Janet Sluyter, Tulsa, is holding a branch of a cultivated specimen of Cassia marilandica that has been stripped of most of its leaves to show the yellow flowers.
The plant pictured is cultivated that has attained 8’ feet instead of its usual 4’ to 5’ foot stature when growing in the wild.
A native found in the midlands, eastern Kansas, and eastern Oklahoma, this colorful perennial is now being grown in gardens where its yellow, attractive flowers and elliptic leaflets are valued for border use.
An added virtue of this plant (a senna) is its habit of flowering in August and September when few flowers bloom.
Marilandica may be found on gravelly uplands and others on the moist banks of creeks and streams or raised from rare seed dealers.
APRIL 10 is a date fixed in our minds in this area—that is supposed to be the average date of the last killing frost. Go a few miles in any direction, and the date jumps to April 20.
On rare occasions, we have had snow here in May. So what will this year bring us? One can only guess —and hope. This last year we had several weeks of pretty decent weather.
Enough to bring out the apricot bloom a week or so ahead of this important date. Forsythia was right proud of itself and put on a real show.
Magnolia Soulangeana
With so many springs, the Magnolia soulangeana gets in a hurry, only to be caught in a late frost or freeze. But, last season, they were perfect, that is, up to the fateful day—not April 10—it was April 9.
However, they had passed their prime by this time, and the petals were falling. Possibly I’ve made this point before, but I prefer to have magnolias in the backyard rather than having them mess up the front lawn when the petals fall.
They are so large, and there are so many of them, they’ll. Cover the ground. And as they fall, they soon turn a dirty brown.
It reminds me of an old grizzly mountaineer who comes to town yearly to have his hair cut.
We had had a pretty decent spring. A light rain was forecast for the morning of the eighth. That’s the way it started. It soon turned to snow.
The wind shifted to the north, and by evening it was clear. Unfortunately, it was around 38° degrees Fahrenheit in the evening—so we knew frost was bound to come.
Since I had made two sprayings of the two apricot trees, we decided to experiment. (Most of you are probably familiar with the commercial orchards’ smudge pots when frost is threatened.) So to the north side of one of the trees, we set out a yard flare that burns kerosene.
If our gas or electricity fails, we keep an oil stove in the greenhouse. So I set up an old storm window at an angle to divert what heat the stove might give off and placed this on the north side of the other tree.
By morning our thermometer was bumping 29° degrees Fahrenheit, and I suspected it might hit a modest degree or so on other occasions. At any rate, a crock of water in the yard had over a quarter of an inch of ice on it.
A few leaves were pulled over and around the eremurus (foxtail lilies), and boxes were placed over them. I just remembered putting the sash on the cold frame where some chrysanthemums had been set to harden off.
Hyacinths, Tulips, And Daffodils
Grape hyacinths, regular hyacinths, tulips, and daffodils were left to shift for themselves. They were severely shocked and dropped over to the ground. However, we were pleasantly surprised that they had well righted themselves by mid-afternoon.
I figured the apricots were hopeless and didn’t even look at them. Later I found that quite a few of them made it through the cold. The freeze had done an excellent job of thinning them out, saving us that task.
Imagine my surprise this morning to find a robin working with a bunch of grass and strings in the bird feeder. (This is the one with glass on three sides and a vane that swings the open side away from the wind.)
A hit later, I saw a blue jay taking material OUT. Then the robin trying to add to her started nest again. By afternoon, it was a hare, and the robin was barking in the corner, half standing, half sitting, as though brooding over her problems. (No pun intended.)
Guess I’ll inspect the progress again—if any. The last time I looked, the robin was down on the ground pecking at a sparrow. I will try and give you the final verdict later.
If you sometimes feel that these rambling jottings are disjointed and a bit wandering, you may better understand it by all the severe interruptions like the above.
44659 by Lula Egan Quinlan