February 19, 2023- Week #13-winter returns

Welcome to Week #13. 

This week introduces the last five contestants in the Winter picture contest. 

Next week the playoffs begin.

As a special feature this week I thought I would do a daily update. That was because this past week promised to be an eventful one.

Sunday- It is another sunny day. I think it is about the third Sunday in a row that was sunny. It also got to 50 degrees. What little snow we had is disappearing. At the same time the ground is still mostly frozen. Maggie asked me why that was the case, since the temperatures had not been that cold. But look at the tables for January and February, in the last section of the blog. There have been many more hours when it has been way below freezing, without any real snow cover. I think the lack of snow cover makes a difference. 

Notwithstanding the frozen ground, the top inch or two in the warmer parts of the garden, are showing signs of life. That is where many spring bulbs live.

Here are some of the first snowdrops. They have just showed up in the last few days.

At first I only found the individual plants. Then the clumps began to emerge. I really had just not looked the right places.

Monday- Another sunny warm day. It is a day where it is a shame to have to go to work. 

At the same time there would not be a lot to do in the garden. I could clean up a few beds with the clippers. But the bending. Sometimes I wonder about a weed whacker.

 

There are more snow drops. Even a few aconite are emerging, reaching for the sky. (There are a lot of aconite in the garden.)

The really cold weather arrives on Thursday. But so does some snow which should act as insullation. The snow will protect the spring flowers that are just now emerging. It is remarkable how nature sometimes takes care of its own.

 

Several perennials are waking up early. Here is a lupine. I think it might be a good year for lupines. They are mostly biennials. There are always little new plants growing from the seeds from the previous year. (I mostly do not deadhead the plants, partically for that reason.)  I supplement the self seeded new plants with ones I start inside.

I have a tray of those already growing.

That tray has been spending warm days in the driveway by the house.

Some varieties of snowdrops form good sized clumps.

Here are some aconite just emerging.

Tuesday

This was the completely gray day, with a little rain throughout the day. At the same time the temperature stayed in the 40's presumably doing a little to thaw the ground and encourage the early spring bulbs. It even stayed in the 40's overnight. That particularly contributes to the thaw.

Wednesday

Now we wait. It remains about freezing. The snow is coming. 

The downtown rabbits have gone down their holes. These are the 25 foot tall inflatable rabbits outside our office. They are part of a city project to make downtown Iowa City more attractive.

With high winds predicted, before and during the snow, the rabbits deflat and wait with the rest of us.

The temperatures have thawed at least the top of the pond.

This aconite is full grown. It would be a wonderful flower with some sunshine.

Aconite, like the crocuses, want sun to open. On cloudy days when they are up, they look like many littletiny yellow light bulbs.

The snow comes tonight. 3-6 inches is predicted. The 10 day forecast is rather grim. It will be very cold soon, and then it will mostly stay below freezing.

All that progress towards spring will mostly be put on about a two week hold.

Thursday

It started snowing about 3am. There was 3 inches already on the ground when we woke up. It then snowed most of the day, with several dry intervals. We totaled 10.5 inches by one local TV station. It was a real snow event. 

We learn that Iowa City got more snow that most places in eastern Iowa.

I love the way the balls in the trees get snow hats.

We did get to the office. We have had real snow events before. You just wait for the plows to come through. Then you drive carefully. I actually had hearings at work both Thursday and Friday. Fortunately they were both by zoom.

Friday

The sun came out. You do feel better when the sun is out. 

It did not get above freezing. It was pretty but there was not much melting.

Spring has been put on hold.

Saturday

I took Julia to the airport in the morning. She is off for her now annual February visit to Maine. It took most of the day but she made it last night.

I stayed home and will carry on at the office during the week.

I used the indoor garden day to repot one of the pink cattleyas.

Cattleyas remarkably do well after being divided.

Here are pictures of todays experience.

I pulled the rather overgrown plant out of the pot and discarded all the old bark. 

I then broke it into smaller plants.

I plant the orchids in orchid bark. Sometimes I use spagnum moss. 

I soaked the new bark for maybe an hour. It helps to have the bark start out wet.

The plants look so much better.

The difficulty is that where you had one plant, you now have three.

Moreover there are maybe 2 more large cattleyas that could use the same attention.

That is/was the end of the week.

Let me get to the contest, 

and think about warmer and greener times.

