Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you the one thousandth post on this blog.
You may remember me from such non-thousandth posts as “Mice In The Rice”, among so many, many others. (Obviously.)
Here I am in a characteristically horticulture pose. I’m supervising, of course.
I think the trash can adds a certain something, don’t you?
Uncharacteristically, some work is being done here. I know that’s hard to believe.
A few plants have been planted, but not many. A lot of them had rootballs so packed with roots that the guy I live with used the Super-Genius™ method of getting them to root. Namely, you repot in a larger pot, surround the root ball with sand, and then water for a couple of weeks, and, usually (but not always), roots will leaves the root ball to get water.
Tightly-packed roots can only get so much water, so this helps the plants establish in a dry garden much more quickly.
The other work that’s being done is on the lilacs. The guy I live with is no longer happy with the big green hedge of lilacs that rarely flower here, and just sit there being green all summer, so the first thing that’s being done is removal of the older, larger stems, of which there are a lot, because the lilacs have been neglected for such a long time.
The guy I live with’s wife used to do this. I wasn’t here at the time, so it’s a little hard for me to understand how much he misses her, and her help in the garden. Tomorrow would have been her sixty-fourth birthday.
I guess she would work on the lilacs for about a week. She was much more of a perfectionist than someone I know is.
Maybe you can’t see the gap in the lilacs here, but it’s definitely there.
That’s Solidago ‘Wichita Mountains’ in flower. The guy I live with thinks this is just a form of the variable Solidago speciosa, but since he doesn’t know one goldenrod from another, this name is fine. It comes from the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma. Bees love it.
You can see here that the Acer grandidentatum is turning color. Not as spectacularly as in some years.
And you can see the wall of green lilacs, which the guy I live with says looks weird. Partly because of the abrupt transition from the dry border to all-of-a-sudden green lilac leaves.
And you can also see the gap, right over the sagebrush.
There are some crocuses in flower. The guy I live with has been watering, a little. These are Crocus kotschyanus.
And this one, which is called Crocus goulimyi ‘Mani White’. I was very disappointed to learn that it was named for the Mani Peninsula in Greece, and not for me.
This is growing in a pot because someone forgot to plant it in the garden earlier this year. It will go back into the bulb frame pretty soon, to spend the winter there, and then get planted in the garden next year.
Speaking of spending the winter here, the guy I live with turned off the faucet last night and heard some rustling among the dry grapevine leaves clustered by concrete downsplash block.
This afternoon he went to turn on the faucet again and noticed he was being watched.
It is almost that time of year, after all, when spooky things happen, and you have the feeling that something is watching you.
It kind of gives me the creeps, though.
I guess the bullsnake–the very large bullsnake–will be spending the winter with us. There must be a huge burrow under the downsplash block. There’s a hole there, and the guy I live with said he’s often thought about filling it, but reconsidered because he also thought someone might be using it. And someone is.
We’re used to seeing burrows in the garden, since we sort of live out in the country.
That’s all I have for today. I know it’s hard to believe that there are actually a thousand posts on this blog, but there are.
The guy I live with posted a picture of me walking among fallen apples, on Facebook, but I’ll leave you with another, much more atmospheric one taken this evening.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Congratulations on a thousand posts. Most impressive. When I think about it, a thousand posts are also a record of something around changing faster and faster these days.
My husband gardens with a trash barrel too. Occasionally I trail him and throw leavings behind, he being a very messy gardener. If you think I’ve refrained from mentioning to him the messiness, you’d be wrong. Anyway, it seems both our gardeners require supervision.
I continue to believe, dear dog, that Mani White IS named for you and I will never believe otherwise.
The photo of you walking amidst fallen apples is charming and just a bit melancholy in all the right proportions. Good show. Good show in the garden too.
Thanks. The mood around here is fairly melancholy, for sure, partly because of tomorrow, and partly because it’s so, so dry here. But the crocuses cheer up the guy I live with.
(In Graham Stuart Thomas’s Cuttings from my Garden Notebook, there’s a chapter on A.T. Johnson–Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue–and his wife, where he says “they worked in close harmony together”, which I guess is how it was here.) He’s been looking for someone to help in the garden, but to no avail, so far.
It might be true that the crocus is really named for me. It ought to be, huh?
The guy I live with is kind of a messy gardener, too, though he can also be almost as fastidious as I am. (He says I wash myself like a cat does, which is kind of gross to think about.)
I guess there are some things, weeds mostly, that shouldn’t be composted. We do have two compost bins, but it takes forever to make compost in this climate, and we don’t really have much use for it, because it disappears within a year when dug into the soil. (His neighbors–his nice neighbors–have a vegetable garden, though, and they could use it.)
Gee, a thousand posts! Can you imagine how much barbed wire fence you could make with that?! Rhody likes to . . . ‘mark’ posts. I think it is a dog thing; but for ‘common’ dogs like terrier mixes, rather than pure bred border collies. I am sure you know nothing about that tradition.
I like to mark stuff, for sure, but I’ve never seen barbed wire. I know the guy I live with has gotten caught on it many times, when he worked outside.
That is one of the scary qualities of barbed wire. It is thin and wiry and easy to ignore, but is also something that you do not want to run into because you did not notice it.
The guy I live with told me that he ripped “many a shirt” trying to get over or through barbed wire.
I hear there’s a barbed wire museum in Kansas, which I guess is way out east from here.
It is sort of way out East, but Kansas is right next door to Colorado. That is where Toto, the cairn terrier is from.
The guy I live with says the state line is 185 miles east of here. A long, mostly flat drive.
That is if you drive. Do you drive? Anyway, it is more direct if you get there like Toto left.
