Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you as up to date as is caninely possible on all the thrilling changes here. You may remember me from such thrilling posts as “Helping In The Garden”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. I’m in my Surveying Mode.
You may notice a whole lot less ice, though there’s a bit by the round pot on my left. It’s 59 degrees Fahrenheit (15C), and the humidity is a whopping 12 percent.
It might rain tomorrow, or we might get a check for several million dollars in the mail. One is just as possible as the other.
And then it’s supposed to snow on Thursday. The guy I live with is fine with that. The more water for the garden, the better.
The guy I live with has been “bingeing” on “Midsomer Murders” again, instead of gardening (though he didn’t watch the episode with his book in it), because he says it’s nice to have human voices in the house, even if some of those voices belong to people who don’t make it through to the end of the episode.
In the meantime, I like to lie in the sun, in my favorite lying-in-the-sun place.
It’s an empty area of the garden that will aways remain empty, just because. Though right behind me is a little raised bed with some of the “bulk” snowdrops.
They’ll probably be transplanted in a few weeks.
I think you can see them here, though since this is a particularly sunny part of the yard they may be hard to see. Some of these didn’t make it to the end of the episode, either, but the guy I live with is pretty pleased with the success rate. (There are others elsewhere in the garden.)
They won’t be very happy here in the summer. Like most other things people go on about, snowdrops really don’t need the exact same conditions they find in the wild, but this little area will get really hot in the summer, and is difficult to water.
Since this has been a very long winter for us, a lot of the snowdrops here are late, but the guy I live with did say that there have been snowdrops in flower here for six months now. Well, on and off, because of all the snow.
This is Galanthus plicatus subsp. byzantinus, which we’d expect to flower here at the end of January, but the guy I live with didn’t think the soil would freeze where it was planted. (If someone had told him, years ago, that the soil would be frozen here for months on end, he would have thought them a lunatic, but here we are.)
This is going to be transplanted to a place where it’s sunnier in the winter.
The guy I live with found a clump of “regular” Galanthus plicatus in the shade garden. He doesn’t remember planting a bulb in this spot, but, whatever.
This may have been the first winter ever that the soil froze in the shade garden, but it did rain quite a bit, last December, before it got cold.
The soil is nice leafy soil, with well over thirty years’ worth of leaves falling on it.
There are some named snowdrops in the shade garden, too.
This is ‘Lapwing’.
This is ‘Mrs. Backhouse No.12’.
This is ‘Warei’, an old variety, named back when fake Latin names were acceptable for cultivar names.
The guy I live with says that the “escaped” snowdrops are more interesting, maybe because they don’t want to live in the shade garden.
(That cage is for a little oak grown from acorns collected by the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, New Mexico; rabbits ate it halfway down to the ground a couple of winters ago.)
There are other things in flower, too, like crocuses.
Some Cyclamen coum under the park bench. These were self-sown, too, like the snowdrops. We’re nice to our ants here.
An early Iris reticulata.
The striped thing is Crocus stridii.
And Colchicum bulbocodium. It used to be called Bulbocodium vernum until botanists decided it was a colchicum.
Well, so, not only is it supposed to snow in a couple of days, it’s also going to get cold, and the guy I live with is irked that some bulbs are emerging “too early”, but he said they’ll probably be okay. If not, they can be covered with pine needles, of which we have a lot.
That’s my report for today. I hope you found it at least slightly interesting. We’re almost done talking about snowdrops, too.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me in another of my favorite places.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Gee, your weather is better than ours is! That does not seem right. It is almost as warm here though, and will finally be nice for the next few days. The rain just stopped, although some areas are still evacuated, and the creek is only beginning to go down. Anyway, what will you do when the several million dollars arrives?
The guy I live with said it’s going to be almost 70 here tomorrow. And then snow the next day.
He also said when we get our millions he’d probably look for an older house in a neighborhood with a park close by, and lots of restaurants to walk to.
Or just stay here.
It will be warmer there than here tomorrow.
An older home would be excellent, but different from home. Besides, if you wanted to live in it, you would not be able to live at home also. Maybe you could send the guy you live with to live in an older home so that you would not need to share your home with him. But, of course, canine people enjoy sharing. You know, one of the guys on Rhody’s crew does those ‘scratcher’ . . . . thingies. It is like gambling or something. I know that he must win millions of dollars also. He can afford to buy anything that Rhody wants. That is why there is always a bag of treats for Rhody in his desk.
There is that. We like our house, and all the places to go for walks.
