Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to talk about our change in the weather. You may remember me from such weather-related posts as “Monsooner Or Later”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
Kind of contemplative, I know. It was cool enough today that contemplating things out on the patio was pretty pleasant.
It was super hot here last week, and the week before. It was exhausting, believe me. Then on Friday, I think, the temperature dropped pretty suddenly, the wind came up (that was different, since wind here has been almost nonexistent for some years), and it started to rain. We got about a third of an inch of rain. And then on Saturday it drizzled for hours. That was really different.
Some parts of Colorado got huge amounts of rain, but we only got a little. People around here like to talk about “the monsoon” (the North American Monsoon, which you can look up), but what this really is is sort of outlying rainfall from the weather patterns originating in Mexico. It’s not reliable rainfall, and Colorado does not have a monsoonal flora like southern Arizona, southern New Mexico, west Texas, and northern (if not all of) Mexico have.
But it was nice. You might be able to see the difference.
Even the “way back”, which was getting pretty crispy, looks at least acceptable.
There are a lot, maybe even too many, cowpen daisies in the back border. This used to be full of perennials, and looked very different, back in the last century, but as the weather changed, it became more and more difficult to keep plants alive here without constant irrigation, so now there are cowpen daisies (Verbesina encelioides). These are annuals.
Another thing, and this just happened today, is that the “hideous” blue spruce is gone. This is kind of a peculiar picture, light wise, but it was taken with the phone.
The guy I live with even planted out some things yesterday. That might have been a mistake, since newly-planted plants often fry at this time of year, but he said he plans to mark them, with flags and stuff, so he can keep an eye on them.
What else? Oh, the guy I live with got stung by a yellowjacket a couple of days ago. He got very angry, even though it was his fault. I guess that’s a typical response. His hand swelled up, and is still swollen.
He was trying to remove the hose from the faucet in the front yard, after watering some new plants, and there were yellowjackets around the faucet.
The guy I live with said there was probably a big yellowjacket nest in the crawlspace, so he’s not going in there until it gets cold.
There was one there years ago, and his wife said he should just take a garbage bag and the machete and remove the nest that way. The guy I live with, who tends to catastrophize, said “No”.
The nest will be empty when it’s cold.
And some bulbs arrived in the mail. It is that time of the year.
These came from Illahe Rare Bulbs. You have to pretty quick out of the gate to beat the guy I live with when it comes to ordering from them. It’s a small list that arrives by email, but there’s lots of good stuff. Only one bulb has been planted, so far, but the rest will eventually be planted. Maybe in the garden, maybe in the frames. You never know with him, and bulbs.
Oh, I almost forgot. The owls are back. I fiercely and toughly scared them away the first couple of times, but the guy I live with was able to get some pictures when I wasn’t feeling so fierce.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me doing one of my favorite things; lounging on the patio at night.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
HUURA!!! Youss; got some kind of rain!!! Meenwhile wee have had enuff rain mee wanted to send 1/2 to youss’!! Aas long as them nasty Wildyfiress stay far away from youss’; wee are happy! 😉
Yore garden an backyard look so full an thrivin…iy msut bee diffycult tryin to keep plantss alive there. Our wee Garden is FULL…..all THE plantss are jostlin fore pawsition.
Mee betss Guy iss xcoted to have mew seedss to plant!
An bee carefull of THE GHO’SS~~they can bee furry aggressive!!!
An meowin of aggressive pleese take guud care of Guy! Them YellowJackitss are meen an nasty two!!!
Wishin youss’ a wunderfull stingy-free week!
***purrss*** BellaDharma an reegardss LadyMew
Thanks. The guy I live with’s hand is still a little swollen.
Most of the plants in the garden just grow, and don’t need any extra attention, except right after they’re planted.
We didn’t even get a third of an inch of rain, but friends in southern Colorado got ten times that much. It’s okay, though.
LadyMew showed mee what a 3rd of an inchy iss…not furry much! Wee gotted so much rain 2 weekendss ago wee had flash floodin out on our street. All you cuud see was centre line. Sewerss were overflowin an carss were gettin swamped with ‘rooster tailss’ of water…it was sorta scarey! Wee have had lotss of rain an wish wee cuud send youss’ sum of ourss!!
Thanks, though we might be okay with rain. We still have a few days where it might happen.
Yeesh! Yellow Jackets! Last year I had a nest in the ground in my yard, and got all worked up. But they only got me once, which was when I discovered the nest. We agreed to stay apart. This year it’s black widow spiders. They are everywhere. And the years pass….
Thank you to TGYLW for recommending the Filippi book on dry gardening. I just started it and I learned some things by the second page!
You look very lush, and so does the garden!
You’re welcome about the book. There are at least two; the lawn alternative one, and The Dry Gardening Handbook.
There might be some changes made to the garden here, next year. Yes, again. I guess we’ll see.
The guy I live with’s hand is still a little swollen. He bought a yellowjacket trap and hung it in the cypress. This is really so not like him at all, but the yellowjackets were right by the front door, where the faucet goes into the crawlspace.
It’s not like we have visitors, but he was really worried about me. Either me getting stung a whole lot, since I try to eat them, or him getting stung to death and leaving me in the lurch.
