Week 8- January 17, 2021

Welcome to Week 8. 

My goodness time has gone by. There are 13 weeks of contests before the playoffs. We have passed the halfway point. You have seen 35 of the 65 contestants. 

A lot has happened since Week One which was on November 29. 

I now have seeds coming up. I have planted seeds each of the last two weekends. The first week I planted lupines and poppies. Some were Iceland poppies. Last weekend I planted some more lupines and some Shirley poppies.  Poppy seeds are so tiny. It is hard not to plant too many in each little section of the tray. No matter. Once they get secondary leaves I will transplant them. I know from past experience that they transplant easily.

I just got the first mail order seeds. They include some straw flowers and one packet of coneflowers. I have not grown those plants from seed before. We will see.

Last Week in the contest

The winner last week was the wonderful new coneflower,  Lemon Drop. This winter Lemon Drop is quite available in the many catalogues that are showing up in our mailbox these days. 

There really are so many coneflowers in the new catalogues that labeling becomes more important.

The full vote last week was

This Week, Week 8

 I have a great collection of pictures for you. I have no clue at the moment who will get my vote.

#1 Cattleya 

Arctic Star Snow Queen

 January 1, 2020

What a wonderful orchid. With so many names. It is a cattleya orchid. They were/are always the corsage orchid. I have found them easy to grow. They do take up a lot of room. 

I have had this plant for 6-7 years. (I have a picture of it from 2014).

It is just about too big. I should and do think about dividing it. That is scary. I will then have many plants. Moreover I will have to break many roots to do that. I think I will wait until at least early spring.

What is remarkable about this plant and the other cattleyas is how long them bloom. This plant had three spikes on it this year. Each spike had 3-4 flowers. The first started to bloom in early November. The third spike was the last to bloom. It finished this past week. The plant had bloomed for over two months.

#2 Fritillaria Uva vulpis

 May 3, 2020

Fritillaria are wonderful. They are a spring bulb. They come in all sizes and shapes. This is Fritillaria uva vulpis. Not exactly a household name. Another name is Fox's grape. I did not know that and will not likely remember it either. Actually that is the translation of the name, which, like many plant names, is Latin.

Even if you know about fritillaria you probably think about the Crown Imperials or the meleagris. (The meleagris are some of Julia's favorites.)

I do not grow many of this variety. I have no idea when I got it. But 2-3 of them come up reliably every year. They are a later blooming spring bulb. You can tell they bloom when the bluebells bloom.

Fritillaria are deer resistant. Actually they are that way for a reason. Some smell bad. The crown imperials particularly smell bad. How do they smell? Bad.

This is one time where bad is good. 

Fritillaria is the genus (for those of you looking for education). They are in the lily family. Uva Vulpis is a species that was discovered in the last century in the middle east.

#3 Pastel Iceland Poppy 

May 23, 2020

This may be my favorite of all the Iceland Poppy pictures. It really needs a dark edge. I will not add that this week, to keep the competition fair.

I planted the poppies this past year along Fairview Street. When you walked by in the morning the sun would back light them in a way to make you curl your toes.

# 4 Yellow Siberian Iris 

May 31, 2020

What a wonderful yellow. The imperial color of China. You can see why.

I think this variety might be named Olive Emerson. I have gotten a bunch of Siberian iris the last 3 years. I have not been that careful as to names and labels. What I am now doing is ordering the labels when I order the plants. That way I can put the label right in at the time I am putting in the plant.

#5 Blackberry lily 

July 18, 2020

This is a pardancanda. It is also known as a blackberry lily. Sometimes it is called a candy lily.

So what are pardancandas?
Are they related to Blackberry lilies or Candy lilies?
Are they Blackberry lilies or Candy lilies? 

Are they even a lily?

Here is Dave's Garden.
https://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/2866

They are so new to the plant world that there is no wikipedia page.

More information, with pictures is found here:
http://amycampion.com/candy-lilies-why-i-love-em-how-to-grow-em/

So the genus for pardancandas is  "X Pardancanda".
The species is norrisii.
I think the X before the name of the genus means that the genus is a cross.
The person who did the crossing was Mr. Norriss.
The genus is a cross between Belamcanda chinensis and Pardanthopsis dichotoma.
Imagine that.
Well the first one of those is the blackberry lily.

So the term pardancanda lily is ofter shortened to candy lily.
To add to the confusion they are called lilies but are really iris.
I learned that. The spring after I grew them  for the first time during the previous year, I found all these little iris coming up. I had not planted them there. Well it was the seedlings coming up.
The seeds really are rather fertile.