I don’t drive at all. The guy I live with hardly ever does, either. To the store and stuff.
Perhaps you should try it.
Mani – I loved the Super-Genius method with rootbound plants, I must try that i I leave any plants in pots for too long
It works pretty well. Better than “feathering” roots before planting, or even washing off all the soil-less mix and planting bare-root.
Doesn’t work with all plants, though. And the guy I live with says he’s running out of sand. There’s a lot in the creek, but it might have weird chemicals in it.
Perhaps the peninsula in Greece is named for you? Thus the crocus would be a second generation namesake?
ceci
That must be it. I’ve never been to Greece, though.
“The guy I live with is no longer happy with the big green hedge of lilacs that rarely flower here, and just sit there being green all summer,” I gather that powdery mildew is not a lilac problem in your climate.
There was a Chinese lilac here that got it, but the vulgaris-types don’t.
Oh nsoe that Bull Snake deecided to live inn yore downspout??? **shuddurss**
Guy you did a grate job thinning out yore Lilac Bushess!! Our leevess are changin here butt they are not as vibrant as they have been. When BellaSita went to Meaford fore THE Loveseat shee said THE leevess are speck-taculur there! Yore flowerss are lovelee purr usual….
Concatulationss of yore 1,000 post!! That sure iss ALOT of postss!!! Well dun 🙂
**nose bumpss** BellaDharma an ((huggiess)) BellaSita
Pee S: Wee are sorry ’bout yore wife Guy…shee wuud bee a yeer younger than mee BellaSita…..wee wish shee was still with you ❤
Thanks. He misses her every day.
it is a lot of posts. We don’t have too many trees that turn red in the autumn, except ones that have been imported from other places, but autumn is still nice here. The guy I live with says it’s probably nice everywhere in the northern hemisphere.
He’s still not done with the lilacs.
BellaSita sayss shee understandss…shee misses her hubby efurry day an reecently shee iss missin her ex-fiance. Hee iss alive butt not with her an shee missess how he used to take care of her when she was unwell.
Wee are lucky to have 4 seesonss Mani…all tho sum tiemss they sorta blur innto each other don’t they?
Go Guy go on those Lilacss 😉
The seasons do often blur together.
It’s fairly breezy right now, which is yet another unusual thing.
Iss furry windy here today (Sunday) an furry sunny an warm…like Collyrado warm?!?! So furry weerd Mani! Butt nice 😉
It’s breezy here, for once, but chilly. 16C at 6:40 p.m.
It’s supposed to go below freezing here this week. We rarely have frost (the air is too dry); it just gets cold.
Mee-yow wow 16 Cellseeus iss nice temp here…today (Monday) it was 25 Cellseeus!!!Purrty windy too. Wee not sure if this iss Indian Summer or a fluke….butt wee like it lotss!
An frost?? Iss too early fore frost rite Mani?
It’s not too early, though we won’t have frost unless it rains. It rained a little today.
It’s 7C right now. Pretty chilly. I like it.
Congratulations, Mani, on nursing him along to the 1,000th post. That was quite an achievement. You must continue to motivate him now to remove those lilacs – a plant I despise! Stay away from that snake. I feel that I’m reasonably safe at the other side of the Atlantic but the thought of it makes me a little nervous.
Thanks. It took narration by purebred border collies, first Chess and then me, to make the blog interesting.
The lilacs came from a nursery across the highway, probably 35 years ago. They cost $6.25 (US) each. Since then they’ve flowered maybe ten times. Constantly nipped in the bud, except for ‘Annabel’, which flowers a little earlier.
Since they’re only interesting for about ten days, there isn’t much point to them.
The guy I live with says the snake will be sleeping there all winter. I’m going to try not to think about it much.
Congratulations on 1,000! Biscuit is telling me that he should take over here as well and maybe there will be half a chance my blog gets that far… and has a more robust following…
I’m also eyeing the lilacs here. Borers, mildew, awkwardness, all don’t really make me very passionate about letting them stay as is.
Well, having a dog do the narration certainly helps with human ego suppression, though we do have a tendency not to appreciate the things that gardeners insist are important.
You would not believe all the branches here. Piles everywhere.
The guy I live with first thought of having them chipped up, for mulch, but then he realized that was only a reaction from reading too many gardening books written in places where it rains.
If he spread wood chips on the garden, no rain would ever penetrate into the soil. And there’s no sense in waiting until the soil in the garden beds is damp, because that only happens in early spring.
So he’s going to have them hauled away. The hauling company says they give the branches to nurseries for grinding up. For the pointless mulch.
Yes, handing the reigns over to biscuit might be an improvement, and I’m 90% sure he wouldn’t babble on about the same caladiums and colchicum every week. Unfortunately he also doesn’t have the patience to even consider sitting at the keyboard so maybe in another year his puppiness will temper and we can have the talk.
Even here a canopy of red maples and a layer of mulch can keep the soil dry in spite of over a foot of rain in two months. Nothing wrong with sending them away, let others enjoy the pointless mulch.
I think it makes the blog much more interesting, because then the guy I live with can’t go on and on about things he finds annoying about gardens and garden trends and supposedly drought-tolerant plants and stuff like that. Mostly because he isn’t interested in any of that but if this were just a gardening blog he might have to talk about it a lot.
(You may notice that we purebred border collies know to use the subjunctive with a contrary-to-fact clause. That helps with the blog, too.)
It’s unbelievably dry here, and breezy (which is weird); mulch would just dry up and blow away.
Congratulations on your 1000th post. A huge achievement. Mani, you look pretty awesome posing in all those posts.
Thanks. I agree that I look awesome.
The guy Ilive with says that’s immodest, but I still like to say things like that.