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 bring you up to date on things in our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “A Discovery”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a sort of characteristic pose.
If I look shocked, that’s because a squirrel was drinking out of the bird bath. The same bird bath I sometimes drink out of.
Squirrel lips in the birdbath, how totally gross.
You can see the patio is in some disarray. The guy I live with dragged out the two charcoal grills to give away; he’s never going to use them again.
Yesterday it was really windy, though I hear not as windy as in Denver, where trees were blown over. We had a “red flag” warning all day, and then a freeze warning for last night. It didn’t freeze here.
We’re not really in a drought, though we’ve only had about half the average precipitation for this month.
This snowdrop was very brave.
Galanthus bursanus.
Bulbs of this species have been flowering here for a month now, and you can see there’s another one almost ready, in the upper left hand corner of the picture.
The guy I live with hurt his shoulder, and then hurt his back. He said he hadn’t hurt his back like this for over thirty years, when he worked outside.
He said it was times like this where not having his wife here to help him out of bed really emphasized the loss; they were there for each other every single day.
It takes him about an hour to figure out how to get out of bed without making things worse. I couldn’t help. He had a back brace delivered, so I was able to go on my morning walks, but not my evening ones.
We were able to walk around the garden today.
This is the fairly tiny Cyclamen intaminatum. That’s the tip of the guy I live with’s cane to show how small this cyclamen is.
The cyclamen is native to the province in Turkey that the snowdrop pictured before it is, as well as a couple of other provinces.
And there are crocuses. Of course there are crocuses.
There are hundreds of Crocus speciosus in flower here now. Ants are attracted to the sugary coating on the seeds, the elaiosome, and they carry seeds all over the garden.
I’m only going to show a few.
That moth is alive, by the way.
This next one is something the guy I live with thinks might be a form of Crocus cartwrightianus.
It’s certainly a member of the saffron crocus section; you can tell by the orange styles.
And all are synanthous, so they have overwintering leaves which have to be protected against rabbits, with hardware cloth cages pinned into the ground, which the guy I live with admits is very tiresome, but, according to him, way less tiresome than having to bring in plants for the winter. He doesn’t do much of that.
He just got some Messina Wildlife Animal Stopper, too, since I’ve become less interested in chasing rabbits out of the garden than I used to be.
Crocus cartwrightianus ‘Marcel’ has just started to flower.
And this is Crocus cartwrightianus ‘Halloween’. It has a few days to get really going, as you can tell by its name.
I’ll post more pictures next week, unless it snows. The guy I live with said he does hope it snows, so we don’t have to hear about “red flag warnings”. The snow doesn’t affect the crocuses much; of course snowed-on flowers wither, but new ones appear.
Here’s a terrible picture of a snapdragon.
The guy I live with got this at a nursery; it was labeled Antirrhinum braun-blanquetii (whew, huh), but it isn’t; that species has pale yellow flowers. It’s just a hybrid that has lived here for many years and seeded around.
Some bulbs came in the mail today; the guy I live with only ordered a few this year. Imagine his annoyance when he saw the bag of Galanthus woronowii, the same snowdrops he bought at the nursery a few weeks ago.
He said it might be a good idea to make an actual note of what he orders online. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened.
And maybe to make a note to order some snapdragon seeds; they’re fairly perennial here and tolerate drought quite well.
With all these words you might think we had an exciting day, but really, not much happened.
For me, the major thing was the guy I live with’s decision to get one of the afghans from the upstairs closet and lay it on the couch for extra back support. He didn’t straighten everything out like he usually does, though. The afghan has a nice sweet scent to it because the closet does; the guy I live with says it smells like his wife’s Christmas, since she stored her holiday stuff there too.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me giving it a test run.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Well, gee. Sorry to hear about TGYLW’s back. That’s awful. In our garden news, our Crocus are still there after all, they were just waiting to bloom until the day before it rained so that they could be turned into sodden, purple blobs. It was nice to enjoy them for an hour in the afternoon sun before that happened. Should have taken a picture, but I didn’t.
The guy I live with says thanks. It all started when he wrenched his shoulder blade, which he’s done before (his wife did this too, and it made her physically ill); I guess they call that scapular dyskenesis. It was so painful he screamed every time it hurt. And he said some stuff I can’t repeat.
So while thrashing around in bed trying to get comfortable, he wrenched his back. His shoulder blade is okay now, I guess.
That is one thing about crocuses, they have an opinion about being rained or snowed on, but they do produce more flowers.They come from climates where they get rained and snowed on in real life, too.
