Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to bring you the latest news from our garden, or, in this case, from Denver Botanic Gardens, where I didn’t get to go, because the guy I live with says the sign there says “No Dogs”, which I think is unenlightened, but what can you do? You may remember me from such DBG-type posts as “Guarding The Fort” and “Home Alone Once Again”, among just a few others.
Here I am in a characteristic at-home pose.
Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, there was a little bit of bulb-planting; just a few daffodils, and the guy I live with soaked them in water for about fifteen minutes before planting them. He says this is a good idea, because here, it takes an awful lot of rain to get down to where the bulbs’ roots are, once they’ve been planted in a loamy type soil, so this gives the bulbs a little bit of a head start.
As you can tell by the title of today’s post, the guy I live with left me at home, all by my purebred self, to go to DBG and take some pictures. He took pictures of things he wanted to take pictures of, instead of pictures other people might think he should take pictures of. Like, there were a zillion people there, all to look at the glass. The guy I live with was only interested in plants.
looking up at the sequoias
crevice garden
part of another crevice garden
Turkish form of cedar of Lebanon; Cedrus libani var. stenocoma
Gomphocarpus physocarpa
Now some views in and around the Laura Smith Porter Plains Garden. It reminds me of our “lawn”, sort of.
the white is winterfat, Krascheninnikovia lanata
Eriogonum jamesii
Some other things.
Mahonia haematocarpa in fruit
castor bean, Ricinus communis
American persimmon, Diospyros virginiana, in fruit
Now some berries on various crabapples that the guy I live with didn’t get the names of.
Okay, well, those were the pictures he took.
Yesterday, or, again, maybe the day before, there was a terrific sunset, and he took pictures of it. I’ll leave you with the sunset pictures, wishing I had some “as we head off into the sunset” kind of music, but I don’t. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
I saw a Chihuly exhibit many years ago in Atlanta. I have no urge to see another. The sunsets in your photos are magnificent!
Tell the guy to get you a fake therapy dog harness so you can go to more places.
Thanks; I don’t think I could pretend to be a helper dog because I’m too easily distracted. The glass sculptures are really popular, but the guy I live with is a gardener, you know, and likes plants.
Hi Chess, I would have thought a bit of guarding the house would have been right up a pure bred border collie’s alley? Can one eat the fruit of the American Persimmon? Great sunsets … drool. We only have a dirty grey, windswept sky to look at, sigh!
Tell the GYLW that I have a seed list out if he’s interested, equally fine if he’s not.
Cheers from Marcus Down Under
Guarding the house is okay, I guess. I probably wouldn’t’ve liked going to the botanic gardens and not being the center of attention, according to You Know Who. The persimmons are edible, though these are mighty small. There are varieties bred for larger fruit. Apparently there’s no such thing as an overripe persimmon. The guy I live with looked at the list, which is here, for anyone interested http://hillviewrareplants.com.au/ (we allow free plugs for stuff we think is interesting), until the internet connection pooped out. It goes on and off during the night.
Crevice gardens are totally the thing to have now. If only many of them didn’t look like someone had planted around a bunch of buried radiators. Antennaria ‘McClintock’ is looking good. Cheilanthes always throws me for a loop. Gotta get me some of that. Maybe it’s a good thing no dogs are allowed with fruiting Ricinus around.
The guy I live with has two faux crevice gardens. They have names; ‘Praha’ and ‘Brno’. They haven’t been featured in posts, for reasons unknown to me. Lots of things are for reasons unknown to me. He bursts into this weird laugh when the name Cheilanthes is mentioned. He says there was a C. eatonii here once, and C. fendleri, and, et cetera, but they are difficult to make happy. C. feei is apparently fairly easy. Attempts to grow ferns from spores, here, resulted in the mess of fungus being tossed into the trash. Didn’t even notice the fern until the picture was embiggened. Unfortunately, nurseries specializing in ferns don’t offer the xerophytic ones, which makes sense if you think about it, but it would be nice if someone did.
Thanks for all the nice plant photos. They are very inspiring. I’d enjoy making a crevice garden.
You’re welcome. Crevice gardens are a lot of work; there is an excellent little book on building them by Zdenek Zvolanek. Explains how to do everything. The Crevice Garden and Its Plants, I think.
Gorgeous sunset, beautifully captured by the lens of the guy you live with, Chess. Gold and orange and rose seem the colors of the season, looking at the mahonia and crabapples, the Gomphocarpus physocarpa and American persimmon. Judging by photos of both, I believe your own home garden passes the Laura Smith Porter Plains Garden test, meeting and matching. A botanical garden is good placement for a crevice garden, I suppose. Until I possess a crevice, I’ll stick with the garden that I have, although I understand the lure of texture and of the miniature.
You were better employed playing guard dog, Chess, than sniffing around castor bean plants. You’ll be around to enjoy the next colorful sunset.
As I write this, That Hotel has set off noisy fireworks and poor Petey is unleashing a storm of stress barking. Why do fireworks and thunder exist? Technicolor sunsets and gardens, those are treasures of which we need more.
.
Thanks; the guy I live with doesn’t grow too many plants that might make me sick (the hellebores are in the shade garden on the north side of the house, where I never go). There are crevice gardens, and then there are crevice gardens. Take a look at this: http://www.alpinegardensociety.net/diaries/Kent/+April+/558/ We (well, mostly the guy I live with) decided against having a crevice garden here because stone (you never call it “rock”) is expensive, and it might look a little weird, this bunch of stone in the middle of a fairly chaotic and pseudo-mock-naturalistic garden. Stone is also heavy, and you might be surprised at the number of people who “would have helped lift it” but had inexplicably made other plans on the day when the lifting was to occur. I have a Thundershirt, which worked pretty well, like I was being hugged, until it mysteriously shrank while just lying on the chair in the living room.