January 21, 2024 Week #9- One more day of the extreme cold

It is bitterly cold again. 

I look out the window this Sunday morning, and it is -10 degrees. Actually that is a little warmer than last week at this time. It had warmed up for a few days, into the 20's. But after a dusting of a few inches of new snow, we are back in the deep freeze for a couple days.

The end is in sight. Sunday afternoon (that is today) it will warm to 22 degrees and not go down overnight. All this coming week it will be between 34-36. Watching that coming weather has made this extreme cold bearable (sort of).

The garden limps along. There has not been much melting of the 15 inch snowpack. Deer tracks now appear. (They were not there for a few days after the big snow.) Julia is sometimes awakened by the security lights going on in the middle of the night. That would be the deer. It must be hard to be a deer this time of year.

Did I mention that there are now robins in Iowa City?  We notice them on our drive to the office. They congregate around some sad crabapple trees planted along Iowa Avenue. The trees are sad as the wet heavy snow from 11 days ago had bent over many ornamental shrubs and trees to the point where branches have snapped. There will not be cleanup until the snow melts.

The days are getting longer. We picked up 11 minutes last week. That is real progress. Most of that went  at the end of the day. 

Perhaps more importantly, the average temperatures for a given day have bottomed out, and are actually increasing. The average highs are now 31 degrees, up from 30.

And the clock is ticking. Spring (March 21) is now only 61 days away. It is time to plant more seeds.

Last Week in the contest 

the winner was the dwarf iris called Martian. It joins 2 other iris that have won in the first 8 weeks. 

The full vote was

This Week's contest- Week #9

#1 Double Bloodroot 

April 11, 2023

I have grown double bloodroot since 2009. It blooms later than the regular and wonderful native wildflower. It also lasts longer. 

It spreads nicely. It spreads by runners, as the plant is sterile. A single flower from 2009 expanded to over a dozen by 2015. Then they all died. I have no idea why. I talked to another gardener who grew the double. His died too. It must have been some combination of frezing and thawing.

So in 2016 I found a source and got maybe 10 new plants. This time I planted them in three distinct locations. They have thrived, until 2023. The largest of the three clumps died. 

There are garden mysteries. Some are good and some not so good.

You just keep going.

Things to know about bloodroot. This is information about the native (not the double).

It is in the poppy family.

The botanical name is sanguinaria canadensis. The genus is sanguinaria.

The juice (whatever that means) is red and toxic.

It is native to eastern North America.

It grows from rhyzomes, which grow longer each year and branch to make sideshoots.

The seeds are spread by ants, a process called myrmecochory. (There will not be a test at the end of the season.)

Deer should leave it alone. This makes sense since it is one of the earliest native spring bulbs.

Double bloodroot is sanguinaria canadensis Multiplex.

Here is a nice article with pictures.

http://www.arcadiandaylilies.com/DoubleBloodroot.html

The mutation was discovered in 1916 by someone referred to as an amateur botanist. The history of the plant from that point on is rather interesting.

The article says the plant is grown in the gardens of "odd connoisserurs". I guess I have a new label.

More information than you could possibly want

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55301396e4b016e87d877805/t/6086c78bb4079175ee476964/1619445644083/The+double+bloodroot%2C+Sanguinaria+canadensis+%27Flore+Pleno%27%2C+is+a+very+rare+form.+It+oce.pdf

Here is one amusing piece of information about Bloodroot. For years a popular toothpaste used bloodroot as an anti-plaque agent. Then a cancer connection was discovered and it stopped being in toothpaste. 

#2 Monsella tulips- 

April 26, 2023

Monsella tulips are one of our favorites. That is not just the favortie in the tulip group, but really in the entire garden  favorite. 

Monsellas have been in the contest before. It was the winner in 2020.

It is a hybridized tulip so I really do not expect it to last more than the one year. Sometimes is will come back the second. 

But you want to grow this in groups. If I had the space I would grow 2-3 times the 20 I try to plant.

It is a double tulip, having twice the petals of the regular one.

Monsella seems to be popular. I am always finding sold out listed with the Monsella tulips.

I just need to remember to order it right when the catalogs arrive. ( I did with the Caladium this year.)

It also tastes good, so it needs to be sprayed with deer stuff when the plant first emerges. You need to spray it before the flower opens or you would damage the color.

The tulip on the right in the picture was sold to us as Monsella several years ago. 
I planted 20 of the real Monsella in the fall of 2022, and they did wonderfully. Sprinkled in were the off color ones from the previous year.

The only source I found this past fall turned out not to have any. I really dislike companies that will let you order and then not have any. I do understand this sometimes has to do with the shortages in their shipments which may not be until the fall.

They bloom at the same time as the bluebells which of course is a nice combination. 

#3 Clivia 

June 10, 2023

I love clivia. I even belong to a Clivia Facebook group. I find that fun as so many of the people in the group are from someplace else. Australia and New Zealand for example have some really serious clivia growers. They also have the seasons flipped. For that reason they have plants blooming now.

I have grown Clivia from seed. I think I have bought seed and grown the plants. However, they take 4-6 years to get big enough so they are not for the instant gratification folk.

So what are Clivia?
There are evergreen perennial plants that are native to South Africa. 

They are understory plants, so they do not need/want a lot of direct sunlight.

However I do remember being in Golden Gate Park at one point, about twenty years ago. There was an entire hillside of Clivias, planted in what amounted to full sun for San Francisco.

They come in several colors. I have orange and yellow. I have some that are younger (haven't bloomed yet) that might be closer to red when they bloom.

