One reflection is to talk about peonies. They are on my mind since the tree peonies here in Iowa finally opened. These two finally opened on Wednesday. The others opened Thursday. The only problem with that was that it rained almost 3 inches in the 24 hours starting that evening.
They are as gorgeous as I remember them. They actually have a little hint of pink in them.
These peonies grew from seed. The biggest ones are now about 7 years old. They sprouted in 2012. The first flower, on the first plant, was in 2016. Now there are 4 that bloom. They are old enough to have children of their own. There were marvelous seeds last fall. One seedling from last year's seeds is up at this point. It looks like the sprouts from 2012.
More on peonies-
My mother had some old fashioned peonies. They are the ones that die all the way back in the winter. They are called "herbaceous" plants when they have that characteristic.
I sometimes wonder if those peonies are one of the most common flowers we have as a country. (I mean that in an affectionate way.) I can drive around town and see many of them in front yards.
The old fashion peonies were in bloom in Missouri. They are still several weeks away here in Iowa.
As I have mentioned before, the flowers from were bred for the cut flower market 100 years ago. That is one reason why they always flop over, even without the rain.
These are one of the few flowers that I really think should be cut and brought inside. Did I mention ants? Well the herbaceous peonies use ants to open the buds, in the garden. Tree peonies do not. (Isn't nature interesting?) When you cut them for a flower arrangement, it is recommended that you let them sit on the porch for a while so the ants leave.
If you cut the buds when they are just showing some color, they will last in a cool dark place (like in a plastic bag in the refrigerator) for weeks if not months. I read on-line about someone who would always have fresh peonies for the table...at Thanksgiving.
When we left Missouri I sent buds home with my daughter Katie and my sister Ellen. I took some myself. The idea was we would all put some in water and have a cross country bloom.
So here it is.
This is from my sister in Maryland.
To the right is from Katie in Maine.
On the left is from Iowa, on the dinner table. I have kept some back in the refrigerator and will see how they do in a month or two.
Tulips are wonderful and are ending this week.
This first picture was taken on Tuesday, while the weather was still cool.
Actually we came back to Iowa everything was about the same in the garden. The flowering trees in the neighborhood were still in full bloom. That changed on Wednesday, when the temperature spiked to near 90. The forecast for that day included the term "humid" for the first time in a long while. Then it rained Thursday night.
So the trees and the tulips are gone. The tree peonies are blooming and await a dry day to be at their best.
This pair of tulips began to bloom on April 27 this year. This picture was from Tuesday May 14. That is almost 3 weeks for this one pair of flowers.
Here is the other tulip group from the front parkway.
This is tulip Monsella, showing its wonderful color to the end.
This tulip was hidden up by the air conditioner on the side of the house. It is a part of the garden I sometimes do not get to for days at a time. This mostly finished very large tulip was there when we got back in Iowa City this week. I had completely missed it up until then.
I really like the color.
Julia told me that she had been somewhere and see several of these on display.
I think I will have to search for that and get some for next Spring.
Other pictures from the garden this week
Light rain always gives you good pictures. Then of course more rain can trash certain flowers for the duration.
This is a bright yellow hosta called Dancing Queen.
It is in its third spring so it will be getting to be a nice size. The bluebells mostly finished with that one day when it got to 90 degrees. But they lasted for a long time this spring.
I am finding myself attracted to the bright yellow hosta. They usually do not stay that color all year. But they do create a statement for a while.
Do you notice anything different about this little iris?
Well, it has four falls, rather than three. Falls are the petals that come out horizontally from the center.
I get this mutation from time to time.
The pink dogwood, which must be at least 25 years old now, blooms in layers.
This is the little wavy hosta that came from Brooklyn, New York and my grandmother's garden. She gave it to my mother who passed it on to me.
It stays about the same size each year. But it obviously has reliably come back for a long time.
Here is the pond, with crabapple blossoms sprinkling it along, with every other part of the garden.
Sometimes when the blossoms are finished and there is a wind, it is like a big snow globe.
There are so many wonderful coralbells these days. I love the color on this one.
A dogwood flower was low enough to allow a picture.
Here are more peony pictures.
I am amazed sometime at these closeups.
Is this picture better with the bug?
Here is the street with the 4 peony plants right along the way.
I added this picture at the last minute. This was late yesterday afternoon after the bees had been all over the flower. You can see the yellow pollen has colored the petals close to the center.
The white tree peonies are not the only peony stars at the moment. This is the big pink tree peony I have had for going on 20 years.
I have added the second picture to give you an idea how big the flower is.
