June 21, 2020. Welcome to summer

There is so much happening.
The Asiatic lilies are starting, with their remarkable splashes of color.
The daylily scapes are rising out of the foliage, with promises of even more color.
The days have gotten as long as they will get.
That is a relief since my biological clock is waking me way too early in the morning.
When I get up as early as 4 am I really am dragging by the end of the day.

Last Week

You liked these two very nice pictures.






Here was the full voting.
There were the two clear favorites in a week with a rather weak field.
This week will be better.

This Week
High summer is just getting started.

Since there are do many choices you can vote for two.

#1- Bartzella the Itoh peony

The week's pictures start with this new comer, which bloomed on Monday. I planted it  the middle of May. It came from a nursery in Minnesota.
It is Bartzella. The name itself gets the plant off to a good start.
It is called an Itoh peony because it was developed by Toichi Itoh, in the late 1040's in Japan. He developed 7 different hybrids. He crossed a tree peony with a herbaceous peony. No one had done that before.
Itoh peonies have stronger stems than the herbaceous varieties. I now read they do not need this wire support. They also will keep their leaves until fall, like the tree peonies.
They will die back to the ground in winter, like the herbaceous type.
There is a second bud on my plant, that might bloom in the next week.
This plant gives reason to look forward to the next few years.  It will be covered with flowers. They will still be yellow.

#2 Pink Waterlily

This flower bloomed last Sunday, and kept blooming for 4 days. I had repotted the pink waterlily in 2019. I do not think I had many pink ones last year. It took a year to recover.
There are already two more pink flowers, either blooming or almost blooming.



I realize this picture shows the plant fully open. It was taken on Wednesday.
In the bonus section you will see the flower on Sunday next to this picture.

#3 Orange Asiatic lily with spots

This picture was taken after a mild rain. The water spots and the natural spots go well together.

This by the way is not a tiger lily, whatever that is.

#4 Japanese Iris

This is a lovely Japanese Iris.
I need to work on growing Japanese iris.
Part of the problem is that the place where they are growing does not get enough sun. (Or at least that is an acceptable excuse.)

#5 Lighter Orange Asiatic lily

#6 Asiatic lily Fiamma

This was a newcomer in 2019. This year it is back. I think it is even taller. It is also really solid.
I bought more of these last fall and put them in the front yard. This one just started to bloom yesterday.
If you have to have only one Asiatic lily I nominate this one.
Actually as I read about this flower I see that it is a cross between an Asiatic lily and an Easter lily. That probably accounts for the fact it is more than four feet tall.

 #7 Pink Lupine

Most of the lupines are finished. This one bloomed yesterday, even with the heat and humidity. By the end of the day it was getting a little ragged. It get points for being pretty out of time.

#8 Yellow Clivia

It is clivia time.
I have a good group, including some youngsters, that I got as special seedlings.
This yellow one just started to bloom yesterday.
The orange ones have been blooming for over a week.

#9 Orange clivia

These plants are so great.
I really should divide the ones that have 4-5 blooming plants in the same pot.

There are your pictures all from this week.
I have absolutely no idea who you will like out of this group.

Bonus section

The pond was particularly great yesterday. For the first time ever there were four blooming waterlilies at the same time. Three were white and one was pink. Here is a little video.

So what do you think? Side by side. White or pink? This first picture was taken yesterday. I did not include it in the pictures for the week. You had a white waterlily last week.
But now you can tell me.
Do you prefer the white or the pink.






Here are pictures of the same flower. The picture on the left is from Sunday. The one on the right is from Wednesday.




As a quick aside, or a digression, I should tell you about a recent acquisition. There are lotus waterlilies. They are different that these hardy waterlilies. I had been given some lotus seeds early this spring, which all died in the cold. So when I was getting my yearly supply of snails and tadpoles for the pond I added a lotus lily plant. It came this past week and is now in the pond.
Wait for it......It will have a blue flower.
I will think about how it will be overwintered later.







Lilies in a clump are good.

















Fiamma has a group as well.


















Here is the one clivia pot with 5 blooms at the moment.
















I got these ferns at the Drug store Hy Vee in the fall of  2017.
They were in little pots at the time. They cost maybe $3.













Here are some more Asiatic lilies. They really are all starting just about now.















With all that color emerging, I then remember that the daylilies should bloom soon.

Julia's recipe

Peanut Butter and chocolate.

This is a homemade version of Reese's peanut butter cups - easy, gluten-free and tasty. Also no need for the oven. The recipe came from the internet, and although the recipe is not from the NYT weekly recipe site, it seems to be from one of their own, Melissa Clark. She reported that her family needed a change from snickerdoodles. As who wouldn't. The recipe is pretty flexible, ingredient-wise and I think can be vegan as well as gluten-free for those among you who have made that commitment.




The ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter; 1/2 cup peanut butter (commercial rather than fancy, smooth or chunky); 1/4 cup almond flour; 1/2 cup powdered sugar; 3 oz. semisweet (or darker) chocolate (that's 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips) and a bit of sea salt to sprinkle on top if you are so inclined. You will need some like of liner for the pan into which the bars will go - I used parchment. Aluminum foil or waxed paper would work.

You could, according to Ms. Clark, use coconut flour or graham cracker crumbs or crumbled up cookies instead of the almond flour. I think you could use coconut oil instead of butter. Or margarine, but I think coconut oil would be better. Ms. Clark suggests the use of other nut butters - almond or cashew. I once made peanut butter cookies with almond butter instead of peanut butter and found them bland and disappointing. Not sure other butters have a robust enough flavor to carry the day. But try it - maybe sunflower butter would be nice.





The ingredient proportions are for an 8" x 4" loaf pan. Double everything and use an 8" x 8" pan.

I started by pressing parchment into the loaf pan and fastening it with the binder clips, an office supply which serves well in the kitchen.


Next I put 1-1/2 tablespoons of butter into a little saucepan. I melted the butter over low heat and then let it cook a few minutes longer until it turned slightly brown. Watch it carefully - slightly brown can turn to burned quickly.

Note: I am not sure coconut oil will benefit from cooking beyond melting. You could try it, but as I said, watch carefully.

I measured the peanut butter in the gooey-things measuring cup and pushed it out into the still-hot butter. I stirred it up until the peanut butter melted.






Melting did not take long. Then I added and stirred in the almond flour followed by the powdered sugar.



















I stirred in the powdered sugar.




















Then I scraped the peanut butter mixture into the little loaf pan and used a spatula to even it out.

















I chopped up 3 oz. of chocolate into little pieces. (Bars of chocolate come marked in squares, and so it is easy to figure out how much 3 oz. is.) Or you could measure 1/2 cup of chocolate chips (use good ones made of real chocolate). I used the same little saucepan, no need to wash. I added the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of butter and melted these things together over low heat.

I imagine these melting steps could be accomplished even more easily with a microwave but I do not have (and do not want) a microwave.








When the chocolate was melted, I poured it slowly over the peanut butter, aiming for even coverage and used the spatula to get the chocolate into the corners.


I sprinkled with a bit of sea salt and put the loaf pan into the refrigerator so that the confection could firm up.


Which it did. After the initial time in the refrigerator (maybe an hour), the bars can be left out. No melting, no oozing.













Here are the bars, in a block, having been removed from the parchment-lined pan. They were delicious. Fresh from the refrigerator, a bit of force was required to cut them. After they started to live on a plate the kitchen counter, they cut easily.

Odds and Ends

On Monday we saw the neighborhood fox again. I managed to get off a quick picture. It is not something that is going to National Geographic, but it is some documentation.
The fox and its family is real and has made a real dent in the bunny population.



Actually fox appearances are becoming common. One day this week while I was in the shower, Julia looked out the window and the fox was just running down the empty street.



A year ago I wrote about a new Asiatic lily in the garden named Night Rider. It should start to bloom in a week or so. It is rather wonderful. It is black. It was developed recently in Holland and named for the TV show about a talking car. (I did not really know this show.)
Unfortunately the name is associated with a dark past of history for African Americans in this country. I did some checking and there did not seem to be much chance the name could be changed.
As that lily gets ready to bloom I think about that conversation one year later.
I think about a number of plants I have seen over the years with names that are best forgotten. In my garden those plant labels were lost a long time ago.
If food brands can change their names after decades, I wonder about plants.



Fall crocuses
It is time to buy fall blooming crocuses. They are now appearing  in bulb catalogues which are arriving these days. You plant them in August and they bloom this fall. There is none of that delayed gratification.
I bought mine  from Brent and Beckys.

Zinnia time
The last several years I have planted zinnia seed the last part of June/early July. I find that there is plenty of time for them to grow to maturity. When they start to bloom in September they are fresh when other plants are fading.

Hoya time
I moved the rope hoya, aka carnosa compacta, to the front yard. It gets to hang from one of the ropes in the walnut tree. The plant is about ten years old. It must be 4-5 feet long...and is covered with buds. There must be 20 of them.
I believe I have been bitten by the hoya bug. I have 3 other good size plants from my mother. It is a different variety. I have purchased two other varieties, including one that will have a red flower I am told.
I made cuttings from several this winter, so I now have several little plants to go with the bigger ones.
Think hoyas. I will show you flowers in a few weeks.

Stay safe.
Big change is coming in only 7 more months.
And please wear a mask.
Philip