Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you the latest news from our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “A Superinformative Post”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. The guy I live with had a pine needle on top of his head.
Actually, maybe this is a more characteristic pose.
I know I haven’t posted for a while, but the guy I live with says he’s been having trouble focusing. In this case, he does mean with the camera.
The other day, the guy I live with went with his friend to Chatfield Arboretum, and he took the wrong lens, so almost none of the pictures came out in focus. He said that even if he had taken the right lens (the zoom lens), none of the pictures would have been any good, because of the focusing problem. (It isn’t really a problem; he’s experimenting with exposures and stuff. The camera came with instructions, but ….)
Some of the pictures were okay. They have miniature horses there. I know what horses are, because they have them next door to where I go to the doctor, and to Day Care, but those are regular-sized horses, and miniature horses are, well, you know, miniature. 
And goats. I know that Slipper, one of the border collies who lived here before me, was raised with goats, and so was ultra-smelly when he was brought here as a little puppy. That’s the extent of my knowledge of goats. 
As I said a while ago, the guy I live with has been watering, some. The weather here has been the same now, every day, since about the last week in July. Cloudy every day, with a few hours of sun, and no rain. We don’t really get a lot of rain on the garden here after the middle of July, but the constant cloudiness has been annoying to one of us. The cooler weather, lately, has been pleasant for both of us, though.
Here I am enjoying the evening. The temperatures all nice all day long, now. 
There are things flowering. The guy I live with says that rain would be better, but that watering would have to do.
This is a California poppy called ‘Red Chief’. 
And some asters. (The guy I live with says life is too short to be typing “symphyo…” over and over again, just as with the botanical name for California poppies.)
Aster ericoides (maybe a hybrid of it), ‘Blue Star’. 
Aster cordifolius ‘White Chief’. 
Lots of cyclamen are flowering now. This is probably Cyclamen cilicium. It’s supposed to be fragrant, but the guy I live with said he couldn’t smell anything but whatever the strong chemical fragrance of the hour is, wafting from the neighbors’ house.
This might be Colchicum ‘Lilac Wonder’. 
Colchicum cilicium.
So, everything was going the way it goes around here, that is, hardly anything happening, which is the way we like it (though a raccoon tried to get into the yard late the other night, and I had to get all threatening and vicious and loud), except for the no rain part, which we could use some of, and the guy I live with said it was the autumnal equinox, and explained to me what that meant, like he was super-aware of the way the Earth moves around the sun (in truth, he had completely forgotten that autumn was coming, but he said that since every day here seems the same, with the clouds, and no rain, that that was his excuse), and he decided to remove the other little tree in the middle of the lawn, “because it looked stupid there”, and when he was done, he saw this.
It’s Crocus laevigatus.
The guy I live with likes crocuses a lot and so he was pretty happy about this. Hopefully there will be a lot more crocuses in flower, until the end of the year.
I guess that’s really all I have for today. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Hi, Mani! and so the summer is over … here in the Alps is already very cold and I fear very early frosts. Your garden is always very rich and it is a pleasure for me to see you turning among the flower beds …
Thanks; I suppose we could have frost any time now. About 4C at night for the next few days, then warming up again.
There oughtta be a board for whenever taxonomists want a name change. “‘So I was thinking Symphyotrichum’…’NO! That’s a stupid name. Make it shorter. And with fewer Ys.”
Yep. They could have just done like they did with Muilla (Allium backwards), and just renamed them Retsa. Of course there’s nothing that can be done about plants named for Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz. “California poppy” is good enough.
Not much better than the tiny flowers of any Aster ericoides this time of year. Except for Cyclamen, of course. Isn’t it only the male goats who smell bad? I don’t know, their pellets make good fertilizer. Do you have verticillium wilt in dry Colorado? I suppose not but we have acquired it and short of moving I guess all we can do is plant more conifers. There is always something waiting in the wings to let us know we aren’t living in paradise, you know? Dryer sheets included.
The guy I live with loves asters, except for the kinds that get mildew. New York asters, I guess. I’ve never smelled a goat, so I couldn’t say. We do have verticillium wilt here; there used to be a big grape vine over the patio, with grapes hanging down, and raccoons would lie on top of the patio cover eating grapes all night long. I heard that you could see fat raccoon tummies poking down through the slats in the patio cover. The patio would be completely purple, with grape skins, the next day. The guy I live with often has to go in the house when the laundry and perfume smells overpower him. I am much tougher, of course.
Thank you for the excellent post, which I read while on the road in Chico. We came up from a stay at Point Reyes National Seashore where California poppies are in bloom even in autumn, but miniature, like the horse, and all of them orange, not a whit “Red Chief.” I like all this week’s photos. The portrait of aster “Blue Star” and the supposed Crocus laevigatus are standouts. I understand in the summer before this some puppyness happened with the plant labels and there might be some puzzle attached to exact names. Nevermind. You yourself, Mani give a fine portrait pose; the second, Dog Asleep in Rumpled Bedsheets in a Golden Light, might be published in the pages of Playdog magazine, so alluring it is and sensuous. The final photo is the embodiment of a garden on the cusp of autumn, with receding dog (you, Mani) bringing on a touch of sadness at the season’s retreat. Then the bracing thought comes that neither you nor the guy you live with are enamored fully with summer.
Thanks; this summer was pretty icky all around. Way too hot. It’s still very dry here, except for the watering going on (which the guy I live with says is insufficient). The upstairs bed is really comfortable. No Pottery Barn sheets this time, but a Pottery Barn mattress pad.
Mani – if you ever get to meet the guy (or guy-ess) who gave the asters that unpronounceable new name, please suggest they talk to someone in marketing before changing names, Then we might get something more sensible.
The guy I live with says it was a committee…..