Barbara’s Favorite Flowers: Peony

Barbara’s Favorite Flowers: Peony

A plant that is familiar to many is a favorite to Barbara, especially the ones at Willow Creek and Southern Mansion. Here’s why!

My Peony Patch at the Willow Creek Vineyard includes several hundred heirloom peonies, salvaged from a historical West Cape May peony garden on Landis Ave and mixed in with other fabulous hybrids. I remember seeing the “Peonies For Sale” sign off of Broadway for years and buying dozens of them from a delightful little lady in her 90’s. Her son maintained the Peonies for many years later, and finally he offered the plants for sale.  Needless to say, I purchased the entire lot and established them in my Vineyard gardens.  Now as these are old-fashioned peonies, they are more in the anemone, or semi-double style, as compared to the more outrageous, modern, hybridized varieties, but their delicious sweet scent and beauty are unforgettable.

These fleeting, over-blown, decadent blossoms are the stuff of dreams and bridal fantasy.  These are flowers that are purely over-the-top. A huge bouquet of peonies in a crystal vase next to your bed or on a marble counter in front of your bathroom mirror is exquisite. Peony season is short-lived in early May; the Chinese, or tree peony, blooms first. Tree peonies originated in Asia and can live hundreds of years. Certain colors and varieties are in such high demand that they command millions of dollars. The herbaceous peony has a soft stem that comes up from the bare earth every year, but it shares the Asian ancestry and delicious blossoms. Peonies are also very popular motifs in classic Asian art and Museum quality tattoos. They are known as the King of Flowers in China.

Peony flower type varies tremendously as they become more complex in their arrangement of petals. The flower types include Single, Japanese, Anemone, Semi-Double, and Bomb-Double. Herbaceous peonies die back in the winter and regrow in the spring, while tree peonies lose their leaves in winter, but leave woody stems.

I hope you enjoy the gorgeous peonies at Southern Mansion and Willow Creek Winery as much I do!

Barbara’s Favorite Flowers: Platycodon

Barbara’s Favorite Flowers: Platycodon

 

Platycodon grandiflorus, is a great hardy perennial for your garden border. Here is why Barbara loves it:

She reproduces and reseeds well, which is always an added bonus (it produces lots of babies to gift your gardening aficionado friend’s with). In the family Campanulaceae (like several of my favorite waterfall and Canterbury bells), but she is the only member of the genus from the Greek meaning broad bells.

A Native of East Asia, she bears big, blue flowers, which start off in lovely swelling buds that for all the world resemble wonderful puffy balloons.

Medicinally, the root of this particular species is used as the base for many age-old natural, and commercially prepared remedies for colds and coughs. You can also use them in salads and soups!

I hope you enjoy this beauty Platycodon as much as I do!

Barbara’s Favorite Flower: Queen Anne’s Lace

Barbara’s Favorite Flower: Queen Anne’s Lace

Queen Anne’s Lace Daucus carota, a wild carrot, is a wonderful flowering biennial that is native to Europe, but naturalized all over North America. Here is what Barbara has to say about this wild carrot:

Related to carrot (Daucus Carrota) you can eat the root when young, (it tastes and smells like carrot) but it gets nasty and woody as it matures.

Women have used the seeds from Daucus carota for centuries as a contraceptive, the earliest written reference dates back to the late 5th or 4th century B.C. appearing in a work written by Hippocrates. “The seeds, harvested in the fall, are a strong contraceptive if taken orally immediately after coitus.”  I can not speak to the efficiency but it certainly is interesting historically.

Jenn Post

Friday Feature: Jennifer Post

How long have you been working at Willow Creek? About 5 months

What is your position? Administrative Assistant

What is your favorite part of the Willow Creek family? How hard we all work, and how much we laugh and have fun together

What do you hope to accomplish within the company? To get more familiar with all departments and taste my way through the wine list

What is your favorite wine? Blackberry Merlot

If you could switch jobs with anyone at Willow Creek, who would it be an why? Any of the hostesses. Those ladies work so hard, but make it look so easy. I’d love a day in their shoes to see what they really deal with. Or Barbara so I could learn the business side of things.

Gabby (left) Jennifer (right)

What is your proudest moment so far at Willow Creek? Winning Best Non-Traditional Ugly Christmas Sweater at our 1st Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party.

What advice do you have for new hires? Be patient, be kind, be Wilde.

And last but not least, if Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would you like to see cast as you? My girl crush, Blake Lively.

Melissa

Friday Feature: Melissa Jablonowski

How long have you been working at Willow Creek? 8 months

What is your position? Hostess with the mostest

What is your favorite part of the Willow Creek Family? Contests! Having fun with each other [insert ugly sweater pic]

What do you hope to achieve within the company? I would like to be more involved with events (planning)

What is your favorite wine? Blackberry Merlot

If you could switch jobs with anyone at Willow Creek, who would it be and why? In another life, Ariella.

What if your proudest moment so far at Willow Creek? Working and organizing gift shop and front of the house

What advice do you have for new hires? Take initiative, but be respectful. We are all a part of the same team.