But the smell from next door, which we’ve avoided talking about because it adds an unpleasant theme to the blog, is absolutely intolerable.
And there aren’t any places to walk to, like restaurants.
It’s going to be 70 here today, with a 70 percent chance of rain this evening. That would be nice.
Oh, I did not consider the unpleasant aroma. It would be worse if human people could smell as much as canine people smell.
We canines can smell thousands of smells, and different ones out of each nostril. Talk about advanced.
Yes, Rhody regularly reminds me of the vastly superior sensory perception of canine people. (I sometimes remind him that he relies on the services of human people for such simple tasks as turning doorknobs.)
The guy I live with said that the first purebred border collie who lived here could turn doorknobs, so he was really advanced.
When the several million dollars arrive, you might consider purchasing a home in another town for the neighbors.
There’s an idea.
We reckon that Midsomer must be the most dangerous place to live in England as there are so many murders there. So much for the chocolate-box English village! Repeats begin at 3.35 each afternoon and there is one fan here, not me! By way of weather contrast: we have heavy rain this morning with warnings of particularly heavy rain later in the afternoon with risk of local flooding. No gardening today – and a grandchild to be minded as he is too sick for school.
The guy I live with was alerted to the existence of this series by someone who noticed that the penstemon book was featured, very briefly, in the episode called “The Garden of Death”.
There’s a fan wiki site that shows the body count for each episode. Lol.
But mostly it’s on just for the human voices.
“Heavy rain” sounds like an alien concept, though it used to rain heavily here from time to time. There are even rain videos posted on the blog.
Hope the kid gets better soon; the guy I live with was sick a lot when he was little, like I guess most kids are.
There will be further care tomorrow!
Good. First thing that popped into the guy I live with’s mind was Stevenson’s poem “The Land of Counterpane”.
“But the smell from next door, which we’ve avoided talking about because it adds an unpleasant theme to the blog, is absolutely intolerable.”
You like Indian food. Fire up the outdoor grill and waft a hearty curry/masala odor on over to the offending laundry. Perhaps they will get the hint.
Unfortunately, the wind comes from the north or west; rarely from the south. So anything from here would be blown southward. It’s partly just because that’s the way the wind blows, and partly because of the way things circulate in the air, just south of the canal levee.
The guy I live with wonders if his neighbor has any sense of smell at all.
Today it’s been snowing off and on here in NW Denver but is expected to stop in the next hour. At least it’s not accumulating on the sidewalks. I’m so over shoveling, but am enjoying seeing the wet white stuff even on the naturalizing baby blue hyacinths that I noticed yesterday when it was in the 70’sF. They reinforce the fact that Sprung is indeed on its way, finally after a long, dreary winter. Love seeing your snowdrops, Mani…they are just lovely.
Thanks.
We got about an inch of snow, or less, but it’s mostly gone now. Flakes falling slowly from the sky almost all day long. Unfortunately tonight and tomorrow night are going to be cold.
But the rain last night was really nice.
I’ll still take it even though I know the moisture will likely only help the weeds that are beginning to pop up.
The forecast for this week looks mildly promising.
So many snowdropss Mani!!! An so many kindss……
Wee are purrty sure wee have ‘regulur’ Snowdropss heer. They have sprouted up an today sorta looked like they wuud open. An then tempyture dropped like a stone an they all skinny an closed.
Last nite it rained an a bit this mornin. An now wee are xpectin sum more snow…..
Liek you xpectina cheque inn THE mail, mew mew mew…..
BellaSita’ss fave flower iss THE IRIS……shee ADOORSS them so much!
Stripey Crocus iss furry kewl lookin two!
An Mani yore lookin mitey hansum inn yore fotoss…..
Wishin you an Guy an lovelee weekend…
***nose bopss*** BellaDharma an {{hugss}} BellaSita Mum
Thanks, same to you. The say maybe some rain later this week, but if anything falls, it’ll probably be snow.
The guy I live with says there’s nothing wrong with “regular” snowdrops, and they’re just as good if not better than the fancy varieties.
Still waiting for my snowdrops to do more than get reburied in snow. I can understand your guy’s appreciation of Midsommer Murders. Once you’ve watched an episode you’re pretty much hooked forever. I never tire of them.
The guy I live with says snow at this time of year is tiresome, but he’s resigned to it.
His penstemon book is featured in “The Garden of Death” at about 22:12 in the episode. He’d never heard of the series until someone brought it to his attention.
Now the series is on most days, though he doesn’t sit here watching it all the time.