January 5, 2025-Welcome the new year- Week 6

 The new year is here. 

We are home.

It is cold.

There is snow on the ground. 

We live in Iowa.

Actually we only had about 2 inches of snow. It is cold but it is not below zero. The expression "it could be worse" is starting to be used a lot. At work I celebrate that I get to have most of my hearings by zoom. I think I am one of those old people drivers that used to annoy me. I turn corners going about 15 mph.

2025 is here. It seems like it was only yesterday when we were worried about Y2K. Remember that? 

While this new year presents some big scary possibilities, for the moment I will try to be positive. 

Let us start with the fact that the sun finally appeared. It was gloomy for the longest time.

When we drove home from work Friday night the crescent moon had a bright friend, probably the planet Venus. Coming home from work in the dark is one of the January features of living in Iowa.

Last Week in the contest

The winner was the violet. It was not close.

Here is the final vote.

This Week is Week 6

#1 Scilla 

March 15, 2024

Scilla is also known affectionately as squill. It is the early blue carpet, all over the garden. According to a definitive source it comes from Europe, Africa, southwest Asia and the middle east. It would be easier to list where it does not come from.

The genus is of course scilla. 

It was written about by the Greeks and Romans.

It is a cousin of chionodoxa.

The common blue variety is sold under the name "s. siberica Spring Beauty."

It seeds like crazy. As spring spreads in the garden you can see the scilla seeds sprouting and making the next generation.

#2 Iris bucharica 

April 10, 2024

I grew this iris forever. Then about 2 years ago it disappeared. I found more in a catalogue,  and here are some of them. I was relieved because sometimes when you go to get an old plant, it is no longer sold.

This iris blooms in the spring, about the time the short bearded iris are starting to bloom. It grows from a bulb, not a rhizome. As such it is different from the bearded type.

The foliage looks a little like a lily.

It is named after the city of Bukhara in Uzbekistan.

#3 Epimedium Cherry Tart 

April 20, 2024

I love epimedium. I have about 20 varieties. My enthusiasm for these spring beauties peaked about 10 years ago. They bloom very early, and the flowers are very small. They are actually very hard to photograph.

Epimedium plants are also known as barrenwort, bishop's hat, fairy wings, horny goat weed, or yin yang huo.

Mostly they come from China.

Some are evergreen, maintaining their colorful leaves throughout the winter. These should be pruned back in very early spring.

Here is an article about care.

https://www.thespruce.com/epimedium-growing-guide-5211581

I read they are deer resistant. One more thing on the plus column. 

#4 Fading Zinnia 

November 2, 2024

I love zinnias. So do the deer. I had a few that bloomed this year. Some of the flowers were even more interesting, as they were fading.

#5 White Tree Peony

 May 4, 2024

These lovelies are home grown in all respects. The plant, and three of its companion blooming plants, were grown from seed in the garden. The seed came from my sister's yard in Maryland. She has  identified the plant as Phoenix White, obtained from the Cricket Hill nursery probably 20 years ago. Here is the webcite for Cricket Hill.

https://www.treepeony.com/

I carefully planted some of the seed I got from my sister about ten years ago and waited. Nothing. The seeds did not grow. So I just planted the remaining seed and forgot about it. Sure enough, the next spring I noticed little plants I thought looked like peonies. Well they were. Four years later the first one bloomed. That was in 2016. You can see the blog post from May 8, 2016 in the archives section of the blog. It is always a wonderful moment when a plant blooms for the first time. When you have grown it from seed for 4 years it is even more special.

There are now four blooming sized plants from this seed pool. One was buried by a snow pile 4 winters ago and broke off at the base. Remarkably or predictably, it grew back. It is now big enough to bloom, even though you can pick out which plant had to grow back.

Since the success with seeds I have been planting all the seed I harvest in September. Then I wait to see what happens. 

I have about 2 dozen seedlings at this point, throughout the garden,  ranging in age from 1-4 springs. If things take a long time to grow, it helps if you have some in various stages of development.

I even had enough seedlings to put some out for the foodbank sale. 

The oldest of these seedlings bloomed in 2024. It was the grandchild of my sist4er's plant.

 Pictures are in the bonus section. 

The first year seedlings die back to the ground that first winter. In the next 1-2 years they develop a woody stem, that does not die back. The 3 of the biggest and oldest of these seedlings grew to about 10 inches tall this summer. But what is exciting is that they set a bud, or two. That is what mature plants do in the fall. They set the buds for the following spring. The buds then live through the very cold and blooms in the spring.

Bonus Section

Tree peonies

Let me tell you about where the white peonies came from.

All the white ones came from seeds from my sister. She lives in Maryland. I collected some seed when I visited her long ago. 

Here is the parent plant in my sister's yard. We estimate it to be about 20 years old. It took off several years ago when a nearby tree came down. More sun.  The plant came from Cricket Hill, the tree peony nursery in Connecticut.

https://www.treepeony.com/

If you have time there are videos on this website.

After the flower blooms it has a wonderful transition to the seed pods.

This is a few weeks after flowering.

Here is one of the mature seedpods. They are really quite beautiful, just there in the seeds pods.

Seedlings

Here is what a seedling looks like in late April, 2024. This would have been planted in September, 2023. Last spring was early and so many plants germinated. I must have had 20-25 first year seedlings last year, enough to put some on the plant sale table.