Still, it is disappointing.
Mani looks happy on the new afghan. And the crocus are gorgeous!
Thanks. I do really like the afghan.
Back pain is just the worst; we know that well in our house, so I hope the guy you live with feels much better soon.
Strong winds in SE Denver yesterday, leaves all over the place; but fortunately, we lost no trees.
Lovely crocus!
Thanks; the guy I live with spent a long time working on ladders when he worked for the phone company, and he said that’s very hard on a human’s back. That, and sitting on a box splicing phone cable.
He took the usual precautions, but sometimes things just happened. The first time was when he was shoveling snow.
It was surprisingly not very windy here. Pretty windy, but not super windy. There were gusts sometimes, though.
Your crocuses are so beautiful. Looks like the newly placed afghans got a 4 paws up rating.
The wind in Denver was hideous. I think I’ll be picking up little branches until it snows (which I hope happens soon). I can deal with cold weather but the wind is simply no bueno.
Thanks. I do like the afghan; there were a couple in the upstairs bedroom and the guy I live with picked the pink one.
There aren’t any branches down or anything around here. I guess we got lucky for once.
Mee-yow so much goin n there Mani an Guy! So many purrty flowerss! THE white crow-cussess are beeuteefull…. Mani mee agreess about Squirrel lipss inn THE water…eewww…. Mistur Guy mee isss endin tripell POTP to get you back on yore pawss an yore pack an shoulder to heal up!!! Mani you look so comfy cozy on THE Afghan….mee mite fo take a nap….
***nose bopss*** BellaDharma an**wavess** BellaSita Mum
Thanks; the afghan was a brilliant idea, according to the guy I live with, and I have to agree.
The guy I live with’s shoulder seems okay now but he hurt his elbow. I mean honestly.
The thought of water polluted by squirrel lips is just to gross, though it’s also polluted by mouse lips, and of course birds.
He refilled the bath with clean water.
Mee has mee own chot-shayed Blnakie on back of sofa…it iss turquoise blue an so soft….mee sleepss up there durin THE nite. Mee can handle bird beekss Mani; THE other critterss need their own dish!! BellaSita cleanss our water bowl out alot too. Hurrah that Guy’s shoudler iss bettur! BOO his elbow iss hertin….iss allwayss sumthing rite Mani? Please feel bettur soon Guy…..
Bird bath water is pretty good, when it’s clean. I really do like the new afghan, though it isn’t really new.
The guy I live with’s shoulder is better but he hurt his back again.
Mee getss you about THE Birdbath Mani! Cleen iss best! AS forre THE Afghan; it’ss new to you an that countss fore sure! OH NOSE!! Mistur Guy you can not catch a brake! Dubbell POTP an **purrss** to you. Pleese feel bettur soon…. ***purrss*** BellaDharma an {{hugss}} bellaSita Mum
I think the guy I live with’s back is a little better.
The birdbath has been here for many years and constantly has to be cleaned after robins take a bath in it. They make a real mess.
I don’t blame you, the afghan looks perfect for a rest or nap.
We are seeing our first snowdrops here in Pa although I’m in no rush for the actual appearance of snow.
The afghan is great. Some years ago the guy I live with looked at replacement cushions for the couch. Because of the arms, they’d need custom measuring and construction, and only cost about $700.
Looks like no snow, and maybe no rain, for the rest of the month here.
Watering just doesn’t seem to have the same effect as rain or snow.
Rain has an average pH of about 5.6, while Denver Water’s “target” pH is 8.8. (They raised the pH.) Hard to grow rhododendrons here now, with just watering.
True, snowdrops mostly grow on calcareous soils in the wild, but the guy I live with thinks flowering is triggered by the pH change at the roots when it rains.
So sorry to hear about the GYLW’s back. I can sympathize as I’m funding my chiropractor’s retirement. The crocus photos are gorgeous especially the close up of the cartwrightianus ones. They are so small but so beautifully marked when you look closely at the inside. Howling winds here for the last week exacerbating the dryness. Hard to water anything when it just evaporates even using covered soaker hoses. While I appreciate the longer season to get tasks done the weeks of drought are concerning.
The guy I live with says the dry weather is becoming a drag. They had forecast some rain for us this weekend and then retracted that right before the weekend, and that’s maybe the most tiresome thing.
This time of year is often pretty dry here, now. The guy I live with said we’d often have had snow by now but that seems like a feature of the past.