Hello there, it’s me again, Chess the purebred border collie. You may remember me from such fascinating and wonderful posts as “Left Alone” (either one) and “He Fixes Something”. Posts done by border collies set the standard for excellence simply because we are, of course, excellent. And modest.

It’s raining flowers today.

It’s also really hot. Or it was, until the skies got dark and there was scary thunder, but otherwise, it’s hot. This isn’t me, by the way.

As I said before, it’s raining flowers. They’re all over the place; the birdbath is filled with them, I track them into the house, and so does the guy I live with.

These are the flowers, or petals, or some part of the flower of Fontanesia fortunei, or, as botanists want to call it now, Fontanesia philliraeoides subsp. fortunei. It’s supposedly called the “desert bamboo” though it doesn’t grow in deserts and isn’t a bamboo. It’s a member of the olive family. Like privet. And, of course, olives.

The guy I live with bought this desert bamboo thing and figured it would get about six feet tall. Or it would die. It didn’t get anywhere near six feet tall, even though it only got watered when it was little. It lives next to the patio and probably gets water from under there, like plants do. This is it at about six feet off the ground. From there, it goes up. And the flowers come down.

Some trees haven’t fared so well this year. This is the maple that the guy I live with plans to cut down. Eventually. He started cutting it down, discovered it was hard work, and took a nap instead. That’s why the maple is still here.

And the Kentucky coffee tree. It looks like it’s dead, but maybe it’s not. On the tenth of June, it still hasn’t leafed out completely. This picture is looking up into the sky. My grandpa Flurry would run outside and look up into the sky when he heard the word “helicopter”. He was smart. I look up into the sky sometimes, too, when I have to check the weather. I prefer sun, and cold weather. The guy I live with prefers sun, and really hot weather, but things work out for us anyway.

Oh, the tree. Here it is.

Other things are doing okay. This is Buddleia alternifolia ‘Argentea’. It was here when I showed up. It’s almost a tree. The guy I live with says some people spell the generic name as buddleja. This is really important.

The New Mexican locust, Robinia neomexicana, is doing really well too. It’s kind of out of control, actually. The guy I live with was too chicken to go in the back to take pictures with the sun behind him. Before he said I could do posts, so long as I didn’t use his credit card, he posted about this very scary plant, here, where you can see what might grab you if you weren’t paying attention. My mommy wanted to paint a picture of the flowers, but she never did.

So that’s it for the plant talk today. As I say, it was really hot today and the guy I live with hosed me off twice, so I could be cooler. He also went to the store and promised to bring me back something, which he claims he did. I think I know what’s inside, and if I’m right, then at least some of it really is for me. I don’t know how to open it, though.