December 29, 2024- Week #5- Out with the old-In with the new

We are away from town this weekend, visiting Julia's family in the Chicago area. I will try to publish this from the road using our ten year old laptop.

News from the big city;

It is both crowded and sprawling. 

Driving in the dark and the rain is not a good idea.

Google Maps- we were 1 for 2. It was a great help in avoiding the worst of the traffic on Friday evening. On the other hand it had a very hard time finding the big Orchid place- Hausermans.

We had a pleasant brunch with Julia's family/ All the small children behaved themselves and were quite entertaining,

We did finally get to Hauserman's and now have more orchids. 

The new year is coming. I have my seeds ready. It turned out I had seed packets that were never opened from this past garden year. I had imagined at one point growing lettuce in the fall. It did not happen, as the garden year closed with a shortage of enthusiasm.

But I will plant some lettuce and some arugula inside, under lights. The packets say ready in 50 days. Let us see. (That in case you missed it is a phonetic pun.)

The end of the year is a time for reflection and to plan for the future. Maybe I will put that off,  as mostly reflection and anticipation are not good for the blood pressure.

Last Week was week #5.

The winner was the Shirley poppy,

I will add the full vote when I can get back to my home computer. You can see the actual results under this week's poll.

The poppy had moved into a 6 vote lead midweek. That was too much to overcome as the last votes trickled in.

This Week is Week #5

#1 Stennorrhynchos 'Maise' February 17, 2024

This orchid is now named 'Maisie.' Officially. It is written down in some big book, since last winter. Its longer name is now Stenorrhynchos speciosum 'Maisie.'

The full story is in the bonus section, further along in this post, reprinted from the February 18, 2024 post.

This picture shows the orchid, having been returned from the show circuit, with all its ribbons. It went to two shows, getting awarded at the St. Paul show.

A picture contains so many elements. There is color. There is composition. Then it can contain a story. 'Maisie' has quite the story.

#2 Bloodroot 'Snow Cone' April 9, 2024

I love bloodroot. In the late winter, as the ground has begun to thaw, one of the early wildflowers is the bloodroot. It is one of the spring "ephemerals." It goes dormant early in the summer. 

We have a few of those wild ones in the garden. 

But this variety is special. It was developed by Jan Sacks and Marty Schaffer, who have Joe Pye Weed Gardens in Carlisle, Massachusetts.

They developed this from what they referred to as the Tenneesee form bloodroot. They were able to name the result.  

Jan and Marty donated over 100 little plants to our food bank plant sale this past spring. There will be bloodroot all over Iowa City as a result of their generosity.

Their webcite is

https://www.jpwflowers.com/

They specialize in Siberian Iris.

#3 Violet Amour Elite - April 7, 2024

It is no coincidence that the first two contestants this week are an orchid and a violet. That certainly is a direction in which the garden is growing.

I got this beauty in November, 2023. 

The violets hang out in a southern window in the dining room over the winter, and the stay inside all year.

#4 Species tulip Little Beauty- April 21, 2024

What wonderful color.

I have written about species tulips before. This is Little Beauty.

Did I mention that these species tulips are short?

They will clump up.

They are not as tasty to the deer as the hybrids.

They come back each year, unlike their fancier hybrid cousins.

One of the biggest challenges is to avoid planting something else right on top of them, disturbing the bulbs. 

#5 Blue Siberian Iris May 16, 2024

Siberian Iris bloom after the bearded iris are finished. In some ways they are quite different. For one thing they have roots rather than rhizomes. This means they do not mind being wet. Bearded iris will rot if not given good drainage. Siberian iris like being wet. 

Bonus Section

The story of the special orchid

I belong to a local orchid club. I have belonged to that club for 25 years. I like the group because you do not have to be a fanatic to belong. 

Each year for your modest dues you get a free orchid. You get this plant if you attend the holiday dinner in early December. All the gift orchids are put on a table. Tickets are then drawn that determone the order in which people can pick out the orchid they want.

In December 2014, I picked this plant.

The name is Stenorrhynchos speciosus. I liked it in part because it really did not look like what most people think of as an orchid. One of its features was that it would usually bloom right after the first of the year.

A month later it was in full bloom.

It got bigger over the next 9 years, sometimes even blooming in the sunnmer. I did not divide it, but put it into bigger hanging pots.

It is listed as a terrestrial, native to Mexico and Central America. That means it grows in the ground, not attached to trees.

Here is is in 2019. The closeup shows you the individual flowers.

One of the activities of the local orchid club is to take members' plants to orchid shows around the upper midwest. I do not have many orchids for those shows. My orchid collection is only 20-25 plants. My orchids probably do not get the best attention as there are so many other plants. The orchids do all go outside for the summer, hanging from poles around the backyard.

Well last year, 2023, in the winter, I packed up this orchid and sent it to the shows. It came back loaded with ribbons. It scored well in whatever was the class they put it in. I figured it was in the odd-looking class.

Well 2024 rolled around. The plant had 13 stalks, compared to maybe 11 last year. I packed it up sending it north to St. Paul.

