Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to tell you a little bit about what’s been going on in the garden, and a bit about my midnight adventures, too. You may remember me from such posts as “The Nameless Horror”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
It hasn’t been so incredibly hot, lately, and the guy I live with has actually done some work in the garden. Yes, I know. I was surprised, too.
It mostly happened in the front yard and I didn’t get to see the work, but I know it happened, because he showed me what he’d done afterward.
There’s still a bunch of dead branches to be removed, and that purple-leafed chokecherry needs to go, but it really does look nicer. Kind of a native oak woodland, you might say.
Of course he scratched his arm and came back into the house bleeding profusely, but that’s to be expected now. His doctor said his skin has gotten thinner, because he’s, you know, getting on in years.
The guy I live with sometimes talks about having someone help him out in the garden. Someone maybe less relatively ancient than he is. Of course that could lead to problems, because the person working in the garden might not feel about the garden the way the guy I live with and I do.
And people tend not to listen. I mean I rarely listen to the guy I live with, because of all the babbling, but sometimes he says something that needs to be listened to, and in the garden that would be especially true.
So anyway that’s where we are now. Hours of lying around doing nothing, and then the occasional burst of energy, interrupted by a whole bunch of first aid.
Because of the not a lot of rain at all (but still some), there are plants flowering in the garden.
The Rocky Mountain beeplant (Cleome or Peritome serrulata) is one; the guy I live with said to make a note to buy extra seed to sow early this coming winter. It’s an annual. Hummingbirds like it,too.
The nodding onion, Allium cernuum, a native, is flowering all over the garden. White, and some pink flowers too.
And the sphaeralcea, I guess Sphaeralcea fendleri, which flowers all summer regardless. The Japanese beetles love them, unfortunately. 
When the garden was redone, about ten years ago, it was supposed to be a garden full of grasses, mostly native ones, but a lot of these didn’t take.
The only one planted from nursery pots that was successful was the alkali sacaton, Sporobolus airoides. 
The failure of so many grasses has been a big disappointment; the easiest way is to grow them from seed, but not all of the grasses he’s wanted have been available as seed.
The guy I live with said that watching grasses sway gently in the breeze is a very good stress reliever. Then of course he complains about the lack of breezes here, in what used to be a pretty windy climate.
You can see here the bluebunch wheatgrass, Pseudoroegneria spicata, with its straw-colored stems, after it’s flowered, and Melica ciliata (the white tufts), which isn’t a native grass.
The sempervivums never disappoint, which why there are a lot of them here. This is one called ‘Salt Peanuts’. (No, really.) The picture was taken at dusk, like the ones of the grasses, above. 
That’s pretty much it, except of course, for my midnight adventures.
They’ve improved considerably now that the guy I live with has a head lamp. It definitely illuminates stuff.
Well, the other night, believe it or not, he noticed this before I did, because my eyesight in the dark is way better than his, or at least he claims to have seen it first, and we both sort of wanted to go check it out, not too closely of course.
All we have is this phone picture. A pretty terrible picture which he had to resize in order that you could even see it. You can see the shadow of the phone, but also, if you look very closely, at the bottom of that white pillar, on the left, is someone striped.
That’s as close as we got, and the guy I live with said that was close enough for both of us.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me in the daytime. One of us is on the wrong side of the creek.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
I am wondering as I look at that open back door…do you have flies in CO? My yard is very hospitable to bugs of all kinds, and I just discovered a yellow jacket nest which concerns me. I would never leave my door open. How about there? Are you tormented by flying things? Some dogs get angry and others get scared. Pardon me, but some of the recent posts give me an idea that quite a few things frighten you. Don’t be embarrassed, one of my dogs was immobilized by fear during an encounter with a small puppy.
We do have flies here, and in the wintertime the studio downstairs has lots of them, because the back door is always left open during the day, unless it gets really cold. So it’s open most of the winter, as well as all the other seasons.
This is because Slipper, a purebred border collie who lived here before me, wanted to have the back door open in the winter. He would stand half in and half out, so his head was cool but his rump was toasty.
We had a bird fly into the house just yesterday. It flew out again.
Slipper was a huge chicken, as was his first cousin, Chess. The guy I live with says we’re a sensitive breed.
On the other hand I can run out to the back fence in the darkness and challenge anything that needs challenging, where the guy I live with sometimes gets a case of the creeps when he’s way out there in the darkness.
There are a lot of flying things here, especially this year, with grasshoppers, which constantly land on me on my walks. I really dislike being landed on.
Oh, yeah, I forgot my question to TGYLW! Does he grow allium from seed? Do they take years to bloom? I saved some seed from my Allium nigrum Silver Spring which may not even come true, but why not?
I think the answer to that is no. There are maybe a hundred species of allium here, some really easy to grow, and some not very easy at all. All purchased as bulbs.
Some reseed a lot. Some reseed way, way too much. The guy I live with’s wife wanted Allium aflatunense and A. caeruleum, and those have reseeded like nobody’s business. Allium flavum, which the guy I live with wanted, has reseeded ten times as much.
The really rare ones from Iran and Central Asia are a very different story.
Silver Spring is pretty attractive. It might come true from seed. We don’t grow it, but I think maybe we should.
Yes, I can send you some seed! 5 bulbs produced 10 trillion seeds which should be a warning to me. I don’t learn these lessons, though. I bought a couple of those summer flowering A.Millenium which are quite pretty but one begins to hate them while trying to root out their very tenacious seedlings from between the stepping stones. I also stupidly planted A. sphaerocephalon. Now I pull it out routinely. There’s a reason why they are cheap.