In this picture you can see the brick at the foot of the plant. The flower is bigger than the brick.
Julia's recipe
Cupcakes - gluten free
I have made gluten-free yellow cake for a birthday celebration. Once. It turned out well, but it was quite a project, including (in addition to what one would expect) white chocolate, psyllium husk powder and sour cream. Maybe other things too, but those are the atypical ingredients that I recall. I recently came across a recipe for gluten free vanilla cupcakes (from a website called glutenfreepalate) which does not have any unusual ingredients and which made very nice cupcakes. We were in Springfield Missouri last weekend, just before our daughter Katie's birthday and so celebratory baked goods were in order.
The countertop is a bit crowded, but here are the players: 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 2 eggs, 1-1/4 cups gluten free flour (I used Krusteaz, which you should say out loud and then you will agree it's a weird name), 1/4 teaspoon salt of any kind,
1-3/4 teaspoon baking powder,1/2 cup almond milk (or cow's milk - I've made them both ways), and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Plus paper cupcake cups (our were decorated with bunnies) and 2 6-hole muffin tins - as the recipe makes 12 cupcakes.
Frosting (for what is a cupcake without frosting?) ingredients: 1/3 cup butter (or whatever the heck "dairy free butter" is), 1 teaspoon vanilla, 2 cups or a bit more of powdered sugar and a bit of milk (cow or almond).
Katie (the birthday girl) and Christopher (enthusiastic if infrequent cupcake eater) helped. We poured the oil into the bowl and used whisks to mix in the sugar.
This appears to be a picture of oil being poured.
Then we added the two eggs to the oil and sugar mixture, and Christopher commandeered both whisks. When I made these before, I had an electric handmixer and beat the mixture for about 1 minute at this stage. We whisked for a minute, with both hands and enthusiasm.
This is egg dripping off the whisk in ribbons after 1 minute of whisking.
We preheated the oven to 350 degrees.
Next, we added the salt and baking powder and vanilla. More whisking. Then I measured the flour. The recipe writer advised to spoon gluten-free flour into a measuring cup instead of scooping it out as one would with regular flour in a canister. So that's what I did. I added the flour 1/4 cup at a time, and after each addition of flour, I added a bit of the milk (almond milk in this case, but as I say, cow's milk worked fine). We happened to have a dairy averse person as well as the gluten-phobes on this occasion.
As I finished up the whisking, Christopher helped put the paper cupcake cups into the muffin pans.
I used a big spoon to portion the batter into the cups. It is a thin batter, almost alarmingly thin. But not to worry.
When I made this recipe before, I used a disher (a/k/a small ice cream scoop) to make sure the batter was portioned evenly. Fewer drips too.
The cupcakes bake for about 20 minutes. They spring back to the touch (when touched lightly on top) when they are ready. Start checking at 17 or 18 minutes.
As the cupcakes cooled, I made frosting. I beat the butter (which was thankfully soft) with a wooden spoon and then added some of the powdered sugar. More beating with a spoon and then I added the vanilla. I added more powdered sugar and a bit of milk until the consistency was right - spreadable but not stiff.
My dairy averse person found eating food made with butter to be okay, food allergies being quirky. So I did not go in search of dairy free butter and cannot report on its performance.
Here are the frosted cupcakes, arranged on a festive platter.
Here is Christopher, inhaling a cupcake, frosting first of course.
If you find yourself called upon to make birthday treats for a gluten-phobe, try these cupcakes. The only non-standard ingredient is the gluten-free flour. The method is straightforward and the results are birthday-party worthy.
At some point, I will see what happens if I swap out part of the flour for cocoa powder. I am guessing the resulting cupcakes will be very tasty.
Odds and Ends
It is still raining.We have done this before.
Other places in Iowa have already had major floods this year.
Are we headed in that direction in central Iowa?
I talked to several family members yesterday who live elsewhere.
They had just been to the plant store and were going to plant things.
It is mostly too wet to plant here.
But weeding is another matter. The weeds do come up easily.
But there are a lot of them and they seem to be growing faster than everything but the hosta.
I will have to feature the hosta next week.
I close with a few more thoughts about my mother and reflections on her long life.
In addition to many other things, she was a weaver. She started a weaving program 25-30 years ago at Drury College.
In 2013 she sat down with someone who knew how to make short movies.
He made this 18 minute film about my mother and weaving.
In it she talks about her life. She was introduced to weaving in North Carolina in about 1957.
I invite you to see a little more about that life.
Here is the link:
https://vimeo.com/53837214
Stay dry.
Philip
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