In this picture you can still see the seed.

After 2-3 years the new plants are getting ready to bloom. I had enough plants that age that I was able to dig one up in the fall and add it to the sale table. You can see the bud which developes by fall, to bloom the following spring.

Those buds are out there, in the cold all winter. 

This is a video from 2019. It is when I discovered the first seedling from the earlier picture. I think I can now post videos. My computer must have updated to fix whatever problem there was in posting videos.

Here is this little plant in 2020, its second year.

Right below it is the little plant, yesterday. It should finally bloom in May. I do want to protect it from any big snow we might get. Maybe I will cover it with a big pot when the big snow comes. It is not the same yellow plastic straw.

I should add that I think 6 years from sprout to bloom is a little long. I would hope for 4 at the least.

Epimedium

This epi is a fast grower and can form a nice sized clump. It goes well with bluebells. 

I was wondering when this picture was taken. Then I saw the bluebells.

More bucharica iris

Everything looks good with bluebells.

Another fading zinnia

Right Now

Lantana

In the fall of 2023, realizing that lantana would get big in a second year, I dug up and brough in several plants, before the frost killed them. I took cuttings from one and kept the other mostly intact. I then took it out in May and it grew to a nice size.

When the killing freeze was coming in 2024 I dug a few small plants as I had done the year before. I also dug up the big one.

It was ok for a few good cool and wet days. Then all the leaves fell off.

I trimmed it back, to may 18 inches, and brought the dead looking plant inside. I just left it under the cardtable where I grow my cattleyas. 

A few weeks ago I looked at it. It had new growth all over it.

Here it is today.

The lesson is from the Princess Bride. Often plants are only "mostly dead."

I am really looking forward to how bug it can get this coming summer.

Julia's recipe

Tartiflette- potatoes with bacon and onion and cheese. 

Tartiflette is a fancy name for a potato dish with bacon and onion and Brie. I looked it up, and tartiflette is an Arpitan word. Arpitania is another name for a western part of the Alps where in some earlier time, folks thought of themselves as their own country and spoke some variant of French. So there's the name. I saw an episode of America's Test Kitchen where they made this dish, but I couldn't access the recipe on-line so I found a version on the NYT website that was a bit more straightforward. I'm okay with straightforward. 

The ingredients:

4 oz. bacon (about 4 thick slices);

3/4 cup diced onion;

1/2 teaspoon smushed garlic;

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme;

a pinch of nutmeg;

2-1/2 cups peeled and cubed potatoes (I used Yukon gold and red);

1/3 cup or so white wine;

4 oz. Brie; 

1/2 cup creme fraiche; and

salt and pepper

Ingredient notes: 1) I used Brie. You could use Camembert or something called Reblochon. A soft cheese with a pale rind. 2) I used creme fraiche, as the recipe said. I think sour cream would be a perfectly fine substitute. 3) I get my bacon from a farmer. So I took out a package weighing about a pound and hacked off about 3 inches. I think 4 strips of thick bacon would be about the same amount.

I started by peeling the onion and cutting the bacon into little pieces. Then I diced the onion.  

And I turned the oven on to 375 degrees. 

Then I washed the potatoes and cut off any weird spots. I did not peel the potatoes. Then I cut them into bigger cubes. 

I put a big skillet on the stove and added the bacon to the cold skillet. I cooked the bacon over medium heat. 

When the bacon was part way done (not yet crisp, but having rendered some bacon fat), I added the onions and cooked for about 5 minutes. Then I added the smushed garlic, the thyme and a bit of nutmeg. 

I cooked for about 1 more minute - until I could smell the garlic.

Then I added the potato cubes to the skillet. 

I stirred the contents of the skillet around to make sure the potatoes were coated with the bacon-onion-garlic mixture. 

Then I added the wine and 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper.

More stirring. Then I covered the skillet and let it cook (still on medium or medium-low) for about 20 minutes. At that point, the skillet was pretty dry and the potatoes were kind of done but not completely done.  

While the skillet cooked, I cut the Brie in half horizontally. And I cut each half into wedges. 

So I took the skillet off the heat. I plopped the creme fraiche into the skillet. 

I stirred the creme fraiche into the potato mixture. 

And I scattered the little cheese pieces all over the top. 

I put the skillet in the oven (uncovered) and baked it for about 25 minutes. 

At the end of that time, the potatoes were completely tender. The cheese was softened. 

And here it is. I served it from the skillet. It would have been fussy (and difficult) to try to move the skillet contents to a serving dish. 

We served this with simply prepared salmon and green beans and salad.  The tartiflette was the star in terms of flavor so the other dishes were sort of plain. And we had baked custard for dessert. A nice mid-winter meal. 

Odds and Ends

We are ready for winter. 

The new garden season has officially begun. On January 1, 2025 I planted my first seed.

I planted two kinds of lettuce, including one that is close to black.

The seed packet suggests that it will be ready in 55 days. So far, no sign of anything.

I  know that lupines grow well for me inside, from seed. Maybe I will try them next. 

I will start the poppies about February 1.

Winter is a cold reality in Iowa. But it will pass. 

We have a cold reality in this country and in the world. 

Its passing might take some time.

Pray for peace.

Pray that kindness will spread.

Remember Jimmy Carter. He was kind. 

Do some good work, every day.

I do so much appreciate your notes. They keep me going when it is so dark out.

Philip

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