And last but not least, if Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would you like to see cast as you? Emily Blunt

Barbara’s Favorite Flowers: Yucca

Barbara’s Favorite Flowers: Yucca

Yucca is a genus of perennial shrubs and trees in the family Asparagaceae, (asparagus). Yucca, of the agave family, native to the warmer regions of America, has pointed, usually rigid, sword-shaped leaves and clusters of white, waxy flowers. It is also the state flower of New Mexico. They are native to the hot and dry (arid) parts of North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

A cool fact is that Yucca is known in the United States as “ghosts in the graveyard,” as it is commonly found growing in rural graveyards and when in bloom in the twilight or dark, the flowers appear as a glowing apparition floating.

Yuccas have a very specialized, mutualistic pollination system. They are pollinated by yucca moths (family Prodoxidae); the insect purposefully transfers the pollen from the stamens of one plant to the stigma of another, and at the same time lays an egg in the flower; the moth larva then feeds on some of the developing seeds, always leaving enough seed to perpetuate the species.

Medicinally, Yucca is used for osteoarthritis, high blood pressure, migraine headaches, inflammation of the intestine (colitis), high cholesterol, stomach disorders, diabetes, poor circulation, and liver and gallbladder disorders.

This Yucca gets included in the list of “Barbara’s Favorite Flowers” because I like the exotic tropical edge and geometric height it gives to a garden. It’s pretty maintenance free, though I like to remove the lower dead fronds, giving it more of a palm tree shape. My mother always despised the flowers as she does Hosta flowers. She viewed them as secondary to the leaves. I personally love the huge charge of bellflowers you get two to three times a year when not much else is blooming, and the height is great too.

Gabby

Friday Feature: Gabrielle Mayberry (Gabby, Gabs)

How long have you been working at Willow Creek? 5 months

What is your position? Administrative Assistant

What is your favorite part of the Willow Creek family? The unique family bond

Kate M (left) Gabby (right)

What do you hope to achieve within the company? To continue in advancement in my position and learn everything I can from each department.

What is your favorite wine? I have two. Blackberry Merlot and Prestige Gold

If you could switch jobs with anyone at Willow Creek, who would it be and why? Chuck. I would love to learn how to make wine.

What is your proudest moment so far at Willow Creek? Taking over the Adopt-a-Vine program.

What advice do you have for new hires? Never say no to learning a new position here.

And last but not least, if Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would you like to see cast as you? Kiera Knightly

Barbara’s Favorite Flowers: Aster

Barbara’s Favorite Flowers: Aster

This is fall blooming Aster, Symphyotrichum oblongifolium, (Aster novae anglias). It’s name comes from the greek meaning “star”, which of course the flower shape is reminiscent of. The Aster is yet another easy peasy perennial that grows wild all along my woodland, and wetland borders. As its name implies, the fall Aster blooms in fall providing a colorful and bright lavender display when other flowering plants have run out of steam. They say it needs well-drained soil, but from my personal experience it’s not picky at all, and grows just about anywhere. You can use this in a formal border or a wild garden. It’s a real bonus when there is not much flowering in the garden! So plant and enjoy it!

Jenny M

Friday Feature: Jenny Moore

How long have you been working at Willow Creek? 15 months

What is your position? Hostess and Greeter

What is your favorite part of the Willow Creek Family? The dedication to the success of WC and the camaraderie

What do you hope to achieve within the company? Long term relationship and part of the team, doing what I love: Greeting guests with a smile and getting them started on their WC experience.

What is your favorite wine? Prestige Gold

If you could switch jobs with anyone at Willow Creek, who would it be an why? Wouldn’t want to switch with anyone!

What is your proudest moment so far at Willow Creek? Nothing in particular, just proud to be associated with this beautiful place.

What advice do you have for new hires? Watch and learn from senior employees, ask questions, always always be pleasant and helpful to guests, never let ’em see you sweat.

And last but not least, if Hollywood made a movie about your life, who would your like to see cast as you? Jennifer Aniston

Barbara’s Favorite Flowers: Saffron Crocus

Barbara’s Favorite Flowers: Saffron Crocus

These are Barbara’s favorite fall flowers, and flowers for her kitchen! The Saffron Crocus (C. sativus), blooms in the fall garden, when there is very little other blooms so differentiating itself from the spring blooming non-culinary common crocus.

Here is what Barbara has to say about her favorite fall flower:

Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the saffron crocus. Crocus is a genus in the family Iridacae. Each saffron crocus grows to 20–30 cm (8–12 in) and bears up to four flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas, which are each the distal end of a carpal. The dried stigmas and styles must be hand picked and are known as the “most expensive spice in the world.” Saffron gives the exquisite and unique flavoring and color to delicious Mediterranean, Arabic, and North African dishes.

The Saffron Crocus, unknown in the wild, (it was hand-bred to be a diploid and therefore sterile), most likely descends from Crocus cartwrightianthus which originated in Crete or Central Asia. Saffron’s unique taste and fresh cut sweet grass-like fragrance results from the chemicals picrocrocin and safranal. It also contains a carotenoid dye, crocin, which imparts a rich golden-yellow hue to dishes and textiles. Used as a spice, dye, and fragrance since 7th century Assyria, I think the idea of harvesting ones own personal saffron is incredibly cool (albeit a tad labor intensive)! Time to cook some fabulous Paella and Tagine.

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