Flower Pix in Word and Pixel and Whatever!... #3

We came from here...

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/992226/

Thanks, plutodrive. I have DSL and it was taking to long to load. I don't have any pictures to share today -- spent the day taking DH to Albuquerque ( 100 miles away) for cataract surgery and a brief stop at the Asian market -- well maybe not so brief, DH was grumbling.
The outcome is that DH can already see better than he could before without glasses and his vision will continue to improve over the next month. On July 1 we do the other eye.
I came home with lots of wonderful ingredients. Tonight I think I will make a fresh bean sprout stir fry and maybe a Korean zucchini salad! To go with leftovers. I am always so inspired after a trip to the Asian markets. My latest kick is Korean, but I haven't forsaken my other beloved cuisines -- Italian, Cajun, Indian, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese -- oh, of course French. I also like Spanish and Portuguese. Also like the many flavors of Middle Eastern -- Lebanese, Turkish are the two I know best. Want to go to Syria to learn how they cook -- Syrians and Tunisians are supposed to be the best cooks in the Middle East as far as I know. I admit I don't know much.

So glad your hubby's surgery went well, how exciting it must be to have immediately improved vision! Also, you dinner sounds fantastic!

It turned out that we had so many leftovers that I couldn't cook anything new. But they were good leftovers. The new veggies will be for tomorrow night.
DH is doing well, thank goodness. Thanks for your concern.

Hi Paj, can you share a recipe for the Korean zucchini salad? I planted two zucchini plants and will need ideas.

Speaking of Syrian food, have you ever used Za'atar seasoning? I knew a girl from there and she would bring me flat breads with this sprinkled in the center. This is popular throughout the Middle East and every country has their own version. But I think they all have sumac berries included. I like to brush pita bread with olive oil then sprinkle the Za'atar and grill or bake them. I found it here in Denver at this place. http://www.savoryspiceshop.com/index.html

Definitely nice pics dahlianut. I think the faster Summer growth in Canada has to do with the very long days - a little over 16.5 hours in Calgary today.

Glad you DH's surgery went well pajarito. I like your list of cuisines.

Yes, glad he is doing well with it. He will be glad he did it once it is all over.

The way you cook amazes me. DH does most of the cooking here although I occasionally go on a spree of making various soups. Up at the Diamond J last week someone asked the chef if she uses recipes. She said she did not, she just cooked according to how she felt.

I said I had never felt like that in my entire life! The food was simply exquisite.

Very pretty garden pictures, Dahlia! Love the purple combo with the iris and salvia. Thanks for the new thread Plutodrive. We are still getting the new computer set up with various installations and updates. The latest version of Final Cut went in today, and that's a big one. Meanwhile, DH is picking cherries. I'm picking lavender, taking classes, teaching a couple of classes, etc. etc. Glad your DH is enjoying better vision, Paja. Some impatiens.

Zucchini can really get ahead of you, plutodrive. Here is the Korean Zuchini recipe that I found -- so easy its kind of embarassing. You will notice that they only use 6 oz. of zucchini. That's because Koreans eat lots of little dishes with their meals, called namul. I went to a Korean restaurant once where they gave me 9 extra small dishes with my meal. For an American meal you could cook a whole lot more.

I got it on this excellent web site:

http://www.koreanrestaurantguide.com/recipes/recipe_0.htm

Hobak namul (Squash salad) Recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 squash or about 6 oz
1/4 cup water, 1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sesame seeds for garnish

Quarter the squash in length wise, slice in 1/4 inch thick.

In a small pan, add all ingredients and mix.
Put squash, cover the lid.
Bring to a boil on a medium high heat, reduce to low heat, cook for another minute or so.
Transfer to a dish, garnish with sesame seeds.

I will Dmail you anothor Italian recipe that uses lots of zucchini.

On Za'tar, yes. I picked up a taste for it in Turkey where they sprinkle it on salads a lot and other things, too. Sounds wonderful on homemade pita bread. Of course anything, or nothing at all, would be good on homemade pita bread. I actually have a big jar of zatar around and should use it more than I do. It has a nice refreshing flavor and is probably really good for you as well.