They are long lived. The put out side shoots which can they be divided. Then you have more. In the bonus pictures you can see one plant that we repotted this past summer. They can get so many roots that you may have to break the pot. The one in the picture had such a nice pot too. It was from my mother's garden. It survived the repotting.

I have found that they can get mealy bugs in the winter. Winter care is such a chore sometimes.

This past fall we top dressed all 12-15 Clivia plants and added some bug systemic. So far this winter- no bugs.

One wonderful thing about Clivia winter care is that you are instructed to completely leave them alone, from October to March. No water. No nothing. They sit there in the basement waiting for warmer time. 

#4  Asiatic lily Easy Dance 

June 17, 2023

What a nice contrast in colors. And of course there are those speckles.

One of the features of this flower is that it is for some reason pollen free.

All that pollen on lillium is something the flourists do not like.

#5 Snowdrop 

March 23, 2023

Snowdrops can almost be like tulips to the 17th century dutch. I mean by that you (or rather I) can get caught up in a mania, as you begin to look for more and more interesting varieties.

There are 4-5 varieties that are in common commerce. Then there are the hundreds of other varities. Before you know it you could spend $50-100/ per bulb.

The botanical name, the genus,  is Galanthus. They are native to Europe and the Middle east. They have been around for a long time, appearing in Greek botanical tracts.

They are about the first spring bulb. There was one poking up last week. In my experience the yellow winter aconite are right there with them.

Along with other spring bulbs they disappear by early summer. You do have to remember not to plant something where you have planted the snow drops.

One source for fancy snowdrops is Carolyn's Garden.

https://carolynsshadegardens.com/category/snowdrops/

Bonus Section

Bloodroot

This is the native flower. It has 7-10 petals.

This is a hydrid that has many more petals.

Same hybrid

Here is a group of the doubles.

This was the clump in 2015, before the mystery disappearance.

Monsella tulips

This picture almost made the contest.

This was from 2023. The previous years bulbs joined the real Monsellas.

The fake Monsella was actually rather nice.

Clivia

Here is a helpful link to tell you more about Clivias

https://www.chicagobotanic.org/plantinfo/clivia

Here is Scott along with the clivia we repotted. The roots are amazing.

Here are the clivias, resting for the winter in the basement.

Here are some seedlings I grew about ten years ago.

This is a picture of the yellow clivia from a few years ago.

The flowers grow in clusters. Here is a picture of a single flower.

Right Now

Here is the paphiopedilum with the bud growing.

What a winderful little tiny violet.

This cactus decided now was the time to bloom.

Julia's recipe

Apple Salsa

Our friend Pat sent me a cookbook all about apples: apples, 50 tried and true recipes by Julia Rutland. I have made a couple of things out of this cookbook, which are winners. Today I will share her recipe for an apple salsa, tweaked just a little. I have another bigger tweak to suggest at the end. 

The ingredients:

2 apples, cored and cut into little pieces;

1 seeded and diced jalapeno pepper;

4 tablespoons diced red onion;

1 teaspoon or so smushed garlic;

lime zest (if you have a lime);

2 tablespoons lime juice;

1/4 or so salt;

1 tablespoon brown sugar; and 

2 tablespoons neutral oil. 

I did not have lime zest. It would be good (lime zest is at home in any salsa, really). I added a bit of oil to help the dressing coat the apples. The recipe called for fresh mint, also not on hand at this time of year. Use it (2 or 3 tablespoons, minced) if you have it. The recipe said brown sugar or an equal amount of honey. I think honey can be too distinctive in flavor so I opted for brown sugar. 

I washed the apples and cut them in half (no peeling required). I used a melon baller to take out the cores. Such a useful multi-tasker! Then I cut the apples into a pretty small dice.

I am not sure what kind of apples I used. Not macintosh or red delicious, which are, respectively, too  soft and too mealy and flavorless. Maybe something in the crisp family (honeycrisp, crimson crisp). Jonathans would be okay or yellow delicious or granny smith.  Something with a good flavor and a crisp-ish (not soft or mealy) texture. 

I 

I cleaned and finely diced the jalapeno and the red onion and smushed the garlic. I added these ingredients to the apples in a bowl. 

Then I made the dressing: mixing together the lime juice, oil, brown sugar and salt. 

I poured the dressing over the fresh things, stirred everything up and put the salsa in the refrigerator until dinner time. Refrigerator time is not required, however.

On the table. We served this on New Year's Day with a rolled pork roast, sweet potatoes and broccoli. Apples and pork go together very nicely. The salsa would also be good with simply prepared salmon or other fish.

Leftovers? Eaten straight as something like a palette cleanser with leftover pork. 

Let's talk about texture. This is a firm-textured salsa. I also make a pineapple and banana salsa (somewhere on the blog) that is very nice with plain baked salmon. That salsa is softer, as you'd expect of fresh pineapple and banana. 

If you'd like a softer apple salsa, soften the apples. Those of you with microwaves - put your finely chopped apples in a dish with a little water and microwave them for a short time (I think - I am not a microwave person). The goal is to soften the apples some while having them keep their shape, not turn into mush. Stovetop people can put the apple bits into a no-stick skillet with a bit of water to achieve the same outcome. Keep an eye on the apples in the microwave or on the stovetop. The amount of time to soften will vary with your equipment and with the kind of apples you use. 

Odds and Ends

Here are the seeds planted on 1-1-24. They would be lettuce and lupines.

The pumpkins are doing fine, as the snow has not melted much in a week.

News of the world is not good. 

Sometimes solutions are hard to identify, much less put into action.

I hope you enjoy this little garden escape. If you have a chance write back and say hello.

Now try to find something to make this world a slightly better place.

Pray for peace, and reconciliation.

Philip