Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to help you catch up on everything that’s been going on here. You may remember me from such posts as “Some Light, Some Dark”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. I’m patrolling the garden and you can barely see the tip of my magnificent tail.
As you can see, the flagstone is damp, but before going into that, I want to show some pictures taken over the last few days, just because.
This is a picture of the sky, taken a couple of days ago, with the Russian hawthorn (Crataegus ambigua).
This is the only hawthorn that doesn’t get rust in our garden, if you needed to know that.
The canal, on our walk. Those are chokecherries, with maybe Rosa arkansana on the opposite bank.
It won’t be long before the water in the canal stops flowing, because it’s getting colder.
I think on the same walk, but going the other way, the guy I live with said I missed something which he thought I would find interesting. I certainly would have, and wish he’d pointed it out, but he didn’t. You might have to embiggen this picture to see it.
Yesterday, they were talking about snow for today, so the guy I live with took some pictures of the crocuses here. The guy I live with had just gotten his Covid bivalent shot and was feeling pretty crummy, but managed to do at least this.
And it did snow. It snowed for most of the day today.
The guy I live with was pretty happy about this, and relieved too. He said it could have snowed even more. It was kind of snow mixed with rain, or rain mixed with snow.
It definitely smelled interesting outside.
It is supposed to freeze tonight; the guy I live with says that’s perfectly fine. This has been a bit of an exhausting gardening year for him.
This will be the last night for Salvia darcyi. (I know these aren’t all that in focus.)
And probably for Salvia greggii too.
On the other hand, the first snowdrops are appearing, though the flowers are being gnawed on by grasshoppers.
This is Galanthus peshmenii:
They’re in a pot plunged into the soil so that the bulbs can be more easily retrieved, for sharing with the botanic gardens.
Well, that’s it. It snowed, everything is damp and chilly, which feels delightful if totally unusual, and it smells nice outside, for once.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me doing a very important thing: barking at a hawk.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Does the guy you live with grow Salvia thymoides? I have seen it in nurseries, but it looks just like Salvia greggii to me, and I believe that it is. When I look it up online, it has only blue bloom and tiny glaucous leaves, so looks nothing like Salvia greggii. Am I missing something, or do some Salvia thymoides look like Salvia greggii?
No; the guy I live with says that wouldnt be hardy here.
Oh, of course, I should have remembered that.
Beautiful – and nice to see moisture!
Thanks; it is a relief, for sure.
There’s a change in the weather – and was that a cat in your property!!! That Russian hawthorn is very attractive at the moment and I note your comment on rust – several hawthorns here have had rust over past years. I have chokeberries here, grown from seed sent from a friend in the U.S. years ago. It is inclined to spread along more that I would wish. Good to see the snowdrops up – G. peshemnii is one I have never grown but I have some cultivars of G. reginae olgae in flower and G. elwesii ‘Barnes’ is in flower also.
Well, the cat wasn’t on our property, but out in the field to the north of us.
Yes, chokecherries spread all over the place here, because of birds.
The guy I live with says we have reginae-olgae and ‘Barnes’ here, but they come up later because it needs to rain or snow more and the soil needs to get cooler, or something like that.
He also says that G. peshmenii and G. bursanus, which is also up here, don’t seem to be so dependent on rainfall to emerge at this time of year, which is fortunate for us.
It’s funny, but not in a ha-ha sort of way, that a friend here just mentioned the average precipitation for October. That amount has been steadily decreasing so maybe averages that factor in the last century are no longer valid.
Yeah for moisture. May there be lots more of it. We went from shorts-and-a t-shirt weather to a foot of snow the next day. Lots of tree and shrub damage as things are late to go dormant. I rescued several Salvia guaranitica cultivars and potted them up to overwinter in the garage. They were absolutely huge this year. Do greggii and darcyi overwinter inground for you? Hope the guy you live with is feeling better. Time for lots of napping by the fire.
The guy I live with sais he wouldn’t have minded getting that much snow even though there would have been lots of damage, because we need water in the soil here.
He does feel better; thanks.
