Week 2- December 3, 2017- sunshine abounds

        The warm weather has continued. We have had plenty of sunshine.  I saw a time and temperature sign yesterday that said it was 60 degrees. The end of that pattern seems to be coming in 3-4 days. At the same time, in Iowa we know we can never really know what the weather will be like in two weeks. But we still have seasons and they are suppose to behave certain ways.
      In a way getting cold now is all right for several reasons. First, it does not seem natural for it to be so warm. Second, when the warmer weather is really gone, then I can stop trying to  plant more bulbs. It will be time to concentrate on indoor plants for a few months. Finally, it will be time to carve pumpkins, to hang them in the trees. I have about a dozen pumpkins ready to be carved, just for that purpose. (If you have no clue what I am talking about just wait a few weeks.)

So I hoped you liked the start to the contest.
In last week's voting the winner was the yellow tulip. What a wonderful color.

The full voting was
Yellow tulips 20  (44%)
Double bloodroot  14 (31%)
Tricolor crocus  4
Iris pair  4
Cold winter aconite 3

I was a little surprised that the Tricolor crocus did not do better. It got my vote.

I added the percentages for the runner up because there is a wild card principle in this contest. There will be 3 wild card participants in the final 16.
Those of you who were really rooting for the bloodroot, please know it may not be entirely done for the year.

Week 2

#1 Liberty Hosta with bluebells

April 22, 2017

While it is true that everything goes well with bluebells, the emerging hosta in the spring look particularly good with those blue accents.

If a garden had to have only one hosta I think Liberty would be my recommendation.

#2  Multicolored zinnia
October 26, 2017

I have grown zinnias from seed the last two years. I have planted that seed very late, about July 1. This has meant that I had fresh plants in September, giving wonderful color until frost.

This year I grew the smaller flowers, which were about as wonderful as the big ones from 2016.

As one works on the fall garden, annuals should be featured. Zinnias are a good choice.

#3  Little white Trillium
April 8, 2017
This is Trillium pusillum 'Roadrunner'

This plant was a new addition to the garden this year. I really like all the trillium. I will show you other varieties in the bonus section.

I particularly liked the part of its catalogue description where it was described as "known for its exceptional vigor."

The foliage did die back by June. This does mean that the space where it is planted must  be carefully marked so nothing is planted on top of the dormant plants.

#4 Daylily called Breed Apart
June 29, 2017

During the years when I was obsessed with daylilies (1995-2005) I ordered lots of daylilies. On very rare occasions I obtained a second one of the same plant. This variety was one of those plants.

I really like the color and the frilly edge.

#5 Anemone de Caen
April 15, 2017

I like anemones. I like poppies.
This is the "Poppy anemone".
That means it is an anemone that looks like a poppy. Its more formal name is Anemone coronaria.
I cannot find anyone to talk about why there is "de Caen" as part of the name. De Caen seems to be a place in France. But the plants are found in the Mediterranean area. (See bonus section.)

This plant was also a new addition to the garden this year. Unfortunately it is not hardy here in Iowa. I bought it as an already close to blooming plant. I intend to get some bulbs and try them this coming spring.The color is described as "venetian red".

The plant also comes in a blue that is about about as vibrant as this red.

Names of plants  can be amusing. When I look this plant up I am told it is also known as a Spanish marigold. What?



There you have it. What a wonderful field.
I hope you enjoy the contest. You can pick only one picture.

Bonus pictures

This picture is from Israel. I read that these vast red carpets of anemones have become a major tourist attraction of the northern Negev region of Israel in recent years.







More trillium pictures
I have a number of varieties of trillium in the garden. Like so many plants I wish there was room for more. This fall I found someone who had a sale on T. grandiflorum. I bought ten new ones.
Here are pictures of that great trillium.

This picture of grandiflorum was taken on April 25, 2017

One great characteristic is that it turns pink after a while. I did not have a picture of the pink flower  in 2017.

This picture was from May 15, 2011. 

This is trillium luteum.
The picture is April 17, 2017.
Luteum means yellow in some language.

All these trilliums are perennials where they come up in the forests before the leaves come out. When the leaves come out and shade the forest floor, then they go dormant. So many of the spring wildflowers are like that if you think about it. Bloodroot, Dutchman's breeches, even Bluebells all behave like that.

Here is trillium Cuneatum. I love how this variety emerges in the spring. It is quite early. This picture is from April 12, 2017.

Here it is just coming up.

This picture from 2005 was one of my all time favorites.

