Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here today to talk about garden help. You may remember me from such posts as “Help Wanted”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
Look at those grassy things on this side of the pots. I’ll tell you what they are in a minute.
Today I’d like to talk about garden help, and why the guy I live with is going to eschew help, even though he’s old and creaky.
This was prompted by the picture of the seedlings of Eremurus spectabilis.
Maybe I’ve shown a picture of the little garden the guy I live with planted across the street.
A week or so ago people came in and cut everything practically to the ground. This is the second time this has happened. The first time, all the native grasses the guy I live with bought and planted there were killed outright.
And a bunch of plants he had just planted there were pulled up and thrown away.
He doesn’t really care about this, but it illustrates the point.
Sometimes the guy I live with says he wished he had some help in the garden. His wife was a huge help and loved to weed, but she’s been gone for a very long time now.
People sometimes say he should hire a teenager.
There’s not a chance of that, and I’ll show you why.
Those grassy things. They may look like weeds, but they’re not.
These are Allium jesdianum ‘Per Wendelbo’, first collected by the Norwegian botanist Wendelbo in Afghanistan in the 1960s. Like anyone would go there now to collect more seeds.
Also in the picture are seedlings of Ixiolirion tataricum. Here are more.
And then there are these:
The plants with the broad leaves are Allium cristophii, which the guy I live with doesn’t want in the garden any more, because it seeds around excessively, but what would almost certainly also get pulled up by a helper are the seedlings of Eremurus fuscus (the more narrow upright leaves).
If those got pulled up, he would be steamed, to say the least.
This is a banner year for eremurus seedlings.
These aren’t seedlings, but would be sure to be pulled up.
These are Calochortus venustus. (And a dandelion.)
And finally, these are seedlings of Fritillaria pallidiflora.
I should say that the guy I live with has accidentally pulled up more than a few plants he didn’t want pulled up (not to mention sliced through bulbs with his trowel), but if he’s so familiar with the plants in the garden, imagine the destruction visited on it by someone who didn’t recognize plants out of flower, or what fritillaria seedlings look like.
So that’s why he does everything by himself, and why the garden can look less than tidy. His help is long gone. Sixteen years next month.
I’ll end this post with a weather note.
As we were about to turn around and head home on my evening walk, I saw lightning and then heard thunder, so I walked as fast as I could to get home. The guy I live with said I was walking way too fast, but we made it home just in time for house-shaking thunder, some rain, and hail.
Just little stuff.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me safe in my Upstairs Fort, and very much relieved that the guy I live with came to his senses about hiring some help.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Seems to me, Mani, that your garden is a seed bank of valuable species (the Afghanistan allium example is something else) and only knowledgeable humans should be removing plants.
It’s a real shame the garden across the street got scalped.
The guy I live with is inured to having gardens he planted get destroyed. There’s another one in this neighborhood that he spend a lot of time and money on, and it’s almost all gone now.
I think he’s learned his lesson.
He also says that non-gardeners seem to think that hacking away at trees and shrubs is what you’re supposed to do.
Sheesh…people can’t pick up their dog’s poop but will wily-nily mow what they perceive as weeds? What is this world coming to? Stay safe, Mani. NW Denver had lots of lightning last night and rain mixed with tiny balls of snow. Weird weather for April. Just giver us a nice spring snow storm, Mother Nature, ok?
We had some rain, some snow when the sun was shining, some graupel, but not as much rain as the guy I live with would have liked, even though he says our part of the Frotn Range is the most soaked. (Like the area of W-470 from where it intersects with I-70 south to where W-470 turns east, but not much farther east than Kipling. A foot of snow in November, five hours of rain the day after Christmas, etc.)
When the guy I live with lived in a townhouse years ago people would come by and hack the forsythias back to the ground every year, and so the forsythias never flowered. It seemed really pointless to him.
Oh, I TOTALLY get it! At work a bunch of people who work inside their pretty offices, and only interact with the landscapes as the walk to their offices from where they park their cars, volunteered to help in the landscapes while I was away on vacation. They thought that the landscapes were getting a bit too shabby. Well of course they were; because we can not hire enough gardeners. Anyway, someone got a hold of a weed whacker and whacked out a hedge of Viburnum tinus that I had just installed. What is worse is that, after I replaced the hedge a second time, someone also cut it down the following year. Similarly, several relocated deodar cedars were weed whacked on at least two separate occasions by the guy who is supposed to whack ‘weeds’ where they were.
It’s very sad, and just plain dumb.
We have to look at limbed-up blue spruces next door, and this hideous honey locust that’s just a leafless stick forty feet high.
A maintenance company limbed-up a nice oak in the industrial park, and a blue spruce, too. They’re now ugly to look at.
