake-chaser, when Mrs. ProfessorRoush suddenly realized that I have been merely cutting paths through the back yard and was planning to allow most of the native prairie grass to grow for the summer.  She was, to put it mildly, neither impressed by my ecological correctness nor amused when I tried to change the subject by getting her to notice a new rose.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush seems to care less about the potential for beautiful prairie wildflowers than she does about increasing her potential for encountering snakes, mice, chiggers, ticks, and other natural creatures.  So, enjoy the pictures below, because I don't know how long I'm going to be able to let these plants bloom!



A yellow wildflower that is just now coming into bloom are my stalwart Black-eyed Susan's (Rudbeckia hirta) that self-seed through my back patio bed and over the prairie.  In fact, the pictured flower just opened and is the first of many to come this year.  I have a few of these every year, and they bloom dependably through July, but seem sometimes to get a little mildew and the stems and leaves are eaten occasionally by an unidentified insect pest. These cheery little guys seem to be more prevalent than normal this year.  I can understand the cause in the patio bed since I haven't yet mulched that bed this year, trying to encourage growth of the self-seeders, but I can't explain why they're increased on the prairie. 

The delicate, but drought-resistant, Missouri Evening Primrose (Oenothera macrocarpa) is always a welcome sight, as is the related white form of the Showy Evening Primrose (Oenothera speciosa).  These almost translucent flowers open at sunset and close by mid-morning, so the best time for viewing them is while dew still coats the grass.  They face upwards when they first open, allowing themselves to be pollinated by a night-flying moth, and then turn their faces downwards after pollination, hanging their heads in apparent embarrassment after the sex act has occurred.  I guess the flowers at the right were still virgins.

The not-so-delicate Buffalo Bur (Solanum rostratum) will grab you with it's prickly leaves and spiny calyces (burrs) if you aren't watching out carefully.  This nightshade family member, also known as "Kansas Thistle," thrives on disturbed ground and is extremely drought-resistant and an aggressive self-seeder.  At maturity, the main stem breaks off and the dry bush is blown around the prairie like a tumbleweed, scattering seed as it goes.



The strangely named Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius) is eaten by grazers and the mature seed-head resembles a giant dandelion showing a large white ball of plumed seeds.   The edible roots of Goat's Beard are reported to taste like parsnip or oysters (do those taste alike?) and the plant contains a milky latex sap that was chewed as gum by our prairie ancestors. 

 
 
 
 
 

 

Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattaria) is another oddly named prairie forb that comes in both white and yellow flowers.  We consider it a Kansas native, although the species is actually native to Eurasia.  The individual blooms are a natural artwork of color and form when examined closely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I've identified most of these forbs correctly so far in the last two posts, but I lose some confidence on the myriad of small yellow composite-form flowers that inhabit the prairie.  One of those blooming right now is (I think) properly named Prairie Groundself (Packera plattensis).  If I've got the name of this one wrong, I'm sorry.   This one can be poisonous to cattle, but is rarely consumed in enough quantity to cause a clinical problem.

 

 

 

 

   

And somewhere out there amongst the prairie grass, the Killdeer eggs are still incubating in the Kansas sun: