flower power...

Turn the clock back nine months to February 27th, 2015. Here in Toronto, it was beginning to feel as if winter would never end. Temperatures hovered around minus 25 Celsius, snow and slush lined the roads, sidewalks were slick with ice. At home, Samcat had settled into hibernation mode atop his favourite radiator, and I was battling a gloom-inducing case of SAD.

That last Friday of February dawned clear and (no surprise) bitingly cold. But the sky was a crisp, cloudless blue and the sun shone brightly for the first time in more than a week. Being a red-blooded Canadian woman, I seized the opportunity, bundled up in parka and boots, and went shopping. Shoes? Books? No. I hit the local garden centre. When it comes to fighting the February blahs, there's nothing like a touch of the tropics and, as my mother always said, if you can't go south, go for fresh flowers and hothouse humidity.

I browsed for a while, not really intending to buy, until I encountered the orchid display – a glorious riot of purple, white, and yellow blooms – with (bonus!) everything on sale. The choice was easy: a sunny yellow Moth Orchid (Phalaenopsis), sporting a bright pink centre that reminded me of a funny, smiling face. I hurried the little Phal home, double-wrapped in a paper cone as protection from the cold. With luck, it would last through March, maybe even into April, a cheerful presence on my dining room table. 

In fact, the hardy little orchid held its blooms until the end of May. After so many months of pleasure, I couldn't bring myself to dispose of it, so when the last bloom dropped, I found a place for the pot on a table out on the balcony and… well, pretty much forgot about it.

Once upon a time, I had a kitchen with two enormous, west-facing windows, each with the kind of broad sill perfect for coaxing all sorts of plants to bloom, or bloom again. Those sunny window sills are the one thing I really miss in my condo. There's simply no good spot for growing a houseplant that wants a lot of light. So, if I can't give it away, a plant past its bloom will eventually wind up sad and spindly in the green bin. (Fact: Nobody wants an orchid past its bloom.) But I'm SO glad I didn't hurry to bin this one. Just look at what greeted me on August 1st!

Three weeks later, by August 19th, my little Phal pal had produced a total of seven lovely flowers on a sturdy new branch off the original spike. I'm equally glad I didn't hurry to trim that spike.

Super Phal is back indoors now, and still going strong. This next photo was taken less than a week ago on November 19th. I won't be a bit surprised if some of the blooms last through Christmas – but no matter when the final flower drops, this little beauty isn't going anywhere. Not even if I have to build a special shelf to hold it. 

Permalink to this post: flower power

stillpoint is the blog of Canadian author Cheryl Cooke Harrington 

  

little house of horrors...

Last month on one of my afternoon rambles I ventured into the conservatory at Centennial Park in Etobicoke. It's one of my favourite Toronto destinations, especially on gloomy days when I can imagine myself lost in some lush, tropical jungle complete with towering palms, exotic birds, and colourful fish.

The glasshouse has three distinct sections. In the central and largest room live the tropical palms and pomegranates, banana trees, orchids, hibiscus, and myriad other visitors from warmer climes, including Angel, the resident Australian Cockatoo.

Palms and Tropicals

Goldfish in the Pond

Phalaenopsis Orchids

Angel the Cockatoo - Official Greeter

To the north, is an ever-changing garden room where visitors are treated to whimsical displays celebrating the changing seasons.

Easter Egg Tree

Spring Blooms

Christmas Pageant

The southern house is home to a glorious desert habitat, teeming with other-worldly silhouettes; strange beings armed with threatening spines and thorns. Unexpected blooms surprise and delight – everything from tiny, perfect petals on prickly Euphorbia splendens, to flashy spikes of crimson and yellow on the giant Aloe vera.

A Prickly Situation

Euphorbia splendens (Crown of Thorns)

Aloe vera in bloom

But on that cloudy August afternoon, I encountered something very peculiar indeed among the cacti and succulents… a tangle of lumps and bumps spreading tentacle-like, stretching ever closer to the door as if plotting escape. And from the tip of one of those tentacles sprouted two long, smooth stalks with massive flower buds – so heavy they couldn't stand erect. I swear they seemed to grow even larger while I stared in fascination. I even began to imagine they were staring right back at me like Audrey II, that infamous person-eater in Little Shop of Horrors. Could this little monster be Audrey III?

Is it just me, or can you imagine those puckery lines as a mouth?

I'm almost certain I saw the largest bloom shudder ever so slightly as I inched closer to aim my camera. It seemed to swell, like a pale, fleshy balloon. (It couldn't be breathing, could it?) Thankfully, Audrey didn't object to being photographed and I escaped unscathed into the tropical house where I tried but failed to find someone who might answer my questions about the sinister plant. My imagination took over. What if, just like the hapless victims in Little Shop, the missing greenhouse staff had all been devoured by the very thing consigned to their care?

Safely home, I searched the web for some hint of what the creepy creeping cactus might be. No luck. I would have to go back. And so, armed with my camera (to document potential horrors), and wearing running shoes (just in case), I returned the next morning to investigate.

The doors to the hothouse were closed when I arrived. I peered through the window. No sign of human life. When I eased the door open and stepped through, I found Audrey III still lounging on her brick wall.

She looked almost regal, I thought, but quite a lot puffier than she'd been the day before. That's when I noticed another of her kind peeking out from behind a rock. Closer inspection revealed another… and another. Audrey had a posse. I backed slowly away.