The plant went off to a show in St. Paul. Judging takes place first, at 8am on Saturday. 

I understand the idea of ribbons. I do not know that much about judging.

I had heard people at the club talk about plants being taken "back" for AOS judging. I had no idea what that was. I now have learned.

Apparently the judges first give out the regular ribbons. They then look at the plants that got first place ribbons and decide which are really special. That group goes to some other room or table for what is called AOS judging. (American Orchid Society.) I gather at this point plants or particular flowers are measured against some ideal plant or flower. You get a point score. If your score is over some total you really have done well, and you get an award.

So on Saturday morning, in late January, the weekend of the St. Paul orchid show, the local club person who had taken the plant to the show, called me. Julia and I were out driving someplace. He told me the plant had been taken back for AOS judging. It had been awarded an AOS award,  something called a Certificate of Cultural Merit, or CCM. It apparently scored 83 on some scale. OK

But what he said next was the remarkable part. He told me I got to the right to name the plant.

What? And I had to pick a name in the next 30 minutes. Remember, we were out driving around.

So remembering that Maisie really liked the color red, I picked the name "Maisie."

(Sometime this summer we will name a daylily "Christopher.")

So let me introduce to you Stennorynchos speciosus "Maisie."

Here is the plant, back on our dining room table, with some of the hardware and ribbons.

Wow- what do you do next?

Here is a closeup with one of the stalks. The individual flowers do look like what you think of as an orchid.

Someone who was judging counted the little flowers. There were 195 open. 118 remained in bud.

Here was the label at the next show the following week, in Madison.

More violet pictures

We have filled up this table. 

Right Now

Christmas is for tradition. We had Toby the tree this year. It is a tradition of getting new ornaments or even making some.

This is from 30 years ago.

These were from my childhood.

One local tradition is holiday in lights. A local charity puts on a drive through light show north of town. This year was the fourth year (we think.)

Julia's recipe

coconut milk fish

Here's another coconut-milk-based main dish. Why did it take me so long to come upon such deliciousness? This recipe does not use Thai curry paste, but rather other aromatic flavor-packed ingredients. Easy to prepare and fast and tasty.

The ingredients:

1 can regular (not light) coconut milk;

1-1/2 teaspoons (or so) smushed garlic;

1 teaspoon grated ginger;

1 teaspoon turmeric;

3 tablespoons olive oil;

1 tablespoon soy sauce;

1 lime;

1 serrano pepper;

2 scallions;

1 5 oz. box of baby spinach;

3/4 to 1 lb. of rockfish or other mild thin white fish; and

salt and pepper.

First, I peeled and smushed the garlic into a big bowl.

Again the big bowl with the garlic. I added the grated ginger, turmeric, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper and 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the bowl. 

I opened the packages of fish, dried the fish fillets with paper towels and added them to the mixture. I turned the fish over to make sure the mixture got on both sides. 

After a few minutes (no more than 5 minutes), I heated the other 2 tablespoons of oil in a big skillet, over medium-high heat. When the oil began to shimmer a bit,  

I added the pieces of fish and all of the seasoning mixture. 

I cooked the fish for maybe 3 minutes. 

Then I added the coconut milk and the soy sauce and mixed them around gently.

I cooked the mixture for another 2 or 3 minutes. I was using thin pieces of fish. If you are using thicker pieces of fish, it may take a little longer. You are aiming for almost done.

The liquid should thicken slightly.

My spinach was triple-washed, so I just added it by handfuls to the contents of the skillet.

I cooked it just until the spinach wilted. 

More spinach.

I cleaned and sliced the scallions and seeded and sliced the serrano pepper. 

I poured the finished product into a nice serving dish, and I used a spoon to break the 2 big fish pieces into 5 or 6 pieces each. Easier to eat. 

I sprinkled the scallion bits and pepper bits all around and then cut the lime in half and drizzled the juice over all. 

We had it with rice, of course, and salad and blackberries with yogurt. 

The original recipe said to use 1 lb. of large shrimp. I had fish, not shrimp. But if you have shrimp, the recipe will work just fine. Shrimp will not take longer than fish fillets. 

Maggie joined us, and we ate it all up. 

Odds and ends

This is really odd.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/25/world/americas/oaxaca-radish-contest-mexico.htmlc

Something to celebrate - the return of the salmon on the Klamath River.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/salmon-make-a-long-awaited-return-to-the-klamath-river-for-the-first-time-in-112-years-after-largest-dam-removal-in-us-180985319/

This rendition of the the Messiah never gets old. It makes us smile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyviyF-N23A

I do not know about you, but I have a hard time wishing people a happy new year.

This makes me think. How do you approach the coming darkness?

In church they tell us that light can overcome the darkness. OK. 

Then I guess we must be those thousands of points of light someone talked about 20 years ago.

So I wish you the strength to make your light bright, to overcome the darkness.

Pray for peace.

Pray for kindness.

Pray that we all develop the strength to shine our own light. Together we shall just have enough light to make a difference.

Happy gardening. The plants that grow from seed will be brand new.

Philip