August 13, 2017- a new tree

The big news of the week was that we got and planted a new tree. We planted it yesterday.
We got a Korean Dogwood, variety Chinensis. It will bloom quite a bit later than our pink one. It has white flowers.
It is now about 7 feet tall.
It was from a garden center, not a box store. You pay for that. But it comes with a 2 year warranty.

Here is the progression of pictures.



Here was the empty space.
That took some work.
Sometimes I think August is a game of musical chairs only with plants.
Part of that space was where there was a stump from the first pink crabs to die.
They keep telling us that the crabs are dying of old age. That is certainly better than telling us that there is fault involved. At the same time I think that maybe they don't know so come up with a default explanation.




If this tree grows then maybe we will get more. We could have a line of these trees in ten years.

They would be replacing the pink crabapples that are on their last legs.
















We opted to plant it ourselves,  rather than have the nursery plant it for $50. In hindsight I would have them plant it. It was not particularly hard, except for that part about having it real straight.
It is straight now, but I worry about the first wind.











Here it is. I can tell you it is hard to photograph a new tree with all the background. I almost have to get out my little tellistrator and make a drawing around it.

Julia suggested we get someone to hold up a sheet behind it. It would need to be a big sheet.
















In last week's voting the winner was the Morning Glory. Anything with blue in it this late in the season is good.
I expect you will see this picture in the winter contest.

The full voting was:

Morning Glory  21

Asclepias  11

Orchid Cactus  10

Hardy cyclamen   5

Gingerland caladium 4

Lady Neva  2

Flame of Hades  3

This week's pictures

#1 Late lily with butterflies


This is the last of the lilium. It is reliably an August show piece. As one of the brightest things in the garden it attracts butterflies. These two showed up, at the same time. Actually the second to arrive was apparently attracted as much to the other butterfly as to the flower.


#2 Hosta flower

Hosta are not known for their flowers. There are varieties that bloom in August that have bug nice white flowers.
The hosta is Fragrant Bouquet.

#3 Candy lily

If you are looking for something to bloom in August, candy lilies can be there.
There are candy lilies and blackberry lilies and pardancandas. It makes my head spin.
There is the basic orange blackberry lilies.
Then there are candy lilies that seem to be crosses that are beyond me and wikipedia.
They are pretty and they will spread.
These dark ones have color differences.

#4 Coleus
I wish I knew the name. I would get more. Then again there are many wonderful coleus. (I wonder what is the plural.)

Coleus do root from cuttings easily. You can get a nice one and cut it up for parts. By the end of the season you can have many.

#5 Peeking waterlily

The waterlilies continue. If it does not rain they are not affected.

#6 Lantana

These little clusters in the lantana flower make some wonderful patterns.
Because they are so small they can be difficult to photograph.
I actually used my tripod for this picture.
A picture in the bonus section will give you an idea of the size of the flower.

#7 Spot light on City Lights

I have dappled sun/shade. It makes spotlights at time of the day or evening.

These yellow hosta in the spotlights are really super.

#8  Yellow candy lily

Well I think it is a candy lily. What is nice about this plant is that it is short, maybe 18 inches at the most.

The others are more like 2-3 feet tall, and fall over when they have bloomed and are setting the seeds, which all look like blackberries, hence the name.









#8 Buds on the Japanese anemone

I do not often have a picture of just buds as one of the voting section. I really like the way the buds come out of the cluster at the top of the stem.















So I was able to find a few pictures this week. Saturday morning I was not so sure.
You can vote for two.

Bonus Section

The next round of the night blooming cereus is a day or so away. You know it is imminent when the buds curves up.
The front yard plant is one the left. The backyard plant is....on the right. They really do stay remarkably on the same page. Where exactly is that page?

You have seen Gingerland, the caladium before. I can't just feature it each week.
This leaf had the sun behind it and was magical.



















The lantana will provide wonderful color and detail from now to frost.

This is another sunlit big yellow hosta. This is Sum and Substance, a wonderful classic large hosta.
This is the smaller of the two Sum and substances in the garden.










Here is a picture of the lantana plants. They have not done as well as they had the last two summers. The pink dogwood has grown and they do not get enough sun. In full sun they will be covered with flowers.

Here is the orange blackberry lily.

Julia's Recipe

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

High summer (July and August and into September) is the time of abundant produce in the upper Midwest, and we bring home lots of produce from the farmer's market on Saturdays to eat and cook and put away for later. We do this partly because fresh produce tastes good and partly because things we freeze or can ourselves taste better than store-bought (or so we think) and partly out of nostalgia. When we lived in the country, years ago, we had our own big garden and had too much produce right there in the backyard. No need to go to the farmer's market. In that era, we sometimes played baseball with giant zucchini as bats. They worked and exploded at the same time. Maybe you had to be there.

We are still attracted to biggish zucchini at this time of year and have several recipes when the urge to buy zucchini strikes or when we find ourselves on the receiving end of the gift of zucchini, as happens in neighborhoods where someone has a garden.