Eastern yellowjacket’s are readily attracted to ripe fruit and sugared water this time of year. Real picnic pests.. Effective traps are easily constructed with a plain old plastic bottle. One can use funky hummingbird feeder fluid and even old oriole feeder fruit as bait. Wonder if it works for the Western species. They always get testy during stormy weather.
The trap is working, though there are still yellowjackets flying around by the front door.
Monsoon sounds funny. It sounds like something that happens in other parts of the World, like around the Indian Ocean. I suppose that there used to be more Indians of different kinds in the Southwest, but no ocean nearby. Were they always known as monsoons there, or just for the past several years?
No one ever talked about a monsoon here, until maybe about twenty years ago. Whether or not the North American weather pattern is a true monsoon is I guess a subject of debate. Unlike the one in India.
Okay, so that is an accurate observation. I thought that maybe I had just been missing something. That was about the same time that people here started insisting that we experience droughts every year. No, that is just our natural climate. A drought is an unusual lack of precipitation. If it happens annually, then it is not unusual. (Few people have been here long enough to know what is usual.)
The guy I live with would agree, though people do use “drought” just to mean “dry”. Like they use “xeric” for almost anything other than what it really means (a dry habitat, not a garden or a plant).
But it’s probably pointless to argue, and the meanings of words do change through usage.
Is that why so few or your species communicate with the sorts of words that my species uses?
Could be.
Wee goin back innto *HOT* Heet bye Fursday here!! CATISH! Mee likess it without all THE *HOT* an hue-midity…..Dubbell Catfish rite Mani?
It’s raining here. Not a lot, but at least it’s raining. (Not enough to soak into the ground.) The guy I live with said it was going to get hotter later this week.
CATFISH ’bout THE heet Mani!! Iss all reddy heetin up here today…apposta bee a mew heetwave all thru til next week…**sighss** .
Stay kewl mee frendss, stay kewl….
Hot here, today, and smoky. Pretty icky.
CATFSIH!!! Wee sorry it so icky ucky there Mani! **sighss**
Wee have had hazey smoke again an LadyMew coff-inn an chokin when wee sit out! **sighss**
It’s definitely unpleasant.
The guy I live with just got stung again. He’s really angry.
Oh NOSE not another sting fore Guy??? Mee sendss POTP to him Mani!
This has bin a ruff yeer fore efurryone!!! CATFISH!
Hot and smokey here so would love some rain. I agree with the guy you live with as better for root balls to be in the ground then cooking above. I use survey flags and have spikes that stick in the ground with a pop bottle on top. This way every time I pass I give them a drink which goes directly to the root zone. Be nice to the owls Mani.
It’s raining here. There are still dry spots on the patio, so it’s not like pouring or anything.
The guy I live with uses little cloth flags, and sometimes plastic ones that say “Buried Gas” on them. I think those came from when the front yard was dug up.
All the bulbs were planted today, in between blasts of perfume from next door. The guy I live with was pretty angry all day, because of the perfume. He had some breathing problems, too. It’s very strong perfume. But he has masks, which sort of help. (I’ve noticed humans wearing them, sometimes.)
Quite a bit of work got done today, which surprised me.
Wow, you got Erythroniums already?? I wasn’t expecting mine until next month, but then they are coming from Brent & Becky’s, not Illahe. Oh, and I hate perfume-people too, although in fairness I have to also say that it’s not always a woman who is the culprit. Some guys seem to like to use a half can of Axe Body Spray every day. Yuck!
There are some Pagodas coming from Brent and Becky’s, I think (or Van Engelens; they’re cheaoer, but you have to buy a lot). The Pagodas are for his friend, since there are already some here. (As well as Kondo, and maybe White Beauty too, and some E. oreganum as well.)
Illahe is a little nursery; you subscribe to their mailing list. It started out as a surplus bulbs thing.
The specialist nurseries in the Baltic states used to send bulbs out at this time of year, too.
He also planted some hybrids from Collector’s Nursery, years ago, but in a sport where it turned out his neighbor had thrown some weird chemicals; the bulbs never thrived, and eventually disappeared.
The perfume is something else. The guy I live with isn’t allergic, at all, but this stuff is so strong he can’t breathe. You can smell it down the street. (This just started a couple of years ago and has been going on almost every day since.)
Yes, that’s what I have on order too: 15 of the Pagoda. Now of course I have planted up that area over the last few months and am now wondering how the heck I will manage to fit those Pagodas in! Some will need to go somewhere else. This will be my first experience with erythroniums. Also with cyclamen which are also coming from B&B’s.
Well, the erythroniums do disappear during the summer. And they will endure considerable drought.
If you’ve never seen the bulbs before, the guy I live with says they do look like a dog’s tooth (I’ve never really looked at mine). There’s a top and bottom; the bottom end is somewhat rounder. The roots usually grow out of the sides of the bulbs, which should be planted a few inches deep. The bulbs are kind of delicate, though.
‘Pagoda’ is really easy to grow; so are ‘White Beauty’ and ‘Kondo’.
Same with cyclamen; the bottom end is round. Depending on the species, sometimes the roots emerge from close to the top of the tuber.