Last Week- Week #12

The winner was the picture of the fall crocus. As I look at this picture I see the color contrast between the flower and the different colored leaves. This was good.

Here was the full vote

 Let us proceed to the final week, before the playoffs.

This Week- Week #13

#1 Crocus pair

 March 19, 2022

March 19 is only 4 weeks away. It is hard to say if we will have crocuses by that date this year. They are so wonderful. As a group they last for well over a month. 

One thing about the early spring garden is that mostly there are no weeds.

#2 Siberian Iris- Here be Dragons 

 May 23, 2022

I have talked about the couple who have Joe Pye Weed Gardens before. They are Marty Schafer and Jan Sacks. The garden is near Boston. They developed this Siberian Iris in 2002.

They have developed many of the Siberian Iris in commerce.

Here is more information about this plant

https://wiki.irises.org/Sib/SibHereBeDragons

The Joe Pye Weed Garden 2023 catalogue is just up on the internet.

It is always fun to see the new introductions for the year.

http://www.jpwflowers.com/

#3 Blackberry lily

 August 3, 2022

I picked this picture as it shows the rather interesting foliage. 

When is a lily not a lily? When it is an iris. There are these plants that bloom in late summer. They all look like each other but the precise name can be confusing. There are Blackberry lilies and Candy lilies and something called pardancandas. 

This particular plant looks like what is sold at Plant Delights as a pardancanda norissii, with the variety called Wine and Roses. (Plant Delight is a wonderful nursery in North Carolina. It is a little pricey but has some amazing varities of many plants.) I do not recall ever buying this plant. 

What exactly are these obviously related plants.
Are pardancandas the same thing only with a fancier name?
Are they Blackberry lilies or Candy lilies? 

Are they even a lily? The answer is no. DNA was actually involved in switching the genus about 20 years ago. Who knew?

Here is Dave's Garden discussion. However I will then give you the condensed version.
https://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/2866

There have been Blackberry lilies for a while. They have been around long enough for some of them to run away from gardens and become wild flowers. (But apparently not in an invasive way.) They were called Belamcanda chinensis. That name was reworked in 2005 when they became Iris domestica. Mostly they bloom orange with some spots.

There is a yellow one that is Belamcanda flambellum. Actually now it would be called something else.

Theses plants are called Blackberry lilies because of the seedpods. After they flower, they look like...blackberries. (See bonus section)

Along came Samuel Norris. It was 1967. In addition to dabbling with paw-paws, he crossed the Belamcanda plant with a Vesper Iris. For a while it was called pardancanda x. norissii. At least as of 2013 when the Dave's garden article was written it was being called Iris x. norissii. Are you paying attention?

Samuel Norris came up with a plant that looked about the same, made the same seedpods,  but had many more colors.

In the garden I have had several varieties, including some that are clearly the early blackberry lilies, and some that are the norissii type. Some are the original orange. There is a yellow one. Then there are crosses, including many that have a wonderul maroon.

So what can you conclude?

These plants really are iris.

They self seed. Each year I pot up ones that are growing in the woodchip paths.

Other than reblooming bearded iris, these are the last iris of the season- a season that lasted from March to August.

They do provide color and interest when many of the other perennialplants of high summer have ended.

They like sun, but will grow in part shade.

Here is the wikipedia page for iris domestica, aka blackberry lilies.

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

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

#4 Pinkish Lantana 

August 6, 2022

A lantana was featured in Week 4. I told you about the plant at that time.

This nice picture was such a different color I had to put it into the contest.

I note that the effort to grow lantana from seed so far is not working. I still have many seeds. I should try some more. It is recommended that one could use "cold stratefication." That means putting the seed in a growing medium and then putting the container in the refrigerator, for weeks. For lantana one sourse suggest 6-8 weeks. On my.

#5  Cattleya Orchid Arctic Star-Snow Queen

December 20, 2023

I grow a few cattleya orchids. Those are the corsage orchids you do not usually find in the grocery store. I always thought they would be hard to grow. Not really. They go out in the warm part of the year, and often come in with buds coming.

I have had this lovely white plant for 6-8 years. As it grew out of the pot I would take pieces and put them in bark.They grew. I now have maybe 4-5 of these Snow Queens.

There you have the last of the pictures in the contest. There have been 65 pictures over 13 weeks. The winners of each week will square off starting next week, in the playoffs. There will then be 3 weeks of 5 pictures each. As there was one week with a tie, there will only be one wild card this year. 

