December 23, 2018- Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays and Welcome to longer days.

Friday night there was a full moon.
We could even see it early on Saturday as the clouds, that had been ever present for what seemed like ages, went away. The sun will shine today. (It was out for part of the day.)

We have been home this week, returning from our visit to that other planet, called the desert of Southern California.
It is surprisingly mild at the moment in Iowa. A week of above temperatures has gotten me out in the garden, raking up more leaves. The leaves seem to have regenerated since I raked back in November. Actually what has happened is that the Sycamore Tree has finally released its leaves. It is the last tree at our house to do that, ending close to four months of leaf season.

What you pay attention to as a gardener is not just the high temperature but the low temperatures. It has remained above freezing for almost a week. That is when the ground really starts to thaw.

And with that thawing comes the time to look for the first signs of spring. Wait...
It is just December. While the days are going to lengthen, it is still winter and we must not forget that. A cold wave will come and come and come.

That does not stop you from looking.
And enjoying every bonus day when it is about 40.
Well, there was Thursday which was 39 and raining.
The sad part is the fact that it is pitch dark when I get home from work after 5.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to take a few afternoons off and just touch the garden?

The Contest

In last week's contest, Week 3 the winner was the little iris, the wildflower cristata.
I do love Iris. The bearded iris foliage is perking up with the December thaw. It should be a good spring when it comes.

                                                     
                                                   Here was the full voting.

And now here is Week #4

#1 Double Bloodroot (April 24, 2018)

Ah, the Double Bloodroot. It was lost and now is found. For years the clump grew. That might have been for as many as 7 years. Then one year it just disappeared. I waited for it to emerge. It never did. There was some particularly combination of weather that resulted in the double bloodroot just not coming up in 2016. And it did not come up at all.

But I found a replacement source. Such a wonderful sentence. A gardener must have a source list. For the last two years I have obtained and planted bare root plants, in the early spring. They have come up in the several places around the yard where I have planted them.

The double bloodroot variety is sterile. They propagate by the roots spreading. The plant and the flower are bigger than the wildflower which does set seed. They also will bloom for a longer period of time than the single flower. The wildflower blooms can last sometimes for only 1-2 days.

The double variety foliage will also last longer, lasting for several months some years.
They are not that far from the surface. They can therefore be disturbed by aggressive weeding.


#2 Asiatic Lily (June 15, 2018)

Spots are good. Orange is good. This combination gives us this nice Asiatic lily from the June garden.

In the garden sequence of lilies, Asiatic lilies are the first to bloom. They come in a remarkable range of colors and even shapes.



#3 Bluebells (May 3, 2018)



There is not much to be said about bluebells except they are wonderful. They dominate the garden for about 2 weeks in April of most years. They spread and can be potted up for sale.
They have a bulb that looks like a carrot. It can be 4-5 inches long after 5-6 years. They seed like crazy and will grow to blooming size in maybe 3-4 years.
They bloom and then are gone by June. You just pull off the spent foliage at that point. Since the roots go so deep you can plant where they have been without much worry of disturbing them.

The actual flowers are blue, starting out as pink buds.
They go well with virtually any other garden plant, so long as it the plant is more than about 12 inches tall. Anything shorter and the bluebells will shade them out. But even so the bluebells will be done in a few weeks so can easily be cut back to rescue that tiny hosta that you could not find midst all that blue.


#4 Little white orchid (January 1, 2018)



I grow a few orchids. I have about 25. I have some light stands which give artificial light. I have some window sills which work as well. They all go outside in the warmer half of the year.
I try to grow a few that are just different.
This is one of them. It has reliably bloomed for me for several years. It blooms about this time of year. Most orchids do have a schedule like that.
I have lost the name tag.

I think the name might be Coelogyne cristata. At least the foliage is right for that name and it resembles what I pull up on google.
What does "cristata mean? That was the name of the winning iris from last week.
Well there are many things that are "something cristata."  I think it just means crested or having a tuft. On well.


In my more disciplined moments I take the picture of the plant, and then take the picture of the name tag. They then can hang out with the other 25,000 pictures on my computer. I leave them right next to each other.

This little orchid has started blooming now. It has two bloom stalks. Quite a number look like they will bloom over the next month.


#5 Lantana (May 15, 2018)

I love lantana. It loves sun. I have found a few places where it will do well. In my garden sunny things have to compete with any other plants that really prefer sun.
I find it interesting that the lantana in the back yard will do better in May and October, when the leaves of the trees do not block as much suns.



There you have the contestants for this week.
By the way let me tell you something about voting with this new poll.
You are not limited to voting once on a particular computer. If there are 2 or 3 or 5 of you looking at this contest, and you have only one computer, just vote away. Each person can vote. There is also no age requirement. Children are welcome to participate.

Bonus section

Here are a few bloodroot pictures over the years. The double bloodroot clump went from from 2010 to 2015. There is a picture in this group from 2016. I actually got greedy that year. I decided to transplant a piece of the clump as it emerged. Perhaps that jinxed it. While they all bloomed the year I did the transplant, none came up the next year. None. Zero. I was devastated.




