Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to tell you what’s been going on here lately. You may remember me from such posts as “The Geese Police”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
If it looks damp, that’s because it is.
You may also notice that the two birch branches that hung over the flagstone (bent over by snow and never righted themselves) are gone. I’ll talk about that more, later.
Last week, on a pretty nice day, we went on a longer walk and I got to explore parts of the canal I’d never really looked at. You know how you walk by things and never really notice them, until one day you do, well, that’s what happened with me.
This was all very interesting to me.
You can see that the grass in the field is turning green. This is a cool-season grass so it turns green earlier than the warm-season grasses we have in our yard.
The fill dirt over the abandoned muskrat den, where the water was leaking into the sinkhole, looks like it needs some work. The water in the canal could start flowing any day now.
A sad thing happened last week; one of our neighbors died. I really liked him and he liked me, too.
The guy I live with spent quite a bit of time on the phone talking to his daughter, kind of guiding her through the various steps of what to do next, since he went through that a few years ago.
There are crocuses in flower. The guy I live with posted pictures of these on Facebook but I thought I would post them here, too.
Crocus korolkowii.
Crocus abantensis.
Crocus versicolor ‘Picturatus’.
There are “regular” crocuses (ones he didn’t buy from overseas) in flower too.
And Cyclamen coum is flowering all over the place.
There’s a weird-looking plant coming up. The guy I live with said it was a fritillaria.
So today the guy I live with decided to get rid of those two birch branches that hung over the flagstone. He got out his chainsaw, and was sawing (the chainsaw doesn’t make much noise), when all of a sudden the chain came off.
He spent some time looking at the instruction manual (I couldn’t believe he actually did that), and eventually got the chain back on. The chain tensioner had accidentally been turned the wrong way.
He got this chainsaw last year, or even the year before, on a whim, and then wondered if that had been a good idea, but he’s been using it a lot in the last year. It’s an Ego.
As I said, it hardly makes any noise at all; just kind of a whizzing sound.
Maybe the biggest deal, though, was this:
The guy I live with finally got some Datura wrightii seeds to germinate. He said there was so much conflicting information online on how to get the seeds to germinate that he just soaked them in water overnight (not that that’s necessary) and sowed them in pots and put them in a propagator.
If they live, these are going into the front garden.
And that’s our news, for now.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me on our damp walk this evening.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
All yore Crowcussess are beeuteefull Mani!!!! Wee have SnowDropss comin up! They lood like yoress’ inn THE Header. HURRAH Guy fore getting those Birchy branchess reemoved. THE yard lookss bettur fore sure!
Yore Cyclamenss’ are so lovelee two…..
Pawss crossed THE Datura wrightii thrivess an growss….. Mistur Guy you got a magick touch!!!
Mani you look wunderfull purr usual…
***nose rubss*** BellaDharma an 🙂 BellaSita Mum
Thanks. It’s snowing a little right now.
The guy I live with kept hitting his head on the branches which was one rason why they were removed.
They also looked weird.
Mew mew mew wee have to agree it lookss nicer now without branchess! Wee sorry Guy bonked himself with them! An wee wundered if youss’ wuud get more snow…. 😉
We have about 6 millimeters of snow. It will be gone tomorrow.
Mee-yow jsut a bit of snow….has it melted yet Mani?
Almost all of it, now.
HURRAH!!!!!
In my experience Datura wrightii is extremely easy to grow from seed. Indeed, here in the Alps, even with very harsh winters, it spreads on its own to the point of almost becoming a pest. Naturally the aerial part dies with frosts but in late spring the rhizome emits new shoots.
A single plant produces several flowers that open in the evening and fade the next day. Each flower fertilized, for example by bees, produces a capsule with hundreds of seeds which, having fallen to the ground, germinate spontaneously once the frosts have stopped. So I truly believe that your Datura will become a permanent fixture in your garden!
Thanks. The guy I live with says that the datura is native to the southwestern part of Colorado, but maybe the seeds he got in the past weren’t any good. That does happen.
He also says that Datura wrightii is often confused with D. innoxia, but that he thinks he has the right plant, since these seeds came from a nursery in New Mexico.
Datura wrightii seems to grow on its own once it is established in an area. Although individual specimens do not last long, and some may finish in only two years, they disperse plenty of seed to replace themselves. I never gave any consideration to how to grow it intentionally. I suppose doing so would be useful if one wants to grow them in specific spots, rather than allowing it to sow its own seed randomly. I do not know how, but some of their seed seems to get rather far from the original specimens that disperse it. I just got some seed last autumn from a roadside specimen that was many years old, and still growing quite well. I suspect that new growth replaced older growth from the roots, but I was not watching. Perhaps a new specimen grew up from below the original.
