Garden – will garden for cake

Isn’t it wonderful when several of your favorite things come together? Everyone who visits this blog knows I love to garden and that baking is what I do professionally. But I am betting that not many of you know that I have a thing for hibiscus plants, specifically, Hibiscus sabdariffa. More commonly known as Roselle, this is the variety of hibiscus used to make tea. Just look at that bloom; how could you not love it?

While the flower is pretty, and edible, it is a day flower which means it opens for a day and then dies. As soon as the bloom withers, the plant begins producing seeds in the calyx. To make tea, you must gather them before the pod swells with immature seeds. It takes quite a few to make a pot of tea! Because of this, I generally plant 3 or 4 of them around the garden and yard. They can get quite large if the conditions are right; lots of direct sun, plenty of moisture but not soggy.

If you are looking at this plant and are thinking that it looks like okra, you are right! Hibiscus is also related to cotton and if you spend time in garden centers, you will find that there are lots of perennial and annual varieties of hibiscus. Unfortunately, this variety will not survive a freeze which means you must overwinter it indoors or start over each spring which is what I do. The seeds need heat and will not germinate until the soil is warm. Start them indoors or wait until about May to plant seeds outdoors.

They will begin blooming in late summer and that is when you will have calyxes to collect. Spread them out and dry them completely, I do it in the oven with just the light on. Then when dry, you can store them in a glass jar.

So what does this plant have to do with baking? This week’s recipe from Baking Chez Moi calls for hibiscus tea! This recipe mixed up quickly and easily and when it was all said and done, I sent these, along with the Valentine’s Share-A-Heart cookies to my girls for Valentine’s Day. They loved them!

Devon called hers a little pink pizza and looking at that shot, I can see why. However, they tasted like no pizza I have ever eaten! Crispy and flaky and full of vanilla(I was out of rose water) and with just a hint of tangy, floral notes from the hibiscus tea.

The recipe does not call for much tea so I only used a few calyxes-whizzed them in the spice grinder. My thought is that next time, and there will be a next time, I will use double the amount. After all, summer is coming and I will have more plants in the garden!

Join us sometime! We love the company. Pick up a copy of Baking Chez Moi and bake along with us. To see how the rest of the bakers did, visit the website.

If you have been visiting this blog, you know that I frequently post photos about the places I visit, especially if they have a garden. In our quest to explore Virginia, my husband and I came across Maymont Park in Richmond. We were first attracted to the park because of the gardens and the fact that it is an arboretum as well as the mansion tour but the $5 donation is what convinced us to go. While we do not have a problem paying to visit a site such as this, it can get expensive if you try to go somewhere every week, especially if you must also travel an hour or more each way. We packed a cooler and hit the road to Richmond during the week to avoid the crowds.

The grounds are extensive and I suggest grabbing a map as you enter. We followed the trails down hill to the Japanese garden and began taking in the sites. The Dooleys were serious gardeners and this first photo is a reflecting pond outside a grotto that is carved into the hillside.

Pardon me, I have a thing for reflections and I take photos of them all the time…

As we walked the trail, there was so much to see. The pond, the plants, the trees and the structures. The Dooleys spared nothing and built a beautiful landscape.

We ventured out onto this raised walkway over the pond and quickly saw that the pond is full of fish.

Beautiful Koi to be exact and many of them were well over a foot long.

Dragonflies are abundant here as well, and they came in many colors.

Water lilies; how I wish I had a pond or a water feature in my garden that I could fill with water lilies!

Turtles were also abundant. This is an Eastern Painted Turtle.

So many of the decorations and structures were added by the Dooleys and have managed to stay in tact nearly 90 years after they passed away.

If you take the mansion tour, you will see a photo of this bridge and sculpture in the house. Do yourself a favor, go to the Japanese garden and walk over the bridge, it is beautiful.

The park itself is huge and I suggest you spend the entire day exploring it. We took a quick walk through the wildlife area and I spied this little waterfall in an enclosure with Bald Eagles.

At the top of the hill above the Japanese Garden is the Italian Garden. It is much smaller and easier to get to-no steep hills to climb.

And an Italian Garden is not complete without a pergola and this one is a welcomed relief from the heat of the sun!This garden was so colorful and I wanted to walk through it more but the heat…

Another feature, the Italian Gazebo. There is so much to see and it must all be done by walking. Be prepared for that, bring water and wear the right shoes. We will go back, we want to see the seasons and visit some of the specialty gardens that we did not linger in for long.