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Helen Chesnut's Garden Notes: Conditions must be just right for peloric blooms

Dear Helen: I have grown foxgloves for more than 50 years, but this spring I found the most unusual foxglove growing in my garden. The top floret is fully open and looks more like a hollyhock.

Dear Helen: I have grown foxgloves for more than 50 years, but this spring I found the most unusual foxglove growing in my garden. The top floret is fully open and looks more like a hollyhock. Is this some unusual strain of the flower that has emerged in my garden?

D.B.

This question arrives in my mail every few years, when environmental factors are exactly right for the abnormality to appear.

The large, anomalous blooms are fairly rare. They are peloric flowers, from the Greek peloros, meaning huge or monstrous. In foxgloves, peloric flowers develop at the tip of the spike, from the bud that blooms last.

The cause is a recessive gene that is sometimes triggered by injury to the developing terminal bud. Breeders have tried to develop lines of foxgloves with a high frequency of peloria, but even with these, only a chance combination of environmental factors will cause peloric flowers to emerge.

Several peloric foxglove blooms grew in my garden one year, likely triggered by a particular weather pattern, and have not repeated their appearance.

 

Dear Helen: I have misplaced an old favourite recipe of yours for a kale tart. It was like a quiche. I’m sure others would like to try the recipe. It was delicious.

J.M.

The original recipe was for a zucchini tart, which I learned about at a small cooking school in the Chianti district of Tuscany. I’ll give you the original, then the variation using spinach or kale. Knowing that the recipe can be changed to use several different seasonal vegetables makes it an all-season treat. Yet another combination that is tasty is a filling made with leeks and peas.

Torta salata di zucchine 

1 onion

2 tbsp butter

1 kilo (2 pounds) sliced zucchini

salt to taste

4 eggs

1 cup cream

pie shell

Slice the onion and sauté in the butter until golden.

Add the sliced zucchini. Cook slowly in a covered pot for about 20 minutes. Add salt, cool slightly, and mix with a pre-blended combination of the eggs and cream.

Arrange a pie shell in a broad, shallow pan and pierce it with a fork in several places. Pour the filling into the shell and bake at 375 F for about 25 minutes, until golden.

Before baking, an option is to scatter sliced black olives and grated parmesan over top.

The variation you are asking about uses kale (or spinach) and garlic in place of the zucchini. Start the same way by sautéing an onion for a few minutes. Then add four or five finely minced garlic cloves. Add washed, drained, chopped kale or spinach and cook, covered, until it is thoroughly wilted. I don’t measure the kale or spinach, but when finely sliced and packed gently down it should fill around four cups.

 

Dear Helen: My herb bed is looking awful. The thymes and sages, rosemary and lavender are untidily sprawled out, with lots of bare, woody stems. The planting is in full sun, in well-drained soil. I’ve noticed the plants slowly becoming less attractive over the years.

D.S.

Long-established Mediterranean herbs inevitably become old, woody and unattractive over time. Once this happens, attempts at rehabilitation by trimming and mulching are never entirely satisfactory.

My preference is to dig out old herbs like these sub-shrubs every five years or so, renovate the area with fresh compost or a soil amendment of your choice, and replant with small, young specimens.

This need not be an expensive project. Most plant outlets have herbs in different sizes. I always select the smallest. These are the ones that will settle in more easily, grow more pleasingly, thrive over a longer term, and are far less costly than large transplants.

GARDEN EVENTS

Picnic in the gardens. The Horticulture Centre of the Pacific, 505 Quayle Rd. in Saanich, is open this evening and inviting the public to bring their own food for a picnic in the gardens while enjoying local musicians. Browse through the works of arts vendors, visit a Master Gardener booth for answers to gardening questions, and check out sales of plants propagated from the gardens. Admission is by donation between 5 and 8 p.m. hcp.ca.

 

Dahlia meeting. The Victoria Dahlia Society meets Thursday, 7:30 p.m., in the Victorian at McKenzie, 4000 Douglas St. The evening will feature a presentation on Spring and Summer Care of your Dahlia Plants and Flowers, followed by a question and answer session. All visitors are welcome. First visit is free.