I like these flowers in part because they bloom in August, after the riot of color has ended.
They also will surprise you as to just what color will be where.

Whatever they are, they are sometimes called blackberry lilies after their seeds. They form a seed head that resembles...a blackberry.

Bonus Pictures

Arctic Snow

More fritillaria information

Here is the wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritillaria

Here is a botanical family tree. Imagine that.

I do not recognize many of the entries. I do know tricyrtis. That is the toad lily.

Blackberry lilies

The two first two pictures are the older varieties.

These next pictures are the results of crosses in the garden over the last five years.

I do not get large clumps. Perhaps with more sun that could happen. There are many flowers on each stalk.

This cross was/is lovely.

This is a hybridized variety from Joe Pye Weed's Garden. They are doing marvelous things with pardancandas.

Another hybrid.

Right Now

This little dendrobrium  orchid opened this week. Experiencing orchids is a nice way to spend the winter.

Sometimes there can be an incredible wait for plants to bloom. This can be inside or out.

This is an indoor slipper orchid. I have been waiting for this one to bloom for a month.

December 19, 2020

January 16, 2021

Julia's recipe

Coconut salmon curry

This recipe came from the New York Times cooking website. It's a soup kind of curry, more southeast Asian than Indian. There's no curry powder, for instance. It is a nice change of pace for the recipes for baked or grilled salmon. Tasty and easy to make. 

The ingredients: some salmon (I had about 3/4 lb., a bit more would be fine but no less); 1 can of regular (not lite) coconut milk; 2 cups sliced onion (the recipe called for red but yellow or white would work just as well); 3 tablespoons of regular oil (not olive oil, but coconut oil would be fine); 1 tablespoon grated ginger; 1 teaspoon smushed garlic; 1/4 cup miso; 1 5 oz. box of fresh spinach; 2 tablespoons of lime juice and 1/4 cup of sliced-up fresh basil (or cilantro if that works for your diners). 

If you have access to skinless salmon, that would be preferred. I have salmon with skin and bones, which is excellent so I worked with it. See below. 

 

I heated the oil in a big enamel pot and added the garlic and ginger for maybe 30 seconds. 

Then I added the onions. Note that the onions are sliced kind of thick - you do not want the onions to disappear into the sauce as happens if they are sliced thin. I cooked this over medium-high heat for about 3 minutes.

Next I added the miso. I used light miso. Dark (red) would be fine too. I stirred the mixture to incorporate the miso and let it caramelize a little: about 3 more minutes. 

Next up: the coconut milk plus some water. The recipe said 1/2 cup coconut milk and 3 cups of water. I used the entire can of coconut milk and about 2 cups of water. Feel free to change up the proportions as you wish; for example, if you have only little cans of coconut milk. This version was tasty. 

I turned the heat down to medium and let the mixture cook for about 10 minutes.

While the mixture was cooking, I put on a pot of rice. Jasmine would be nice or basmati or regular old medium grain American. And I attended to the fish.

As I have said, we get our fish from Alaska. It comes frozen, and the salmon has skin and pin bones. There are reasons that this is the preferred way to freeze and ship salmon, but I won't go into that now. 

I removed the pin bones and cut the salmon into little squares. I cut the thinner parts into slightly bigger squares and the thicker parts into slightly smaller squares. I considered cutting the skin off, but it was too difficult. 

I turned the heat down to a simmer and cooked the curry for about 5-7 minutes. Cook until the fish achieves your ideal of doneness. 

 

Then I added all of the spinach. I bought that triple-washed kind but I rinsed it anyway.

I cooked it just until the spinach wilted.

Lastly, I added the basil and the lime juice, off the heat. 

Here it is in the bowl. Note how the lighting in the dining room is dimmer than the lighting in the kitchen. 

We served the curry in soup plates over a scoop of rice. And we had a little bowl on the table to receive the bits of salmon skin. Maybe some people eat salmon skin. I don't.

We served this with the usual green salad and also with little bowls of yogurt topped with applesauce, both homemade because 2020 was that kind of a year. 

Better days soon!

Odds and Ends

I saw this story in the Times. I thought it odd.

Bird song competitions? Amazing

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/world/americas/suriname-birds.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage

The days are getting longer. We passed 5 o'clock the other day, going the right direction. The sun will rise today at 7:30, setting at 5:04.

Stay safe.

The end is in sight. Now, more than ever, we must be careful. Now, more than ever, we need to take care of one another.

Philip