This picture, also from 2005, gives you a better idea about the scale of the plant. The little blue flowers are scilla or squill. They make up the first wave of blue in the garden. That is followed about a 3-4 weeks later by the bluebells. The scilla are much shorter than bluebells.

This is a red trillium, and may be the one known as Wake Robin.














This is the group of those little roadrunner trillium. I really anticipate what this will be in 2018.

Here is the closeup of the red anemone.
It does look like the center of the red oriental poppy.

I had some difficulty deciding whether this should have taken the place of picture 5.

This will give you some prospective on the size of these anemones.
The hosta is Little Miss Sunshine. It makes me realize that bright yellow hosta should have a place in any garden.

Julia's recipes

Oatmeal cookies, with or without gluten

Sometimes a person does not want chocolate chip cookies or peanut butter cookies or even shortbread, cashew or otherwise. On such occasions, one can make oatmeal cookies. This recipe is mostly from the Cook's Magazine cookbook, with a variation for gluten-free. The gluten and non-gluten versions are both very tasty but surprisingly different in texture.

I started with 1 cup (2 sticks) of butter, which was not rock-hard but also not soft or warm. I cut the butter into little cubes and put them in my stand mixer. It is always easier to make cookie dough in a stand mixer. I turned the mixer on to start to cream the butter and then I added 1 cup of packed brown sugar (light or dark). After that was mixed in, I added 1 cup of white sugar. After that was mixed in, I added 2 eggs. More mixing. Then I added 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder and about 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg (I grated what looked like the right amount but did not measure). I did not add salt as I used salted butter. If you use unsalted butter, add 1/2 teaspoon of regular (not kosher) salt.

Next I put 1/2 of the creamed butter-sugars-egg mixture in another bowl, so as to have 1/2 of the cookies to be made with regular flour and 1/2 to be made with gluten-free flour.

To the gluten flour bowl, I added 1-1/2 cups regular (not quick) oats and 3/4 cup of white flour. I mixed that in and then mixed in 3/4 cup of raisins and chopped walnuts. (That is, 3/4 cup of add-ins altogether).

To the gluten-free bowl, I added 1-1/2 cups of regular oats and 1 cup of gluten-free flour (as usual, I used King Arthur GF flour) and 3/4 cup of chopped walnuts as some people do not approve of raisins in baked goods. I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

Ignore the interloping pineapple, which has nothing to do with oatmeal cookies. I used a disher (looks like a little ice cream scoop) to make more or less uniform balls of about 1 inch.

I baked all of the GF cookies first to keep things straight. I baked the cookies for about 16 minutes, rotating the pans (back to front) halfway through.

Here are some of the GF cookies. As you can
see, they are kind of flat. Also kind of crisp and a bit sandy in texture. But very tasty.

Here are cookies of both kinds. The cookies made with gluten flour are denser and chewier than the gluten-free cookies. I ended up with about 2 dozen cookies of each kind. You could of course make fewer bigger cookies, and if so, bake them a little longer (say 20 minutes).

A word to the wise: do not let the cookies cool completely on the pans or they will break. You should let them cool for about 5 minutes. If you try to move them too soon, they will also break.

Some might use parchment to line the cookie sheets or silpat liners, which would solve the cooling and breaking problem, and those people would be smart. I did not think about it until the baking was done. Ah well. A few broken cookies are not really a problem in today's world, and they taste just fine.

Odds and Ends

In the winter, in this section, I sometimes tell you about the inside garden.

I have several hibiscus that come inside. They are never really happy inside. For most of them the goal is survival.
They usually come inside with buds. So there are flowers for at least a month.

Hibiscus can be propagated by cuttings.
Here is one of those little plants from a cutting, where the flower is almost the size of the plant.





















Last weekend I was digging and replanting lilium.
Here was one such clump.

Here was the clump when it was turned over. It was fun to discover the colorful bulbs. It reminded me of digging potatoes when we were able to grow potatoes, so many years ago.

Here were the assembled bulbs from several clumps.

This gives you an idea of the size of an individual bulb.

Another piece of indoor gardening news is that the tillandsia is blooming again. It lives in the winter over our kitchen sink. It can never be ignored without getting in your face when dishes are done. I try to give it a splash about every day.
It had bloomed a little in October before it came in. It now has about 6 parts that are making flowers.
First the foliage turns red.

Then along comes this tiny purple flower. It only lasts a few days.


















That is it for this week.
Soon it will be cold in Iowa.
That is how it should be.
We can then start to look forward to warmer times.
We will get through this cold time.
I hope these pictures will help.
Philip