This recipe is for chocolate zucchini cake. I got the recipe from a nice man known to all as Sprie. He was an accomplished scholar and a good administrator, imaginative and devoted to making the institution he worked for better. He also made a fine chocolate zucchini cake.

Here are the ingredients. There are lots of ingredients, although none are exotic and the cake is not hard to put together.

I started by softening 1 stick of butter (that's 1/2 cup) by leaving it on the counter for a while. I put the stick of butter and 1/2 cup of plain oil (that is, flavorless: not olive, not corn, not coconut) in big bowl. I added 1-3/4 cups of white sugar and mixed them together with a hand mixer.

Then I added 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon of vanilla and mixed that in. Next I added 1/4 cup plain yogurt and 1/4 cup milk. (The recipe calls for 1/2 cup buttermilk, and if you are a person who has buttermilk around, by all means, use it. I do not have buttermilk so I use milk and yogurt instead.) More mixing.

Then I grated up most of a washed-but-not- peeled medium-large zucchini using a medium grater - not the slicing side, not the tiny shreds side. I measured 2 cups (kind of packed down, but not tightly packed) and set it aside.

Then I added the dry ingredients to the bowl of wet ingredients: 2-1/2 cups of all-purpose white flour, 1/4 cup cocoa powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt, and 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon. I mixed all of that in by hand with a big stiff spatula. A wooden spoon would be good too. Then I added the shredded zucchini, and last, I added and mixed in 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts and 3/4 cup of chocolate chips.

I lubed up a 9" x 13" pan and poured/scraped the batter into the pan. Then I sprinkled another 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts and 3/4 cup of chocolate chips on top, and baked the cake for about 40-45 minutes in a 325 degree oven. I tested the cake using a bamboo skewer at 40 minutes, and it needed a little more time. The cake is done when the tester comes out of the cake clean (that is, without wet batter on it).

This is a light, tender, chocolate-y cake which keeps well. You will not notice the zucchini at all, but it is essential to the lightness and the tenderness and the keeping-ness.

If you are vegan, you can use margarine or shortening instead of butter and whatever it is vegans use instead of eggs. I think 1/3 cup of water with a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice would work instead of buttermilk or yogurt/milk. I would be skeptical of soy-based yogurt or almond or rice milk in baking. Of course, use whatever nuts you like except maybe peanuts. And white chocolate chips instead of brown chocolate chips. I used a combination of milk chocolate and semi-sweet chips because that's what I had on hand. And yellow summer squash instead of zucchini if that's what landed on your doorstep. I have not made this cake with gluten-free flour, and so I cannot attest to that. But I would be interested in hearing from anyone who does as to the results.

Odds and Ends

Cuttings
I have a little plant nursery. It is on the kitchen window sills, above the sink. At various times of the year I will start cuttings of some sort. Sometimes it is a coleus. Sometimes it is an impatient. During the winter I have been known to make lots of little Persian shield plants. (That is that wonderful purple plant.)
I usually have some plant that can be cut up for parts. Impatiens that are purchased from the store late in the year are often leggy. No problem. I just top them and start the cuttings over the sink. It usually takes 2-3 weeks.
This year I have been starting white impatiens and one nice coleus that had grown too long without planting. I must have 20 little coleus plants at this point. There are more cuttings just started today. They will have roots by September 1, and could give at least a month in the garden. Who knows, maybe I will make some cuttings when there is a frost coming.

Here is one of the little plants where I have 20 or so. It is small now. I think it will be really nice in September.











There are some cuttings that take much longer than 2-3 weeks. I have started hibiscus plants. I have started crotons. While it takes a bigger window sill I have started Night Blooming Cereus plants.

Japanese Beatles-have been bad this year. It had been 4-5 years since we had this major infestation. You can particularly see it with the Linden trees around town. They are practically brown, as their leaves are completely perforated.
They are apparently worse in other places in Iowa. Reiman Gardens in Ames apparently had the beetles eat most of their roses.

Naked ladies- It is that time of year again, and not just because the college students are coming back to town. Naked ladies is the name given to Belladonna lilies. In more polite society they are called Surprise lilies. They have great big daffodil like foliage in the spring. It dies and then in August up comes this pink thing on a stick.
I don't particularly like the plant. I did once have one right next to a hosta plant. In August it looked just like the hosta had this tall pink flower.

Mistreatment of trees- The crew came through the neighborhood this past week, clearing the power lines of tree branches. They carve out really ugly chunks of the trees. We can be thankful that they put the lines on the other side of the street. I wish homeowners had the option of paying extra and getting their lines buried. OK I guess it is not that simple.

That is it for this week. We could use some rain.
If you want to get an email alert that the Night blooming Cereus are blooming, let me know. I think it might be tonight, Sunday night. Best viewing is about 10.

Philip