There is nothing like finding the single bloodroot in the woods in the springtime.




Here are some more Asiatic lilies. You cannot see all the pictures as some will appear over the next several months.





Good plant story:
This is Asiatic lily named Lollypop. I divided the clump 15 years ago, giving a piece to a friend who lived in the neighborhood several blocks away.
























Asiatic lilies do clump up. These plants were planted in about as much sun as anywhere in the garden.

Hint- they will do better in more sun.

But they will grow and bloom in only part sun.





Bluebells.
This begins to show the domination of bluebells at their best.







Bluebells pretty much cover the yard.







I could have used this picture as the contestant.

















There are always many extra bluebells in the Spring. Get your orders in. I can pot 50-100 each year.

Julia's recipe

Harvard Beets

I do not know why this beet recipe is called Harvard beets. Maybe the undergraduates like them. Maybe it's meant to denote fancy. Maybe the originator of the recipe was Sylvia Harvard. I like beets, and we have them fresh pretty much year round, either at the Farmer's Market or at the New Pioneer Co-op which gets them from local farmers who store them through the off-season. This is sort of a warm version of pickled beets but smooth and shiny and both sweet and sour. They're also easy to make. This recipe is pretty much straight from my oldest Joy of Cooking. Except they suggest adding butter (unnecessary) or orange marmalade (totally unnecessary) just before serving.


I started by cooking 10 fresh, washed  medium-sized beets in a pot of water big enough so the water covered the beets. Beets take a while to cook, but they require no attention while cooking. They're done when they can be easily pierced with a paring knife - about 45 minutes.

I drained the beets and peeled them by rubbing the skins off under warm-ish running water. My hands are always cold so I did not use cold water. Use cold if you like.

Then I sliced the beets into about 1/4-1/2" round slices. I used a fork to hold the beets because if I had held the beet down with my left hand, my left hand would have ended up a lovely magenta color. You could wear a glove on the beet-holding hand or go with the magenta.


Here are the ingredients: beets (I had 4 cups, sliced), sugar (1/2 cup), cornstarch (1 slightly rounded tablespoon), salt (1/2 teaspoon), cider vinegar (1/2 cup) and 2 whole cloves. That's it for ingredients.










I measured the sugar, cornstarch and salt into a saucepan, and I whisked those dry ingredients briefly to combine. Then I added the vinegar and turned on the heat. I cooked the mixture on medium-high heat, stirring more or less constantly, until it came to a boil (maybe 5 minutes). Then I turned down the heat and let it simmer for just about 1 minute.

Then I poured in the beet slices (and the 2 whole cloves) and switched from a whisk to a wooden spoon, stirring the beets gently into the sauce. I turned the heat to low and covered the pan for about 15-20 minutes to let everybody get acquainted.











Here is the dish, ready for the table. Leftovers can be reheated gently either in a little saucepan over low heat or in a double-boiler over simmering water. Very nice with pork roast or with baked chicken or roast turkey. Probably with tuna casserole too.

Right now

Here is a picture taken this week, in our living room.

In the picture below this you can see the psedubulbs from which the bud stalk comes.





The big white cattleya continues to perform. In the picture it is being watered in my big tub. The living room plants did have to all move around as we finally put up our Christmas Tree.

Here is an orchid that is an oncidium.
It starts to set its buds in late August.  Sometimes there is a long wait.
It reliably blooms at Christmas.

I was thinking it was big enough to divide. But then there would be two of them.

Odds and Ends

Here are a few more pictures from the fancy cactus garden. Some people mentioned that the beds only held a single variety of cactus. Well look at these:

We then went to a little botanical garden in Palm Springs that was really just in someones big backyard. It only cost $5 to walk around. It was really interesting. For one thing it was maybe 75 years old. Some of the plants, including cactus were ancient.
How long does a cactus live?
Apparently some Saguaro cactus live to be 150 years old.
Here is more than you could even want to know about cactus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cactus

This particular cactus on the right, we have seen before. I think it is called 'old man cactus'.









One thing that was neat about this garden was that it was also a nursery, or at least it sold cactus plants.
Here was a tray with lots of little old man cactus.

I did think about putting a few little  plants in my shoes in my suitcase. I decided I had enough plants in Iowa.






From the cultural department here a few glimpses of the Palm Springs Art Museum
They had their Dale Chihuly piece.

They had several pieces from a person named Brian Jungen. We had seen his work at the American Indian Museum in Washington about ten years ago.

He made this  out of Air Jordan sneakers















He made totem poles out of gym bags and back packs.




















Back here is Iowa I was able to go out and do some raking yesterday. It felt good. Once again I felt like I made no progress. I should just plan on raking a little each day.

The normal high now is only 31 degrees. We just got above that a little yesterday. It has now been above normal for about 10 days in a row.

Stay warm.
Better times are ahead.
Philip