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 make a slight correction. You may remember me from such posts as “The Empire Of Light”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You see those gray plants just to the left of me? They’re in almost every picture of me when I’m standing here.
These:
The guy I live with said this may be the first time he’s seen evidence that these plants flower.
Not spectacular, I know, but the guy I live with said the color of the flowers, which he thought might be spent, go well with the silver foliage.
He also said someone told him this was Artemisia ludoviciana ‘Silver Frost’, but if you look up this name on the internet you’ll see pictures of very different plants with that name, and you also see this as ‘Silver Queen’, or ‘Silver King’, and of course if you look up ‘Silver King’ you’ll see the plant above, as well as what the guy I live with has in our garden as ‘Silver King’ and so, well, he said “Whatever”.
It’s an artemisia and it’s in flower. Or done flowering; it’s hard to tell.
The guy I live with did some research on the sternbergias here and realized that these bulbs had been planted in 2012 or 2013, to replace ones he accidentally dug up. So they haven’t been here for twenty-five years.
He said we needed to issue this slight correction.
There are some others in flower, too.
More crocuses are coming up.
Crocus speciosus is in flower here and there. These are self-sown.
I was helping the guy I live with with all of this; my help is very important to him. Here I am looking at a crocus. You can barely see the flower, but it’s there. You’re supposed to look at crocuses.
I had to move to another part of the garden to do some work there. Mostly keeping bees away from things, including me.
The guy I live with said October, even though it can also be a sad month for him, is one of his favorite months for gardening, especially when the cyclamen leaves are up.
There are four species in this picture.
The red at left in the picture above is Cyclamen hederifolium ‘Corfu Red’. Even though this was found on an island in the Ionian Sea it’s hardy here.
It’s growing through Philadelphus madrensis.
This cyclamen is one grown for the flowers (there’s one so dark red it’s almost black, and the guy I live with would like to find that some day), but most cyclamen are grown for the leaves.
Like this one, Cyclamen purpurascens ‘Extra Fancy’.
The green leaves are Cyclamen coum.
That’s it for flowers and leaves today.
I have one other thing. The guy I live cut down the rose ‘Paul’s Himalayan Musk Rambler’ a while ago. He said the flowers were tiny, unscented, and the rose was devoured by Japanese beetles worse than any of the other roses here (though this wasn’t a bad year for the beetles), so it wasn’t something he wanted in the garden any longer.
After he cut down the rose he didn’t notice anything, but today, which is his wife’s birthday, he noticed the bats she put up. He always knew they were there, but now they’re like really there.
There are four more under the eaves of the shed.
I guess that’s enough for today. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Those bats are perfect. A wonderful touch your wife brought to the garden (among countless others).
Still quite something, those Sternbergias blooming again after so many years.
They are pretty great, aren’t they? The guy I live with said she bought one, was enchanted with it, talked the guy I live with into going back to get more, and then once again to get more.
There are I think eight altogether.
The sternbergias really liked the rain, just like they’d get in their native Mediterranean habitats.
They have flowered before, but nothing like this.
The ground was damp on both my morning and evening walk so maybe we got a tiny bit of rain last night.
The guy I live with said October ought to be cool, rainy, with leaves rustling in the wind when we go on my evening walk in the dark.
I hope lots of good, warm birthday memories come to mind.
Thanks. The guy I live with has an okay day, but the distance in years did get to him.
Mani, I am glad to see that you were hard at work in the garden today…SOMEone has to do these hard jobs! Tell your Dad that his cyclamen are gorgeous, particularly the purpurascens. They do not overwinter for me here, nor do the circus speciosus…I think the cyclamen want more water than they get. I hope you are ready for the ghosts and goblins though you may need to hide out in your fort!
Thanks; I totally agree. The guy I live with and I did get into disgreements today about who gets to get yellowjackets (he says its his job to catch them and put them back outside), but other than that it was fun gardening today.
I’m not ready for Halloween, for sure.
The guy I live with says (not knowing how cold your climate is) you plant cyclamen in the spring or early summer, not in autumn. The tubers don’t have time to root before cold sets in.
Hansen Nursery and Edelweiss Perennials are two good places, for starters.
But also the cyclamen don’t do well if the soil freezes and it stays cold.The leaves can’t pull water from the soil in winter. He covers the cyclamen with pine needles these days because it gets cold without snow in November.
The crocus will make dozens of tiny cormlets which may take some years to flower.
Thank you for the tips about the cyclamen! I will look into the nurseries you recommended. Because my soil is quite sandy, and “well-drained” is an understatement, it would probably be best to supplement their water. I have plenty of pine needles for mulch in the winter so that, at least, would not be an issue.
You’re welcome. Planting cyclamen tubers after August in cold-winter climates is a recipe for failure. Te guy I live with did this last year even though he knows better, covered the tubers with pine needles, and it looks like they died, which came as no surprise.
Sandy soil does mean more water is available to roots than in clay soil, though, but at a greater depth.
You’ve been a prolific writer lately, Mani! I must admire the many cyclamen leaf patterns that you have in your garden. I’ve mainly got regular C. hederifolium, nothing Extra Fancy, but loved nonetheless.
Thanks; I’ve had a lot to say. The ‘Extra Fancy’ Cyclamen purpurascens came from a long-gone nursery, but you can get silver leaf forms of C. hederifolium (like in the upper left of the picture with all the cyclamen) from Edelweiss Perennials.
So many purrty flowerss Mani an Guy!! You toetally have a green thumm Guy! An those ‘Batss’ are so kewl…. just inn time fore Halloweeny!
***nose bopss*** BellaDharma an **wavess** BellaSita Mum
Thanks. Those bats are pretty cool, aren’t they?
TOE-TALLY KEWL Batss Mani!!!
They really are, aren’t they?
Mee-yow wow!!! 😉
The bats are very cool.
Happy heavenly birthday to the man you live with’s wife. Those bats are very cool. Have a great weekend. And thanks for the slight correction. Well done.
The guy I live with says thanks. It’s surprising how he forgot all about the bats because they were covered by that useless (and dangerous to me) rose.
I have artemisia in the meadow part of my garden that looks very similar to yours. It flowers annually with very small yellow flowers so the brown ones are spent. It was given to me by a friend but mine seeds all over so requires deadheading. You make a good observer and foreman Mani. Your life sounds quite exhausting.
The guy I live with said regular Artemisia ludoviciana flowers like that, too, but he says that only because he noticed flowers on the plants right by the sidewalk in the front garden, which is never watered. It must have been the rain that did that. (He started watering the front garden, some, this summer.)
Autumns have been so dry here lately that the rain we had is really showing a difference; there are California poppies in flower right now.
It is a lot of work being me.
Thanks for the garden tour, Mani — your accompanying remarks are always such an informative pleasure. I enjoyed seeing the mysterious Artemesia, and the Cyclamens were amazing. Those bats, though? What an astonishing discovery! I hope your human found some comfort in recovering them.
You’re welcome.
Obviously there was no advantage to having something climb up that post, because the bats are certainly more than enough decoration.