Both Salvia darcyi and greggii are completely hardy here. They need a lot of water their first year. Darcyi needs water anyway, otherwise it wilts away to nothing in a drought. Greggii won’t flower in autumn with rain or watering, but it seeds around here.
He started out with ‘Furman’s Red’ and ‘Wild Thing’, which are supposedly the hardiest, but they don’t come from very cold places, so that’s a little difficult to believe, but they’re easy to find in nurseries.
Yes the soil has enough moisture in it that I was able to plant garlic. Lots of bulbs still to go in before our next storm next week. Hoping for a nice thick blanket then. Will have to try S. darcyii. It won’t be hardy outside but overwinter in a garage like the others do. Love the red flowers.
Parts of the field have soil so hard, thanks to so many trucks driving over them in the last few months, that the snow and rain didn’t even penetrate more than a millimeter, if that.
The guy I live with says that Salvia darcyi goes completely deciduous, not even tiny overwintering leaves at the base, so it maybe could be grown in gardens colder than here.
It didn’t freeze after all. It might tonight, though. Then maybe a chance of rain later next week.
Interesting about darcyii, will give it a try. It’s so hard to soften the ground after it’s been driven over so often. More snow predicted Monday so bulbs still to go in and pots to clean out. Enjoy your walks Mani. Keep your eyes open for surprises too.
The guy I live with says Salvia darcyi needs a lot of water to get going, and isn’t really all that drought-tolerant after it’s established. It was originally found near Galeana in Nuevo León, and if you look up the climate data on Wikipedia you see that they get a great deal of rain (compared to here) in the summer. Dry in winter.
By the way, the email notification for your comment just arrived in the mailbox last night. The guy I live with’s email has been completely messed up for a while now.
We’re with your man about frost ending most blooming stuff in our NW Denver garden and our Mum didn’t even cover the tomato plant that still has jillions of cherry tomatoes on it. She said she’s just over it. Sure, she says that now but will rue the day in a couple of weeks when she has no tomatoes to snack on. Have a great weekend (and I hope your man feels better after the latest vaccine-our Mum has to get hers soon but has been too busy lately-at least she got the flu shot).
Your fur-iends,
Norman & Elsa 🐾
Thanks; it took him a day and a half to feel better, but it wasn’t as bad as the second shingles shot.
Our neighbors picked all their tomatoes and the plants look really sad now, but their pepper plants look fine, mostly.
We don’t grow any vegetables except Egyptian onions, and those are just because he felt like growing them.
What loveley fotoss Mani! Yore treess an bushess due look Autummy! An lookit THE snow! It iss purrty….
Was that a Fox you saw on your walkiess?? Peek-a-boo!
Yore salvia flowerss are purrty. An it was a ruff ggardenin seeson fore Guy….wee are sorry thingss were so cray-cray….
That iss sum HAWK up inn THE tree…..you did a rate job Mani letting HAWK know who iss boss…. 😉
***nose rubss*** BellaDharma an (((hugss))) BellaSita Mum
Thanks; no, it was a kitty. It shouldn’t have been out there at all.
The snow is all melted and things are kind of back to normal.
Guud reef wee REELLY thott it was a Grey Fox Mani! Mew mew mew….
Glad thingss are back to ‘normal’ 😉
Just to let you an Guy know “Tails Around The Ranch” are purrrsonal frendss of ourss an live inn yore State. Guy an Mani pleese meet Miss Monika an Sweet (stormin) Norman an Elsa Poochies ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
Oh, well, thanks.
No, we don’t have gray foxes here. The guy I live with says we have the red kind, but I’ve never seen one.
Wee not have Gray Foxess here eether Mani…my bad as mee thott wee did…
wee two have Red foxess,,,,
Mee used to see them up on meen streetss of Wireton butt mee nto seen one since mee came to BellaSita’ss….iss inn town…. 😉
The guy I live with said if we had foxes here we might have fewer mice.
(I get in trouble when I try to catch them.)
Great photo of Mani barking at a hawk! And all the other photos. Stay warm out there.
Thanks. I’m pretty tough when it comes to hawks.