Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the excellent purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with (I had to, because he left me at home), and here to bring you some pictures of Denver Botanic Gardens in January. You may remember me from such posts as “Guarding The Fort”, among so many, many others in which I was left alone.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
I’ve been eating something called “top round steak”, which, if you ask me, I should have been eating all along. It’s really good.
Even with the steak, I got left all alone today, because the guy I live with said he “had” to go to Denver Botanic Gardens, and he did. I’m going to post some pictures he took to prove he went there, and didn’t just leave to get away from me and my need for steak.
an agave that bloomed and died
the cypresses from Baja California, Cupressus montana
The rock garden.
The dwarf conifer garden, mostly (if not all) conifers from Jerry Morris.
The library. The guy I live with says this is a very cool place. He and my mommy used to spend hours here, and me and my buddy Slipper, or the border collies who were here before us, had to spend a lonely day at home.
Some other pictures. This is an oak.
The weeping sequoia. It has a little winter burn, but it will recover.
Its bark. The guy I live with took this because he knows I like pictures of bark.
More bark.
And lastly, the single-leaf pinyon, Pinus monophylla.
Well, that’s it. Mostly just pictures today. It’s a warm and windy evening here, and so I guess, after being left alone most of the day, I’ll take it easy now.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Oh no poor Chess left alone, hopefully it wasn’t all day. I just loved all those dwarf conifers, the winding path through the rock garden was great too. What can I say about bark just excellent. Such an alert pose today. Is that your ‘more steak” pose as opposed to your more ‘sad’ biscuits pose. Are you going to be dining on top round steak frequently now, lucky Chess. I had fillet steak recently because my mum bought a whole piece and was having trouble slicing some of it so she gave me a half a meal of it, I think it is fairly unlikely I will ever have that again for dinner at that price. I think it is farily unlikely that she will ever buy a whole piece again…
It was only for about four hours. Maybe five. The guy I live with gets distracted when he goes to “the Gardens” and has to ooh and ahh over everything. Some of the conifers were really great. He says that this steak isn’t very expensive compared to, say, New York strip, or Delmonico I guess they also call it, but he also says (and I can verify this) that the best, and I mean the super best, and by no means the most expensive, cut of meat is called “hanger steak”, or “onglet”, and when he grilled some once even my mommy ate a lot, and this isn’t really a steak-eating household. Though, I guess, for one of us, it is now.
One of your posts that makes me hungry, Chess. I want steak *now*, and what’s for dinner is duck tacos. Sigh. The guy you live with is right — the conifers are really great. The single-leaf pinyon is particularly attractive. A weeping Sequoia, huh. The library much resembles the one I know in the Los Angeles Arboretum, or even our very own San Diego Floral Association library. We’re trying to figure out a collection policy for the latter right now. As for being left alone, Chess, consider the time an opportunity to flex your home protection muscles. The bark photos: arf arf. Your photos are the finest, of course. Why did Keane waste time painting big-eyed kids when she could have better painted your portrait? Such a sublime nose you have, my dear.
Thanks; I must agree that my nose is excellent, though the guy I live with claims I’m “wrecking” it by eating snow and that I need Nose Balm. I don’t think there is such a thing. For once, the single-leaf pinyon at DBG is smaller than the one here; there are actually a lot of them here, but just one big one. Funny, he learned about this pine from Graham Stuart Thomas’s Three Gardens; at that time, a long time ago, you couldn’t get a single-leaf pinyon anywhere, but now you can. And do Google Sequioadendron giganteum pendulum to see how totally weirdly these trees can grow. “Something to be admired in someone else’s garden” is the verdict I hear. That dwarf blue spruce in the conifer garden is about the bluest ever, huh. Looks like the name is “C. Blue”. I guess quite a few of these aren’t in the trade.
Go the round steak!
Lovely pictorial essay. Needles, wafers, nurdles, dead stuff, cushions, snow. What more could you want! Thanks, worth leaving the pure bred collie at home for the day. After all he did get the steak.
All the best to both of you.
Marcus from Down Under
Thanks; yes, it’s true, I got steak. It was good. And for breakfast, too, with peas’n’cheese, and pumpkin for afters. It was pretty chilly and windy that day but the guy I live with walked around the garden with friends and they all agreed DBG is beautiful no matter when you go.
I really enjoyed the library photos, almost as much as the plant photos. I am the librarian at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond VA. Maybe you fellows could come and visit on one of our “dog” days.
Thanks; the DBG library is pretty wonderful, though I hear they don’t allow purebred border collies there. The guy I live with naturally forgot to ask if he could go downstairs and take pictures of where they keep the periodicals (coolest of all). They’re stored in these really interesting sliding racks. (Interesting to him.) It’s going to be almost 70F today.