The guy I live with says thanks, though we don’t need a trillion seeds. Lol. Though they might also not make it here; we tried regular Allium nigrum and it didn’t like our garden for some reason.
Mani – I hope you told off TGYLW being on the wrong side of the creek. Some ancient people tend to ignore the rules as they get older
He said I was on the wrong side…
Pah – what does he know? There’s only one right side and you’re always on it
Of course.
WHEW!!!! Mee thott mee was goin reed a horro story of Pepe or Pierre or Pee-you Skunk sprayin you Mani or yore Guy or both of you!! Yore Guy iss a Geeneuss fore gettin a head lamp! Kewl idea! That way you both are illumynated an can keep track of THE wild critterss of THE nite!
Inn yore ferst foto are you beehind bush inn top left side?? Mee an LadyMew think you did a GRATE job hidin, mew mew mew…
An all yore flowerss are lovelee, speshelly THE Bee Plantss!!
***purrss*** BellaDharma
Thanks. No; I’m on the patio, by the back door. You can click on the picture to enlarge it.
The head lamp is pretty nice.
Mew mew mew mee bettur get sum glassess an LadyMew needss a stronger lenss too!!! Tehre you are…how cuud wee miss you?
Mee likess THE headlite idea alot!!
Yeah, see, there I am.
The headlamp is great.
Mew mew mew Mani! Yore so comicall….wee ADOORE you!
**purrss** BellaDharma
Thanks.
Yore furry wellcome Mani an yore Guy!! Hope youss’ get sum rain; wee got more yesterday!
It’s thundering here, but I bet we don’t get any rain. We’ve had severe thunderstorm watches every single day for about five days now.
CATFISH! Still NO rain?!?!? Mee will try an send sum back to youss’ OKay Mani?
**purrss** BellaDharma
No rain, just thunder.
Thunder without rain iss like cereal with out milk!
Pretty much.
We started using a headlamp on night walks because the current smaller dog is fearful of the dark; the larger dog is excited by the headlamp’s beam so we can’t use it when she is along. Fortunately the small dog is not afraid of the dark if the larger dog is along. The decision tree about what to take on a walk when gets complicated depending on which dogs are in residence. Too bad about the creek issue; we had a walk around a small lake this weekend and dogs were not allowed to swim because its used for drinking water, so both dogs were frustrated about that – a moment of unity.
I was amazed at the cleome we saw growing along the road in Arizona, perhaps similar to what you have; here its more of a garden plant and seems less graceful.
Thanks as always for sharing your adventures.
ceci
You’re welcome. The cleome is a different species from the ones grown in gardens (but never successfully, here). There’s also a yellow one, Cleome lutea, which is native here, too. Mostly on the Western Slope and places west of that, I think.
The headlamp is a great thing because just last night the guy I live with noticed some eyes flashing in the dark, and they weren’t a rabbit’s. Striped Kitty. But we were far enough away.
Is that a zebra?! They can be scary, like striped kitties or skunks.
No, it’s a striped kitty. I can smell them at night, sometimes.
Oh, of course. Striped kitty, like Pepe le Pew.
That iss just so wrong Mani!
Yep.
Did youss’ get any rain yet???
Iss sunny an *hot* here again…not sure when wee get rain again.
This sure has been a weerd Summer Mani!
No; it’s still totally roasting hot. No sign of rain at all.
😦 Mee so sorry Mani an yore Guy!! Wee wishess wee cuud send rain to youss’!
It’s not going to rain any time soon, here. I guess that’s okay, because when they said “rain” last week, it didn’t rain, but we had five days in a row with severe thunderstorm watches. Nothing bad happened, but there was a lot of scary thunder.
CATFISH! Wee both need rain now!!!
We do here. Definitely.
Bad stormss inn Iowa an Whizconsin an sum rain inn Minny-soda…iss going THE wrong way Mani!!!!!
The weather almost always goes that way…
Yore rite Mani! It did go that way an it came this way an wee had funderstormss durin tHE nite. Mee snuggelled close to LadyMew. Shee had earplugss inn an sleep medss inn an missed THE entire storm!! 😉
We haven’t had any thunderstorms in a while. They cool things off, but the thunder is scary.
CATFISH!! You still have not gotten any rain!! Wee gotted rain Monday nite an it was so lovelee out Tuesday an today iss stinkin *hot* an hue-mid….Mee will bee glad when it iss Autumm….
**sighss** BellaDharma
No, no rain. None forecast in the future, either.
This iss crazy Mani!! Wee gotted sum rain overnite even….
Did you hear ’bout THE turribell Forest Fire inn Red Lake, Mannytoba?? That iss THE Province beeside us to THE West…Red Lake iss far up North an many many peepell an petss have had to evacue-ate an they are goin where efurr they can! Iss a REEL diss-aster! They need rain too!
Wee hope you FAR AWAY from Pine Gulch an other firess inn Colorado! Wee saw them on mewss last nite! SCAREY!!!!
The guy I live with woke up at three a.m. this morning because the whole house smelled of smoke. He had to turn the window fan around.
It was smoke from the Pine Gulch fire, which is about four hours’ drive from here. There’s also another one in Glenwood Canyon (about the same distance away).
It still smells like smoke here, even though now there’s no wind at all.
EEEKKKK!! Mani an yore Guy pleese stay safe! An iss yore Guy OKay to breethe?? Wee mew there were alot of firess an were so wurried ’bout youss’!!!
It was a little hard to breathe last night. Same thing tonight, they say.