January 31, 2021- Week #10- goodbye January

 It is time to say goodbye to January. What a remarkable month.

A great election in Georgia.

A scary riot in Washington.

A wonderful new president.

Hope for a vaccine.

And an extended stay for grandchildren. 

Somewhere in there we had snow. It has stuck around. More is on the way. It seems like we have had nothing but white for a long time. As I look forward to Spring the first step it to see the ground. The flowers will follow.

Last Week in the Contest

The outcome surprised me. I liked the orange coneflower but it was not my choice. You all however really liked it. I will go with that. Orange has been underrepresented over the years. The picture does certainly make a presentation.

The full voting was

It was never a contest. I think we have our number 2 seed. The playoffs are only a month away. They happen after 13 weeks.

This Week- week #10

As Spring gets closer, I find myself looking at pictures of spring flowers even more. Then I look out the window and see snow. And it is a snow cover that is apt to be around for a while. In 2012 we had a very mild winter, with an early spring. The snow was just not there. There were aconite and snowdrops in February. Not this year.

Here are your contestants this week. April predominates.

#1 Double bloodroot

April 8, 2020

Bloodroot is one of the best spring wildflowers. Double bloodroot goes to the next step. I got my first plant about 11 years ago. It spread over 5 years. One winter about 2015 it did not come back. I never did get an explanation. I was devastated. At the time it was hard to find in the catalogs. But then I found a source where I could get some in quantity, I planted one main clump. I then scattered more around the garden to guard against any rare bad event. So now they are spreading and I have several clumps. Mae West  said "too much of a good thing can be wonderful." I had to look up the quote to get it right. Do you know who said "too much of a good thing is just about right'? The answer appears in the Odds and Ends section.

For other great Mae West quotes see https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/mae-west-quotes

#2 Pasque flower 

April 11, 2020

I love the complexity of this pasque flower. The formal name is pulsatilla vulgaris. The genus is Pulsatilla. I also love that tuft of purple right in the middle of all those yellow things. I had not ever noticed that for the longest time.

It also comes in red and white. I have not found those varieties to be long lived.

The plant is so hairy. The petals are even hairy. 

I wonder why a plant would be hairy. If anyone knows let me know.

#3 Hellebore celebration 

April 16, 2020

When I first started the blog I had many rules. No picture could have more than a single flower. Another rule for a while was nothing could be entered from a house plant. Of course I was not growing as many orchids 15 years ago.

This picture may be a first. It is sort of a flower arrangement. But it is also about the best way to picture hellebores. 

In the garden the flowers mostly hang down. It is difficult to get a picture of the flower. I have had the plants long enough that there are many flowers. So I cut some flowers and displayed them this way.

#4 A really bright daffodil 

April 28, 2020

I believe this is one of the few daffodils in the garden that was developed by a grower names Grant Mitsch. He was a daffodil breeder for over 50 years. Some of his flowers made it into regular commerce. They still are some of the most expensive. They can cost $1-2 each. I remember looking at his website before he retired. You should have seen what a daffodil looked like that cost $50. Then you realized that maybe you might just spend that. (I never did.) They were wonderful.

He certainly could have striking colors. 

He closed his business 3-4 years ago.

This link tells a little bit about him.

http://gardenersapprentice.com/gardeningtips/grant-mitsch/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20celebrated,gladiola%20corms%20in%20the%20fall.

For pictures of many of his flowers see

https://dafflibrary.org/grant-e-mitsch-novelty-daffodils-oregon-usa-1971-1995/

#5 Yellow dwarf bearded iris 

May 2, 2020

The little bearded iris are a wonderful addition to the spring garden. I added a few more plants this past fall, which should bloom in a few months. Say it again. "In a few months." We are not really that far away. In 30 days it will be March. March really should be the beginning. Now we just have to get rid of that snow cover.

Bonus pictures

More hellebores

This yellow hellebore was one of the early ones. This was March 25, 2020.

Here you can see the flowers which are up on a little rise. They bloom for a long enough time, so they overlap with bluebells. They are about the same height.

Here were three arrangements that we made when we brought them in.

I thought for a long time about putting this picture into the contest, rather than the one selected.  It does give you an idea how hellebores, and perhaps other flowers, can be displayed.

More bloodroot

This is the wild variety. The picture was taken in Ryerson Woods this past spring. It was/is such a wonderful place to visit.

Here is a little video of the largest clump of double bloodroot at the moment.

The pasque flower is so hairy.

This is the seed head from the pasque flower.

Here is a slideshow with little bearded iris

Right Now

I must give you a seed report. I have now planted seeds for 4 weekrnds in a row.

The first Iceland poppies are up with secondary leaves. Germination is quite good, including the cells where there are 10 or more seeds that have sprouted. Poppy seeds are tiny. I have started to separate those cells.

