December 30, 2018- Goodbye 2018

What a confusing week. Wednesday was Monday. Christmas was Tuesday. We had to go back to work on Wednesday. I had to work on Saturday. It continues this next week,
Tomorrow (Monday)  we have to work. Then Tuesday we get just one day off. Then we work for three days.
Amidst all that it was warm at the beginning of the week. On Friday we closed the office early because of ice.
But somewhere in there was Christmas. We put up our tree and enjoyed lots of face time with our grandson Christopher.

We can say a fond farewell to 2018. Winter is almost halfway over. The national nightmare is also almost halfway over.  There will be cold times ahead. But the days are getting longer. Better times are ahead. We all just need to keep moving.... forward.
Think about warmer times.

We did have to move some plants around to make room for the tree. You can see the Cattleya orchid next to the tree.


As mentioned it was warm early in the week. I was actually able to do some leaf work both on Christmas Eve and on Christmas. Working in the garden is particularly fulfilling this time of year.

Little spring bulbs are stirring already. The first snow drop peaked out. This is not all that unusual. They will not like it when the very cold arrives. But they will survive, and eventually be wonderful.

Last week's contest

The winner was.... the Lantana. What a great bunch of colors. I can almost see those deep space pictures of galaxies far away.
What a tight contest we just had. All week the race was within a vote or two. For a while it was tied. Near the end the White orchid made a real game of it, in what was a three way race, all week.

Here was the final vote:

I should add that at the end of 13 weeks 16 pictures advance. The winners plus 3 wild cards go forward. I pick the wildcards based on their percentages. At this point the Bloodroot has a good chance of advancing, even with this close loss.


I should say something about voting on a iPhone.
Someone asked me about it and that question has come up in the past.

If you are on your phone you have to click on the post for the current week. 

Then you have to go all the way to the bottom/end of the post. There should be a place there where it says "view web version."

Click there.

That should pull up the image that has the poll on the right side. Enlarge it and there will be the place to vote.

Please also remember that more than one person can vote from a single device/computer.

So vote away, as we move into the new year.
Enjoy and remember better times. There will daffodils and bluebells and lilies and maybe things you have not seen before.

Week 5- as we push into the new year

Here are the Week 5 contestants. They are all from April and May. Spring was quite compressed this past season, since it was so late in starting.
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There are now only 81 days until the official start to Spring. That really does not seem so long.


#1  Cypripedium Orchid Gisela (May 17, 2018)




























I love these orchids in the garden.
This is a hardy outside-all-the time orchid. The genus is Cypripedium. These are the lady slipper orchids.
The hybrid I now have is Gisela.
It is know to be the one that is the easiest to grow.
This plant came to the garden in 2008. You plant the roots in the fall. It came up in 2009 with 2 shoots.
It reliably had the same two shoots (stems) until 2017 when the third arrived.
It seems to like that particular location.
I have tried several other varieties of Cypripedium plants. They lasted anywhere from 1-5 years, before they disappeared.

Education alert:
Here is how plants are classified with the biggest group listed first. Think of it as the family tree.

Kingdom- Plantae
Family- Orchidaceae
Genus- Crypripedium
Species- there are 58 of these within the Genus Cypripedium.
Hybrid- is a cross between two species, probably not found in nature.

Gisela is the cross between the species Cyp. parviflorum and the species Cyp. macranthos.

Here is more than you would want to know about the Genus Cypripedium
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypripedium

The images on Google for these lady slippers are wonderful.
https://www.google.com/search?q=cypripedium+in+iowa&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjhpcegn7vfAhVJ94MKHRlYBo0Q_AUIDygC&biw=1246&bih=581

Did you know there are 32 orchids that can be found in the wild in Iowa? That does mean that the grow outside, where it gets cold. Here is the list.
http://www.c-we.com/cios/native.htm
5 of those 32 are Cypripediums, or whatever is the plural for that word.
One is Cyp. reginae, which is the pink and white  lady slipper which is the state flower of Minnesota.

#2 White Tree Peony (May 14, 2018)




























Some of you will recall the story of my tree peonies.
I brought some seed back from visiting my sister in the D.C. area about 8-9 years ago. I tried to grow the plants from seed without success. Finally I just threw some seeds in the garden and forgot about them. At some point 4 of them came up.
I recognized the foliage as peony foliage and made sure that they were not disturbed.
It took them about 4 years to bloom. That first bloom, in 2016, was so exciting. At that point I did not even know what the color would be. The first year only one plant bloomed. I think there were two flowers.
Now all four plants bloom.
Please see the bonus section for more pictures.
If you look at the this picture closely you can see the yellow pollen on the white petals.



#3   Trillium (April 28, 2018)




























I think this is trillium cuneatum. It is the first of my trillium to bloom in the spring. Others are shown in the bonus section.
I found this flower quite antic.


