August 25, 2024- the heat is back

 

It was delightfully cool this week. Almost every morning was close to 50 degrees. However, now the heat is back. I have the hose out as there was no rain. (We had a big rain 10 days ago.)

Friday was the first day of school in the IC public schools. Football comes soon. Some of the fall flowers are here already. I mentioned that last week.

Pleasant garden surprises are the balm for the tired gardener. Look at this. It appeared already in bloom on Tuesday. 

I do not remember ever having a fall blooming lupine. It even has a second spike.

In the second picture you can see a seed pod from the Bartzella peony.

More sirprises and gems from this week.

Orchids bloom a long time.

Here there is the tiniest Night Blooming Cereus bud. I took its picture to see just how long it would take to mature. A month?

The second set of this adenium is blooming.

The pink Japanese anemones are blooming, just like it was September.

Friday the first fall crocus bloomed. They should be popping up all over the garden in the next two weeks.

After the pink anemones have been blooming for a while the white ones start.

Blackberry lilies

Let me finally get around to writing about blackberry lilies. 

These were blooming as late as last weekend. They come in so many colors and shapes.

#1

#2

#3

#4

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. 

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. #5 is the closest to orange.

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. The hybrids in pictures #2 and #10 were developed by the people at Joe Pye Weed Garden, near Boston.

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. #3 and #11. Then there are crosses, including many that have a wonderul maroon part.

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/

Here are more pictures from the garden and some additional comments.

#6

Here are the seedpods, which is where the name. Blackberry comes from.

#7

#8

This is a commercially developed hybrid called Freckle Face. Unlike the orange ones, these are short, no more than 18 inches tall. 

#9

This hybred is called Summer Candy.

#10

#11

#12

Julia's recipe

Peach dessert

We are nearing the end of peach season, so I decided to make a peach cobbler. When a make blueberry cobbler, I plop dollops of biscuit dough over the berries. But instead plopping dollops of biscuit dough, I rolled the biscuit dough into a sheet and used that to cover the peaches. It was good, especially with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

The ingredients - fruit filling:

7 ripe peaches;

1 cup sugar;

1 teaspoon cinnamon;and

a pinch (maybe 1/8 teaspoon) salt.

The ingredients - biscuit topping:

1 cup flour;

2 tablespoons sugar;

3/4 teaspoon baking  powder;

1/2 teaspoon salt;

3 tablespoons butter; and 

1/3 (or a bit more) milk.

I don't know why there are two containers of salt in the picture.

First step, skin/peel the peaches.

I put a big pot of water on the stove and added the peaches. When the water came to a boil, I turned the heat down and let the peaches simmer for a few minutes.

I used a slotted spoon to fish the peaches out of the water. I cooled them under cool water and peeled the skin off with my fingers. The peaches were ripe, so the skin came off in wide strips. 

After the first two peaches, I removed all the rest from the pot and put them all in the colander to cool.

I decided to peel the peaches. I was feeling fancy. This step is not really required. 

All the peaches on the cutting board. My peaches were freestone, which means that I could cut them in half and twist the halves apart.

I cut the peaches into smallish pieces. 

There's nothing wrong with clingstone peaches in terms of taste. But they're harder to cut into pieces.

I ended up with about 5 cups of peach pieces. After I had cut up all the peaches, I added the 1 cup of sugar, and the pinch of salt and the cinnamon. Then I mixed the ingredients, gently, with a spatula.

I used cooking spray to lube up a 9" x 9" pan. Then I poured the peaches into the pan.

I heated the oven to 400 degrees. 

Next, I mixed the flour, the 2 tablespoons of sugar, the salt and the baking powder in a big bowl. After the dry ingredients were combined, I added the butter, which I had cut into little cubes. 

I cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter. You could use knives (the kind that go on the dinner table) or your fingers. 

When the butter was in little pieces, I added the milk and stirred it in with a spoon.     

I floured a piece of waxed paper (parchment or even aluminum foil would work). Generously. Then I turned the biscuit dough out. I sprinkled flour on the top of the dough and covered it with another piece of waxed paper. 

I patted the dough into a square and then rolled it out a bit with a rolling pin (through the waxed paper). 

When it was the right size, I took the top piece of waxed paper off and inverted the dough onto the fruit and peeled the other piece of waxed paper off. 

It wasn't a precise fit and there was at least one hole. Not to worry. I patched the hole with dough from an edge with extra dough. I tucked the rest of the overage in around the edges. I cut 3 diagonal lines across the top so the steam could escape. 

As an afterthought, I sprinkled the top with cinnamon-sugar. 

And into the oven, It baked for about 30 minutes. Maybe a little longer. It's done when juices are bubbling up through the slits and around the edges.

Out of the oven. It was, of course, too hot to eat right away.

After it had cooled, we served ourselves to a scoop of the cobbler with a scoop of ice cream. Tasted like summer in a bowl.

Odds and Ends

Just one year ago, on August 24 and 25, we had the hottest 2 day period of the year. Now it happens again. It seems harsh, particularly after the earlier cool weather. But enough of that.

I was watering the last few days. I had not watered since June. Watering can be pleasant. You get lots of reflection time. 

The plant sale continues. We passed the $6000 mark for the year. The caladium have been a real hit.

Many of the caladium were planted around the first of July.

Here are some hellebores, freshly potted for the sale.

Speaking of things planted in the summer...

Here are some of the ornamental kale.

We will start thinning them out when they begin to touch each other. I am starting to have a real reaction whenever I see a white butterfly.

We watched some of the convention this last week. Hope is back. 

Pray for peace.

Pray for hope.

Pray for cool breezes and gentle rain.

Have a good week.

It is always good to hear from you.

Philip