Two weeks ago I planted a packet of echinacea seeds. Those seeds are bigger. I have never grown them before. So far I have about 70% germination. 

Last weekend I planted a flat of pardancanda seeds (blackberry lilies.) I got them from the Joe Pye Weed people. They have been hybridizing those plants with wonderful results. I have found that these seeds grow well. 

This week I will plant some primrose seeds I got from England. There is a special feeling getting seeds from another country. Unfortunately the package says it takes 6 weeks to germinate,..., or longer. But you have to plant them sometime. 6 weeks from now will be March 15.  We will see. That is what you say whenever you try something new.

Exclamation moment

We have what we call a corn plant. We have had it for ten years. It comes in for the winter. It lives on the second floor with the computer.  It had never bloomed. A few weeks ago we discovered that it had a bloom stalk. It is blooming now. It is so fragrant that some people with good noses can smell it downstairs. It turns out it is a dracaena fragrans. I love it when a plant is named appropriately. 

Julia's recipe

Carrot cake

Our grandson Christopher had his 4th birthday in January, and he and his mothers and baby sister arrived at our house for an extended visit after his birthday. So we had his birthday, observed, the day after they arrived. In my family (and in our family when we had one), the birthday person gets to decide what to have for dinner and what to have for dessert on their day. Christopher picked "breakfast for dinner" a/k/a waffles and scrambled eggs and sausages and fruit salad. With carrot cake (with cream cheese frosting dyed green) for dessert. A slightly odd combination, but we do not question the choices of the birthday person. I don't know why the frosting needed to be green. You'd have to ask Christopher. He and I made the cake together. 

The recipe is slightly adapted from the carrot cake recipe in a Cook's Magazine compilation called The Best New Recipes (copyright 2004). 

 

First we assembled the ingredients: 1 lb. of carrots (4 biggish carrots); 2-1/2 cups white flour; 1-1/4 teaspoon baking powder; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon; 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg; 1/8 teaspoon cloves; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1-1/2 cups white sugar; 1/2 cup brown sugar; 4 eggs; and 1-1/2 cups vegetable oil (not olive or corn oil maybe coconut oil). 

For the frosting: 1 8 oz. package of cream cheese; 5 tablespoons butter; 1/2 teaspoon vanilla; 1 tablespoon (or a little more) of sour cream (or yogurt); a pinch of salt and about 1-1/2 cups (or a bit more) of powdered sugar. The butter and cream cheese should be left on the counter to soften when the baking process starts. Green food coloring is optional. 

We started by peeling and cutting the ends off the carrots and then grating them. We did the grating by hand. A food processor would be nice. 

We turned the oven on the 350 degrees, and we lubed up a 9" x 13" pan. 

We measured the oil and poured it into the work bowl of the big stand mixer. Then we added the brown sugar and the white sugar and mixed it up on a low to medium speed. No splattering. 

Next we added the eggs one at a time and mixed them in. 

After that, we added the most of the dry ingredients in small amounts (baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and cloves) and stirred them in. 

The nutmegs were whole so we grated some into a bowl using a special little nutmeg grater. 

We added the nutmeg, and then the flour, in 1/2 cup increments, to avoid a flour blizzard. 

Lastly, we added the carrots and stirred them in too. 

I poured the batter into the pan and baked the cake for about 40 minutes. I started checking the cake at about 35 minutes by sticking a bamboo skewer into the middle of the cake. When the skewer came out without any globs or big smears of cake batter, then it was done. 

The cake needed to cool for quite a while, until no longer warm to the touch.

While the cake was cooling, I made the frosting. I mixed the cream cheese and butter in the big stand mixer (after all it was already there on the counter). When they were thoroughly combined, I added the pinch of salt and vanilla and sour cream. Then I added 1 cup of powdered sugar, again in 1/2 cup increments to avoid a mess, and I assessed the frosting. I ended up using about 1-1/2 cups of powdered sugar and about 2 tablespoons of sour cream. The frosting should be thick and creamy but spreadable; that is, not too thick. Use more sour cream if it's too thick; more powdered sugar if it's too thin. Be judicious with additions when you get near the end. 

Here is the cake, looking like someone's lawn. 

Christopher eats cake from the top down: frosting first. 

Odds and Ends

Who said "too much of a good thing is just about right'? According to the interweb it was Jerry Garcia.

It has been a busy week. What a change in lifestyle. We eat at 5:30. Christopher presents with much energy right at 6 in the morning. Maisie just watches everything. Yesterday she tried a little home made applesauce. She is not yet ready to sit up by herself. So she sometimes sits in a box.

Christopher finds many things interesting. Here he discovered some nesting dolls. You learn so many things being around little people. I learned yesterday that his vocabulary includes the term 'podcast."

That is it from wintery Iowa. It snowed a little last night.

Be safe. 

Be glad it is a slightly better world.

And dream of Spring flowers.

They will be here soon.

Philip