The guy I live with says Datura wrightii is a perennial, and native to Colorado. He’s tried this before but the plants usually have been D. meteloides or D. metel, which aren’t hardy here.
There are a whole bunch of plants growing by a fence on a hill just north of us, and the guy I live with always gets jealous when he sees them in flower, but it’s hard to tell whether or not these are the annual species or the perennial one.
Although perennial, Datura wrightii lives for only a few years in the climates here. Some do not live much more than two years. Of course, they replace themselves before dying off, and often replace themselves on the same spots. It is the only species that is native here and is perennial, while Datura stramonium is naturalized and is annual. The annual sort is smaller but stands upright, with unpleasantly prickly fruits. I do not know which species are native or naturalized there, but if they are the same as those here, they are somewhat easy to distinguish by their fruit. Also, the annual sorts produces small hard seeds that fall freely from the fruit, while the perennial sorts produce flat and rather fuzzy seeds that stick to the interior of their fruit.
The guy I live with says only wrightii is native here, in southwestern Colorado.
Yes, and also near the middle of the border with Utah, near the middle of the border with Wyoming and just east of the middle of Colorado, but those parts of its native range are a long way from your region.
Yes, a long way away.
I’m very sorry your friendly neighbor died. One of our friends died recently too and have had another family member in an out of the hospital. Makes it sort of hard to focus. Luckily, our cat Linnaeus has been very demanding about tummy rubs, which helps me to refocus on something else. That’s the same chainsaw we have. I love how quiet it is. Those crocus are beautiful, especially the C. korolkowii and C. abatensis. My exciting seeds, that I have yet to sow, will be Proboscidea parviflora and Ibicella lutea. I’m waiting maybe a month longer because it’s still cold and periodically snowy here.
The guy I live with said he’s happy I don’t try to attack the chainsaw. I try to attack the leafblower, which uses the same battery, but it’s a little noisier. Not a lot, though.
Our neighbor’s wife died last year, so things have been very different over there. Like there was an old van parked in front of the house, and then it got towed away.
I was used to seeing that van every day, and liked looking under it, in case there were bunnies, and then one day it wasn’t there any more.
It is nice how relatively quiet the leaf blower is compared to gas-powered ones. I really, really like that and wish more people would adopt them. The leaf blowers in the fall drive me to distraction.
I’ve been in a funk about deaths and health issues lately – it’s hard to acknowledge those losses – the undercurrent is always there. Others seem not to dwell on it as much or are better at covering it up. But, it does remind me why I need to spend more time with those who mean the most to me.
Yes, the guy I live with says those things can be hard for some people to deal with, and to others they seem like not a big deal at all, which is weird.
He also has an Ego weedeater, which isn’t very powerful but does a pretty good job. Not as good as the gas-operated Echo, but running that means a trip to the gas station.
No need for a lawnmower here because there’s so little grass.
Great job with the trimming those branches. I’m going to have to take a look at that chainsaw-hand sawing is getting to be too much. Even with today’s snow, there are clear signs that spring is planning on making an entrance soon in the metro area. Have a lovely weekend despite losing an hour for the whole DST…ugh-we hate it.
The guy I live with said he forgot about Daylight Savings Time. We prefer getting an extra hour of sleep.
The chainsaw is a 14-inch one; the smallest model, I think. Ace Hardware had it for sale along with the battery and maybe the charger. Otherwise the battery and charger by themselves are kind of pricey.
The guy I live with used to go to the hardware store with his wife, a lot, because she liked hardware stores; the store by us is very nice, he says.
I’ve never been.
He also has a Fanno tree saw which he claims is good exercise.
I like your cyclamens
Thanks.
Sorry to hear about your neighbours passing. Unfortunately, the cycle of life and death is continuous. The renewal of life is showing in all the blooms in your garden. We have just come off a cold snap and the snow is melting quickly so eager to see who will be popping up. Getting rid of those birch branches will prevent lots of head whacking. This is a task on my agenda today too.
I thought it was very strange when the van outside our neighbors’ house was towed away. I liked to look under it to see if there were bunnies hiding there.
The guy I live with said they were together for a long time, and now they’re both gone, within a year of each other.
It also looks weird not to see that birch branch hanging over the flagstone. When it snowed it would completely block the path straight out to the garden.