Where, pray tell me, does one start to explain one's absence from this minor blog of over 3 months?  Many, if not most, of my readers may not have noticed my lack of attention to their daily entertainment, although dare I hope that at least a few fleetingly wondered if I'd departed for parts unknown, upward to fulfillment or slipped into the cold embrace of spring ground?   And how do I apologize to my garden, my poor garden, neglected and abandoned to the whims of weather and fate?   Where does responsibility for the care and feeding of a garden or garden blog begin ..read more

ProfessorRoush apologizes, my gardening friends, for my long absence from the blog.   I simply haven't had anything particularly interesting to say or show for a quite some time.  Oh, sure, there have been the usual spectacular sunrises such as that illustrated below, first looking West on the morning of December 12th;  I've just been saving them until I had something to say. A harbringer of the snow soon to come, eh?  And a little turn northward, a pink reflection of the sun to the east tinting the grass below sky. And then looking East the same morning as I we ..read more

ProfessorRoush's last post was about how brown the prairie has turned and now (with extreme misgiving), how sorry I am for posting that!   Because yesterday morning, it started to snow. And snow and more snow came falling from the heavens, blanketing the yard and wiping out the uglies.  And this morning, 5 inches later, you can see the results for itself, a bumpy thick covering of snow over the backyard, turning a drab landscape into a jeweled foreground for sunrise.   I shouldn't complain, but since snow means cold and shoveling and a general m ..read more

Geez, Louise, our fall color sure went away quickly.   It was looking at least a little fall-ish out there a week ago, oranges and russets and reds and yellows and browns everywhere, and now it's gone.   Fade to brown, fade to drab, goodbye leaves.   The weather doesn't show it as it's beautiful and sunny everywhere and still days where it hits 70ºF, but that last cold spell hit the trees hard.  I'm still encouraged on some warm mornings by the occasional fogs, though.   We had one this week and it set the colors back in place.  Except for ..read more

Oh, you thought ProfessorRoush had forgotten about it, my semi-annual rant against STATOMIC, the Seasonal Tyrannical Attempt To Obliterate My Internal Clock?  Well, in vain you hoped, and I tried, I really did, to ignore my feelings and not bore you with my oft-repeated rants and grumblings.   And then came yesterday morning. It was a beautiful brightly sunny Monday morning yesterday, when, under governmentally-mandated biannual fiat, I awoke once again at an ungodly hour, forcing myself to fitfully wait until the un-Daylight-Savings-time moment came to actually get out of b ..read more

(warning, picture heavy).  ProfessorRoush was away this week at a conference in Amarillo, Texas, a delightful excursion to nowhere in particular, but a nice city, as they say, to visit.   The area was clean and the weather pleasant and the north Texans were laid-back and welcoming.  Would recommend 10/10 (as my Gen Z students would say) if you find yourself in the area.    The hosts for my travels scheduled a afternoon side excursion for my group to the Amarillo Botanical Gardens, a cooperative municipal venture created by and supported by the local garden club ..read more

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

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

Tall Goldenrod (warning:  picture and link heavy)  Every once in a while, ProfessorRoush decides that Bella needs to lose a little weight and we embark on a program to walk nightly down the paved area of the road, about 1.25 miles total in a down-and-back walk.  This week, as we walked, Bella was willing to impatiently wait as I snapped photos of any blooming flowers along the roadside. So consider this a short tour of the ditches alongside the road.  Of course, this time of year, Goldenrod is everywhere.  My plant identification is suspect as always, especial ..read more

These August and September days in Kansas are what ProfessorRoush has always referred to as the "doldrums."   The hot, dreary, drought-ey days of the year when, most years, the garden dries up before it has a chance to really display the colors of fall and not much is blooming or growing.   Days when I badly neglect the garden and frankly don't care if it rains because I'm tired of the weekly care and mowing.   The only time the garden and I see each other right now are every few days when I carry water to a few young roses just to keep them alive until dormancy ..read more