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 “Much More Springy”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
The guy I live with said I looked awfully nonchalant, which of course was true. “Look more alert”, he said, and so I did.
Possibly overdoing the alertness.
I guess it’s time to complain, now. It’s been a bit too hot for me. And I haven’t been able to do all the things I’ve wanted to, because the guy I live with wouldn’t let me. The other day, the guy I live with’s friend came over, and I thought she might want to play with a dead sparrow I found in the yard, but she didn’t. It was taken away from me and buried.
And then yesterday all I wanted to do was catch snakes and eat pine cones, but the guy I live with said no. I suppose he had his reasons.
The water in the canal is flowing again, and there are ducks in it, as usual. I wanted to jump in the water and chase the ducks, but I think you know what the response to that was.
The snow last weekend made everything pretty green. Some leaves did get frozen, and a few branches were broken, like on the chokecherry in the “way back”. 
They’re just chokecherries, so no big deal, I guess, but the branches will have to be removed, and there was a lot of complaining about that.
You can see how green everything suddenly is.
This is a dwarf limber pine the guy I live with got from Jerry Morris some years ago when he visited his nursery. The label said “Taos”. The guy I live with said that he and his friend drove past the highway that led to Taos week before last. 
There are snowdrops in the snowdrop frame now.
Last week the guy I live with gave all the tomato seedlings, and squash seedlings, to his friend, and they also delivered a flat of agave seedlings to a friend who has a greenhouse and can take better care of them. He said he was trying to “downsize” on plants, which sounded suspicious to me. There are a lot fewer seedlings in the flats upstairs, that’s for sure.
The last of the tulips are flowering; these are probably Tulipa batalinii. 
And Clematis hirsutissima, too. This plant has been here “almost forever” and grows very slowly. I guess it doesn’t get as much water as it would like. 
And there’s this little onion in one of the rock gardens. The guy I live with doesn’t know what it is. It just appeared here. Or, it was from seed he forgot he sowed. Or something. 
And then, something kind of funny happened. He had moved a big plant of the sea-kale, Crambe maritima, out to the border behind the enclosure, because he thought the plant might do better out there, rather than in the middle of the lawn. You may recall that when I was little I ate one of the plants. It was good. And then when the berm was re-made, there was a flat space, where the sea-kale was, and so it got moved. But look what he found in the same flat space, just today.
I guess the sea-kale is going to be happy there, after all. So he moved the big plant back, next to these, to keep them company.
That’s really all I have for today. It’s supposed to be hot all this next week, and thundery. I don’t like either of those weather features. The guy I live with said this is the time of year for really bad weather, but I hope we don’t have any.
I’m sure I’ll get plenty of biscuits to make up for it. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
I woke up to your post Manny and you are a day brightener!
Thanks.
Those “no’s” or “nos” are frustrating aren’t they Mani? My favorite sayings for my dogs are “not now” or “you have to wait” especially concerning the timing of the morning walk, It usually works at least for the next 5 minutes.
TGYLW’s garden is looking good. The dwarf limber pine is especially handsome. My Jerry Morris dwarf blue spruce (2 ft tall)
was healthy for some 20 years or so but is now getting brown tips on the new growth.. Always something!
At least I never hear “We’ll see ……” It’s possible that brown tips were caused by cold weather at just the wrong time of year, like we had here.
All handsome portraits of you, Mani. You certainly are the cutie pie, besides the perfect mouthpiece. I am seriously impressed that even your ears can go on request from nonchalant to alert. You live in glorious territory that shows well in spring green, and the tulips you display are the perfect accent color. And, really, Mani, you have enough treats and soft sheets and Miss Lambchops to balance the frustrating “no”s you hear.
It’s raining here – yay! – so that means you’re due for some Weather. Yeah, in May. Play your upcoming confinement well (cutely), Mani, and you may be the recipient of extra biscuits.
Thanks. The guy I live with isn’t sure why my ears are so mobile, since there was another purebred border collie who lived here, Pooka by name, who had radar ears, and he could move them a bit, but not as much as I can. It was all dark and thundery here today, and it even rained some. I didn’t like it. It’s a good thing I have a fort to hide in. (I have two forts, but the downstairs one is my main one.) Still, some gardening stuff got done.