Rounding a corner in the tropical house I happened upon a lanky man in dusty blue overalls, grooming the Phalaenopsis. I was in luck. I'd found one of the conservatory's horticulturalists. He brushed wisps of fine, sandy hair away from his face as he stooped to peer at Audrey III's image on my camera display. 

"Ah!" he said, in a softly accented voice. "Stapelia. He sounded it out, "Sta-pee-lee-ahh. Come, I tell you." And he led me back to the hothouse to examine Audrey again. 

"You come tomorrow," he said, pointing at the largest of Audrey's flower buds. "This bloom will open. See how it…" He paused to think and made an extravagant gesture with both hands. "It looks inflated, yes? And here" he pointed at the lines I'd imagined as Audrey's mouth, "see how she starts to darken and pucker? You come again tomorrow."

Not only a mouth. Now Audrey III seems to be forming eyes!

When I thanked him for his time, the man pinched his nose and grinned. "It will be kind of… stinky."

Suddenly, the light dawned. Audrey III might not be a person-eater, but there was definitely something uniquely horrible about her. Stapelia gigantea (toad plant or carrion plant) is a cunning trickster. It needs lots and lots of flies to ensure pollination and attracts them by emitting a foul, rotting corpse smell. Stinky indeed! I vowed to return the next day to witness Audrey in all her putrid, full-blooming glory.

Day Three: Audrey curls her lip, ready to bloom.

Day Four: Stapelia gigantea

Stapelia, aka toad plant or carrion plant in full, stinky bloom. 

In fact, I returned three times before Audrey's bloom opened wide. I guess she was waiting for a perfect sunny day to make her début. Lanky-man was right. Stinky! The neighbourhood flies were much impressed. I decided against a return visit. If Audrey makes that much stink on her own, imagine the stench when her friends join the fly-baiting fun!

stillpoint is the blog of Canadian author Cheryl Cooke Harrington

vegetable with a plot...

Ah, summer. One of my favourite things this time of year is shopping at the Farmer's Market on Friday mornings. By now, in late July, all the stands are loaded with fresh, colourful fruit and vegetables and the air fairly zings with the pungent scent of basil. It feels good to support local growers while stocking my pantry with feasts for a week.

Fresh vegetables and fragrant basil at
Sherway Farmer's Market in Toronto

There was a time, though (long ago and far away), when I wouldn't dream of eating vegetables I hadn't grown myself. Back in the mid-70s, I was a transplanted city girl, part of the back-to-the-land invasion of the countryside north of Toronto. Hubby and I embraced the country life, growing acres of vegetables and fruit, and tending a Noah's ark of livestock that, from time to time, included rabbits, pigs, chickens, sheep, and ducks.

We crossed the creek every year at first thaw to tap sugar maples, slogging home through the muck with buckets of sap and boiling it until the walls of our little house dripped sweetness. We feasted on puffballs and fiddle-heads, gathered in early spring from the woods beyond our field. And every May 24th weekend – traditional last frost in our part of the world – we'd get to work planting row upon row of vegetable seeds and hundreds of tender seedlings. (Those we'd started months before in makeshift kitchen window greenhouses.)

Planting done, I'd take a break from garden work, leaving weed control and cultivation to my husband and young sons, watching for sprouts to push out of the soil, then impatiently waiting for the first mouth-watering leaves of lettuce, baby carrots, sweet peas, and oh, the tomatoes!

On hot summer days at the farm I often imagined I could hear those tomatoes growing ripe on their vines – Bonnie Best, because my father-in-law said they were the finest he'd ever tasted. By August, there'd be a full chorus of impatient vegetable voices, "pick me, pick me!" I harvested and canned several bushels of tomatoes every year. Beans, too. Three long, straight rows of green and yellow beauties, plump to bursting and perfect for the freezer. And zucchini! Rampant in its corner of the field, the zucchini always seemed to be eyeing the corn patch, plotting invasion. And why not? It had already conquered my kitchen.

Zucchini, four weeks after planting day.
Think it looks innocent? Don't turn your back!

What we didn't grow, we could usually get in barter with local farmers. Rabbit for goat's milk, cabbage for pumpkin, zucchini for ... well, nobody ever wanted to trade for zucchini. We ate it in soup and in stew, in muffins and bread, baked, barbecued, broiled and fried. Even on pizza. And we gave it away by the armful. That probably explains why zucchini is the one thing that rarely makes it into my Farmer's Market shopping basket these days. 

In case you find your kitchen invaded by hordes of marauding zucchini this summer, here’s my Mom’s easy recipe for cinnamon zucchini bread. Enjoy!*

Phyllis Cooke’s Cinnamon Zucchini Bread 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Generously grease and flour 2 loaf pans 

Ingredients:
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons vanilla
2 cups sugar
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 (heaping) tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
2 cups grated zucchini (optional)
3/4 cup chopped walnuts 

Directions: Mix together eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar and beat well. Sift dry ingredients together, then add to egg mixture and beat well. Stir in grated zucchini (and walnuts, if desired). Divide mixture between two loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool on rack before turning out of pans.

*Note: It has been my experience that a single plant will produce enough zucchini to bake 153,233 loaves. (Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit. But only a bit!)