Graham Stuart Thomas said shrubs rarely need pruning, but people do it anyway, for some unknown reason.
Apple trees are hideous after I prune them, but I do it for a reason; and I know what I am doing! The problems that I see happen just because the wrong people got a hold of power tools.
The guy I live with says apple trees should be pruned, though he doesn’t do anything to the apple tree here.
There’s no point because squirrels bite into every single apple.
Mistur Guy it iss guud you are gonna hire sum help. So many fancy grassess youss’ have. You are an amazin Gardener Mistur Guy! BellaSita hired Mistur Billy to shovel snow this past Winter an it was a furry guud idea. Wee sorry yore Lady Wife iss gone 16 yeerss.
Mani wee keep havin Thunderstormss heer. Mee iss hidin out two. YIKES! Youss’ got Hail? Wee had icey snow today an now it iss rainin out! THE wather iss all over THE place! Bee safe deer frendss!
~~~head rubss~~~BellaDharma~~~ an ((hugss)) BellaSita Mum
Thanks. No, he’s not going to hire any help. It would probably be a disaster.
It’s supposed to snow here tomorrow and maybe Friday and Saturday, too. The guy I live with is okay with that. Free water.
**slapss paw to forehead** Mee meowed to BellaSita that Mistur Guy was NOT gonna hire help. Pleese xcuse her; shee iss reecourrin from 2 Seezuress…her compreehenshun iss not so guud!
Bring. On. THE. Snow.
That’s perfectly okay.
Sorry about the seizures. Both Slipper and Chess, purebred border collies who lived here before me, had them, but the guy I live with’s father had them, result of being wounded in action in Korea.
Mee-yow wee new Mistur Guy’ss PawPaw had Seezuress. Wee did not nose both Chess an Slipper Poochiess had them two!! Mistur Guy iss an xpert at deelin with them mee thinkss. Did youss’ get more snow or more rain?? Wee got more rain….UCKY!!!!!
It’s been snowing here all day; nothing really sticking. Typical spring snow.
The guy I live with said that Slipper only had seizures when he walked into the reception room at my doctor’s office, and never at any other time.
His first cousin Chess had two, and then went on phenobarbital (a drug the guy I live with had heard of all his life) and then zonisamide.
The guy I live with and his sister react to seizures a lot differently from most people, in the same way both of them react to disabled people. Just something different, no freaking out like a lot of people do, if you know what I mean.
Our snow has been like this two Mani! It fallss….it meltss….Wee have had ENUFF snow this past Winter a toetal of 10 feet! Wee due understand about not freekin out over Seezuress. An Diss-abled peepss. BellaSita was married to a Quadriplegic fore 13 yeerss. Shee met Mistur Paul 7 months aftur his accydent an fell in love…..so did hee….Alot of peepss (even furamillee) freeked out about Mistur Paul beein paralyzed. BellaSita was liek “REELLY?” Shee loved him fore who he was; not whether hee cuud walk or not! 😉
The guy I live with said people can behave very strangely around other people who have disabilities.
Though it can snow a lot here, more times than say Minneapolis, the snow doesn’t usually lie on the ground for long.
BellaSita agreess with Mistur Guy. Shee mewoed to mee shee has a Developmentally Challenged Cousin. Shee leerned that peeple can bee diffyrent an it iss OKay!
Let’s hope the snow is finished for awhile, Mani. It’s dawning bright and beautiful up here on Lookout. I’m tired of picking my handful of frozen daffodils and reviving them in a vase. Reminds me of Emmylou Harris’ song “Roses in the Snow”. But don’t let your guy listen to it – it’s too sad.
The guy I live with said nothing bad happened here with the snow, except that there’s mud again.
And now he wouldn’t mind some rain. I know why; to give him an excuse not to do any gardening and do more painting.
It is impossible to have somebody do your own garden; they simply wouldn’t know the plants, what you want/don’t want etc. Better to tip away at your own pace with peace of mind.
The guy I live with says that’s exactly right.
My very own husband, even though I take him by the hand to show him what is sacred and should not be removed, has “disappeared” plants, mostly by trompling. I don’t host any very rare plants, say those from Afghanistan. Dittany from Crete is finally surviving in a tucked-away spot his big feet haven’t yet found. This time. Are the gardens you’ve planted around the neighborhood guerilla gardens? Maybe the neighborhood could use more border collie managers. Good thing your garden, Mani, is well guarded because I want to see those plants in bloom.
The guy I live with’s wife pulled up Carlina acaulis because she thought it was a thistle. Well it is a thistle, but a good one.
No, the guy I live with offered to plant the gardens, pay for everything, and do the maintenance.
I guess he had good intentions, but doing that was a mistake.