#4 Little Dwarf Bearded Iris (May 13, 2018)



In the garden there is yellow and there is gold.
Here is this wonderful little gold dwarf bearded iris.
As the name suggests they will not be more than about 6 inches tall.
They are bearded iris as oppose to other species.
The genus is Iris.

I love the color contrasts between the petals and those things that look like caterpillars crawling out from the center. (Those are actually called the "beard."
I have added new little iris to the bed these last two years.



#5 Pink Waterlily (May 26, 2018)




I do not have much to add to this garden thoroughbred.
This is a hardy waterlily. It stays out all winter. It grows in containers at the bottom of our pond, which is about 2.5 feet deep. They seem to last forever. I have had them for maybe 25 years. That would be about as long as we have had the pond.
Pictures of waterlilies have such great backgrounds.
The pink lily with that yellow center is just about perfect.

Bonus Section

When we were in Maine in 2017 we were there in June. It was just the time for their particular Cypripedium, called acaula. You can look back at the archived post from June 18, 2017. (Sometimes you have to scroll down because the archive will just take you to the month of June.)
Here were two of those pictures.





Here are  closeups of different peony flowers. It was difficult to pick which picture to include in the contest.

The peonies bloom about the time that there are so many other wonderful things in the garden.
Here is an image of the garden along the curb on Fairview Street.

More peony pictures.



















More trillium
The little white ones on the right are new i the last two years. They are suppose to spread. This spring will tell.

Julia's Recipe

Lamb Stew

This is my mother's recipe for lamb stew, to which I made only one addition. My mother stuck to lamb and green beans. I added potatoes, which she approved of.

I am sure there are recipes for lamb stew in cookbooks. I know, for example, that the Irish make lamb stew with carrots. I have never consulted a recipe: my mother's lamb stew is great.

Apparently lots of Americans don't eat lamb which is a shame because it is tasty and, in many applications, easy to fix. This recipe is one of the easy ones. Although there is some oven time, the actual prep does not take very long and the results are delicious.


Here are the players: 1-1/2 pounds lamb stew meat; red potatoes (about 5 cups, cut up into biggish chunks); onion (about 1-1/2 cups chopped into a medium dice); tomato sauce (1 28 oz. can); frozen green beans (1 16 oz bag of cut (not french cut)); some dry wine (optional); salt and pepper. That's it!








I started by chopping the onion. I put the meat in the bottom of a big enamel pot, added the chopped onion and then poured the tomato sauce over all.

I turned on the oven to 325 degrees.









I rinsed out the can by pouring in about 3/4 cup of wine and 3/4 cup of water, swishing it around and then pouring it into the pot. I added 1-1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and stirred.

I put the lid on the pot and put the pot into the oven. I set the timer for 1 hour to remember to take a look and give the stew a stir.  After 1 hour, I took the stew pot out of the oven and stirred the contents, then put it back into the oven for another hour.



I scrubbed the red potatoes and cut them into biggish chunks. Use red potatoes because they will hold their shape. If you have little red potatoes, cut them in half. If you have tiny red potatoes, leave them whole. I cut my potatoes into quarters or sixths, depending.

After 2 hours (and 2 stirrings), as shown at right, I added the potatoes and baked the stew for another hour. If I had been planning to serve it the same day, I would have added the frozen green beans at the same time.




I made my stew on Sunday, with the intent to serve it on Monday. So I refrigerated it overnight and reheated it the next day, adding the green beans then. The reheating took about an hour.  This recipe would serve 4 folks with good appetites. It's a one pot meal, and we serve it with a green salad.

The remarkable thing about this stew is how flavorful it is without any seasoning beyond salt and pepper. Very hearty, very filling, very good reheated on the stove for lunch throughout the ensuing week.

And your kitchen will smell great while the stew is in the oven.

Right now

This picture was taken on Christmas Eve. The little iris would like to get started. They will get hit by the very cold that will happen any day now. They will be fine, even though it may need to be some new foliage.

This was taken also on Christmas Eve, after I had raked off some leaves.
Things are stirring.

I am asked when to do garden cleanup in the fall. Some people will leave the leaves on their beds to protect things from the cold.
Sometimes what they protect is bad garden bugs.
I always say that the time for cleanup is whenever you can find the time. It does take forever.

Odds and Ends

As many of you know at Christmas we have an inclusive creche. This year it seemed appropriate to have a caravan. They were heading to the empty stable.

Here was the final assembly.

Inspired by the wedding we had been to recently we even set up a photo booth for different groups.

Penguins

Space alien

Salt and Pepper shakers

Little guys

Domesticated animals

That is it for this week. Sometimes the words tumble out onto the page. Other times I am just tired.
This week looking at the tree peony pictures was energizing. Maybe today (Sunday) will be warm enough to get outside again.
Sometimes we are too busy.
Be safe.
Better times are coming.
Philip