At the moment that is the red tulip from Week 4. It had 32% as a second place finisher. That will be hard to top this last week. In most weekly voting 32% has been enough to win the week. 

Bonus Section- 

The outtakes

These are pictures that were in the next 10-20 pictures that did not make the top 65.

This is cypress euphorbia or cypress spurge with the single bluebell. There are lupine leaves in the foreground. This spurge is classified as invasive some places. I find it easy to dig up. It does not jump to other parts of the garden. I really should try it in those places in the garden that need some help. Maybe it would do well in the front parkway.

This is one of the perennial Monsella tulips. Mostly Monsella breaks down after the first year. Some individual bulbs do come back and bloom for more years that that.

Species tulips.

Our little pink rhododendrum, which is not so little anymore.

Shooting star- wildflower

Shirley poppy

Canada lily.

One of the newer dogwoods- a kousa.

Other blackberry lilies

More Arctic Star

Right Now

This plant with all the red spikes is an orchid called Stennorhynchos speciosum. I have had it for almost 10 years. It blooms in Janaury. This year it has 13 spikes.

While the plant does not look like an orchid, the individual flowers do have that familiar flower shape.

Here are the two lettuce plants that went into a salad during the middle of the week. I just cut the plant off about a half inch from the ground. I will be interested to see if it grows back.

This is a spent flower from a different plant of Arctic Snow.

Julia's recipe

Peanut Butter fudge

This isn't fudge (which is what the NYT calls it), but it is certainly a sweet confection prepared in a square pan and eaten in little blocks. So it's kind of like fudge in presentation, but much easier. If you find yourself longing for something kind of sweet and kind of wholesome (I mean, it's peanut butter) and kind of easy - this is the ticket. But you will want to share. It's rich. We ate some and then sent some more to friends and relations. 

The ingredients:

1 16 oz. jar of regular creamy peasnut butter;

12 tablespoons (1-1/2 sticks) salted butter;

2 cups powdered sugar;

1/2 cup dark brown sugar; and

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla (not shown).

Optional toppings: roasted salted peanuts (chopped) and chocolate chips (not shown either), minis if you have them or regular. I used semi-sweet, which is what I had. Milk chocolate would also be nice. 

First, I melted the butter over medium heat in my saucier - a sauce pan with rounded sides. Very handy.

When the butter was melted, I added the brown sugar and cooked over low heat until the sugar was melted.

Stirring the brown sugar in. 

I took the pan off the stove and plopped in all of the peanut butter.

Peanut butter is sticky stuff. After the peanut butter was all in, I stirred it until it melted too and the entire mixture was smooth. Then I added the vanilla and stirred it in. 

I measured the powdered sugar into a big bowl.

I poured the peanut butter mixture into the bowl of powdered sugar. I used a hand mixer to beat the peanut butter mixture into the powdered sugar. It was not hard to mix these together, but the mixture was thick.

 

I fitted a piece of parchment into an 8" square pan and  plopped the mixture into the pan. 

I smoothed it out with a spatula and sprinkled a few chocolate chips on top. Then I chopped a handful of roasted lightly salted peanuts and sprinkled them on too. 

I pressed to bits and pieces into the mixture so they would stick and put a piece of saran wrap on top.

I chilled the pan for about 1 hour in the refrigerator. 

The candy lifted easily out of the pan, and it was also easy to slide the parchment away. 

The candy needs to warm up for maybe 20 minutes after coming out of the refrigerator. Slice it into strips and then into squares, using a serrated knife or a pizza cutter. Enjoy!

Odds and Ends

Here are the temperature charts for January and February 2023.

 We had very little snow cover during this time. There are lines for what is the average temperature.

 

Another week is done. 

Spring seems so close, and yet so far.

Melting will come for those places like Iowa City, which are all white at the moment.

Better times are coming. Better times are coming?

As I peak around outside of my little corner in Iowa City, it is still a scary place.

We are coming up on the one year anniversary of a real war. There was the earthquake in Turkey/Syria. The ice caps are melting. Gun violence is always on the front page.

The Iowa legislature wants to loosen child labor laws. Then they think about restricting food stamps.

Cultural wars are heating up.

What is a person to do?

Do what you can. But think about it. 

Help people. 

Grow some plants.

Philip