Here is another cooking web site I discovered last night while looking for ways to cook bean sprouts It's a little bit frustrating because it doesn't have one index for the whole thing, but the recipes look fantastic -- for Korean and other cuisines.

http://kitschow.blogspot.com/2009/06/306-stir-fried-noodles-with-vegetables.html

Mulch,
Some people are bitten by the cooking bug as some are bitten by the painting and sculpting bug. We don't really pick most of our passions. Mine comes from being a very picky eater -- not the kind who won't eat crawfish, liver, and escargot, but the kind who wants everything to taste really good -- whether it is simple or fancy.
I often admire people like you and roybird who had the good sense to marry men who cook. it never dawned on me to do that. Besides we probably would have had to fight for time in the kitchen. Anyhow my DH is cooking phobic but has other good traits -- like a love of good food and travel both of which are compatible with me. I often wish I had married a man who could cook, but I bet it wouldn't have worked out.

I went out briefly with a man who had mastered fine Mexican cuisine. Unfortunately, other aspects of him were far more trouble than I could cope with!

My DH can't cook any better than me, but he can build a house and do electrical & plumbing, maintain cars, raise vegetables, X-C ski like a pro, and he's a great pack leader for Piper the yoga dog. And he does an occasional Serbian or Bulgarian dance.

I can cook or make edible assemblages, as I sometimes think of it, and can make good tasting stuff But I don't have a passion for it. My S.I.L. is very in to cooking and the whole Slow Food movement. She had an outdoor pizza oven built at her house. That's kind of over-the-top but not really any more so than elaborate garden features, like koi ponds or gazebos or whatever. It is fun when art and food combine; recently a friend made a jello mold in the shape of an octopus! It was dark cherry jello with cherries in it. No one wanted to cut it to serve but she finally did and it was pretty good.

You could make a koi jello mold! Or a rose one. I never really liked jello after about age 12, but one can mix it with wine and fruit and it becomes more interesting. I haven't made wine jello since I was a teenager, but It wasn't bad.

picante re the creeping jenny, it does fine in that bed as I amended the soil and added new soil when I built the Sante Fe Rockery. I put some of the yellow and the green in other clayey beds and it doesn't die but it doesn't thrive in those spots.

Dnut, your combination of iris, allium and salvia is amazing. It is worth copying. I have a hard time figuring out combos and design. Takes time to learn I guess.

So do I and I have been doing it for 30 years, I would guess. Part of it is intention -- I am going to make a beautiful display instead of I am going to get these plants to grow -- which is my usual approach.
I am learning to think about what would look good where instead of thinking about where will this plant grow.. Of course, that means that not all the plants I was planning to grow will work. Here is where my impatience comes in. ( Not the plant). I want all my favorite plants to work well together. Unfortunately they don't always. Learned that from an artist friend who told me to replace my lemon mint with oriental poppies. Now I have color after the iris finish. I am having to learn to think in new ways. They tell me that is good for me. I guess I believe them, but it isn't always easy.

I find its hard to put together plant combinations that look bad colorwise.

I agree completely, dparsons!

Me too! My theory is it works if I'm happy and the plants are happy. I tried the allium/iris/salvia combo cuz this bed is a little tired at this time of year with the dieing tulip and forget-me-not foliage and the lilys and poppies not open yet. The allium is not totally happy though as its too hot and dry for it. I'm giving it extra poop to compensate. I like trying different combos and changing things up. I am only strict about one bed which is the tiny flower bed cuz I think the tiny flowers would be intimidated if I put in big flowers although border dahlias have been known to sneak into that bed.

I do mix up all kinds and colors of flowers and have never found an ugly combination. Although I accidentally planted a set of shades of blue and purple iris that all bloomed at the same time in my patio and they were glorious. But that was a complete accident. I had no idea that they would bloom at the same time or look so good together.

For paj. The siberian

A close up

Oh, its lovely. I think I will try again on Siberians, but maybe not this year. I will be trying Spurias this year and more Louisianas. I have shown they can survive a NM winter, so now I want to see if I can get them to bloom -- more poo!

Pretty Siberian iris, Dahlia!

I have a lot of problems with color combinations now that I have a lot of orange and red in my gardens. There is one that looks especially bad even though they are all beautiful plants. I am not used to using those colors anywhere in my life. Then you add in other factors like bloom time, texture, height, duration, hummingbirds, scent, fuzziness, etc. and it boggles my mind. I'm probably trying too hard.

Yep, pluto... trying too hard rarely works with Mother Nature... I like it all mixed up, personally!

I'm liking it better that way myself!

Light seems to be a factor in how different colors look in the garden. And back ground. A friend of mine is trying to convince me to plant a climbing rose in my stock tank which gets quite a bit of shade and currently houses valerian and mint. He thinks that because the tank is in front of a stone wall and gets a lot of shade that a red climber would get lost. He just about has me convinced that coral would be the best color even though it is not one of "my" colors. It might be interesting to try. Sometimes orange-reds and blue-reds clash too much for my tastes. I think if you get some whites in between those reds and oranges, though, they might behave better. I'm trying to think more of "filler" plants, too. Not stars but more like chorus plants. A supporting cast.

Plutodrive, now, you aren't planting the Garden from Hell, are you? The one we talked about last year, with the Lucifer crocosmias and such?

I seriously thought of planting the Hell Garden but I think it needs its own special 'spot'. I am not sure how long I can live here and don't want to spend time/money on a great project that will get bulldozed. But it has got me interested in those smoldering colors which I am having a difficult time combining. Also my Lucifers turned out to be Emberglows. Still a little hellish?

I was thinking that the red-orange and red-blue was the problem! I couldn't get it into words though. I need to take a pic tomorrow. They are great plants with a beautiful background but the combo just doesn't look right. I thought of fillers too to soften the clash but think white is stark. My house is white too. Maybe green, gold or white variegated foliage? I would like to see a pic of your stock tank area to put it into perspective.

I'll try to find one. It really isn't much to look at. I like the idea of variegated foliage. With a white house the white might be too much. I like purple and blue, too. I'm still trying to get the trim colors in my backyard/house painted. I need to scrape paint, not my favorite thing. I'm having fun painting a pseudo-Persian design on a door. Ooh! How about black or very dark purple with those hot reds and oranges! This is the rough outline/drawing of the design I'm painting on the door. Can't find a picture of the tank. Will take one soon.

I think it is a peculiarity of Americans and the English and places settled by the English that color is seen as something that must be controlled and not allowed to run wild. I felt that way most of my life, but feasting one's eyes on pictures of places like Mexico and Pakistan shows that color doesn't have to be so controlled. I, too, once thought orange-reds and blue-reds didn't go together, but now I purposely mix them up in planters of geraniums. I love the way they clash. I am not an artist, but I really love color. And it can be full of surprises.
On surprise to me was a particularly favorite iris I have called All Night Long. It is so dark as to be almost black and is very ruffly and waxy as well. So I put it in my most prominent flower bed down near the street where I put all my most favorite iris. It was totally lost. What I hadn't bargained for was that that bed is shaded a good bit of the day. It turns out one doesn't see that iris at all. It sinks into the shadows. I hope to move it to a brighter place later this summer and put something brilliant yellow or brilliant blue there.
I think it is the color that makes me like iris so much. Geraniums too. Lilies, too.
Speaking of which, both the lilies and day lilies are starting to bloom. I need to get out the camera.

Oh, yes, get out the camera!

Yes pics please paj!!!! I have been trying to focus on foliage colour and texture, and bloom periods for my plantings rather than colours which makes things verrrrrry interesting sometimes. I prefer white in the garden over yellow (maybe because I have so much shade?) except for spring cuz yellow is so cheerful in the spring.

I was just looking for pictures of the whole poppy patch in bloom, but here is one of the oriental poppies.

And here is one growing next to it.

And here is one growing next to it. They clash gloriously. There is also a pink one among them that I didn' t photograph. -- next year.

droooooooooool

Here are some magnificently clashing colors.

Oops. Wrong picture.