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 my struggles to keep up with all the changes here. You may remember me from such posts as “A Chance Of Effelants”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can see that some work is being done here.
The cowpen daisies were wilted on this very dry day, but they’re okay. The buffalo grass in the path is brown again, though. I’m lying on some, in this picture.
What used to be a border of “traditional” plants, before I came here, was transformed into a border of dryland plants.
I hear that a lot of penstemons are going to be seeded in here. There are some Penstemon eatonii already in this garden. And a lot of cactus.
There was almost nothing in this part of the garden earlier this year.
You can see how dry the buffalo grass is here, too.
If we got a lot of rain, the grass would turn green in a couple of days. The guy I live with said he certainly isn’t going to water the grass. We kind of aren’t allowed to, anyway.
On the last day of August, this happened.
I think it’s rained a little every day since then. Not enough rain to make the buffalo grass green or un-wilt the cowpen daisies, but enough. (The daisies look fine in the morning and in the evening, and the buffalo grass in my Private Lawn looks fine.)
And there are some plants in flower. The guy I live with took this picture as we were going up the front walk. This is Mirabilis multiflora. The phone got the color wrong; it should be darker.
Lots of sphaeralceas are in flower.
What’s really funny is that the cyclamen are in flower. The guy I live with hasn’t watered the garden since early March, and wondered about the cyclamen, but here they are.
These are Cyclamen hederifolium, flowering with the ivy, Hedera helix, which the guy I live with says is a pretty heavy-handed “combination”; the ivy refuses to go away, even though he keeps pulling it.
The cyclamen are going to stay, but a lot of the “fancy” bulbs are going to Denver Botanic Gardens, because the guy I live with is “officially” bored with plants that need watering in order to flower, like the autumn-flowering crocuses.
The crocuses need to have their overwintering leaves protected from rabbits, of which we have a few, since I decided to retire from rabbit pursuit.
You can see one here, napping under the sagebrush.
Plants dug up and given away, new plants going in various places; it’s been very difficult to keep up with all of this.
And then last week the unexpected happened.
The guy I live with had been talking about going to Boulder for a while. His friend was busy, so he drove there alone.
He was very anxious about doing that (I could tell); he said that when his wife was here, they would just go. There are so, so many things he doesn’t do any more, and driving for over an hour was one of them.
But he went.
This is Harlequin’s Gardens. The guy I live with bought a lot of plants. All native dryland plants, because, as he told me, he wonders if things will ever be the same again, considering what passed for winter this last time, and considering how little rain we’ve gotten (a little over six inches in the last 120 days).
Planting often required removal of existing plants; I lay near the guy I live with while he removed dozens of seedlings of Melica ciliata, a pretty grass that seeds all over the place, so now he dislikes it. He used a lot of colorful language while scraping out the grass with his nejiri weeder.
Sometimes it’s good to turn around to see what’s going on.
The guy I live with said that eventually I’ll see that there’s been a pattern to all this activity. “All will be revealed”, he said.
I can hardly wait.
Until next time, then.
That dryland border is looking so very nice. Good for TGYLW for going to buy more dryland plants. Speaking of colchicums, as we recently were, only one of my half-dozen varieties has flowered. ‘Disraeli.’
Thanks. The guy I live with and his wife did write a book about dryland plants, and that’s been his main interest for a very long time.
‘Disraeli’ is a nice one. There are quite a few colchicums flowering here. They don’t seem to need rain, unlike other autumn-flowering bulbs. But they don’t all flower at the same time, so maybe ‘Disraeli’ is just being early.
Well, as a matter of fact, I own that book (as well as the book on Penstemons)! I was just referring to it yesterday, to read TGYLW’s thoughts on Jamesia americana. My three-year-old shrub never looks very good once the hot temperatures arrive (leaf scorch, I guess) and it is in morning sun/afternoon shade. I guess I may just be having bad luck with it. We will see about the other colchicums.
The guy I live with says thanks. The jamesia here is on the north side of the house, and has been growing very slowly for years and years.
They probably want more water than people say; he saw a bunch of them near the top of Pikes Peak, before the cog rain reached the tundra, a long time ago.
Our garden is ankle-deep in purslane, spurge and other weeds, improbably green just like the by-line to this blog (“The only reason my garden is green . . .”) Apparently we have a latent seed bank of millions here, just waiting for one good downpour. It’s a good thing purslane is edible (to people at least – sorry Mani) because it is going to be a part of gardens in the future, whatever they end up looking like. The patch of native sunflowers in my back alley did not appear to survive the heat & dryness of July, so I really wonder what plant choices we are going to be left with as we move into conditions of 6″ annual precipitation or less.
That’s why I’m so curious about what plants the guy you live with purchased at Harlequin’s. And I’m stunned at the decision of your guy to get rid of the autumn blooming crocus and colchicums, which were iconic to his garden, some might say. I, too, am trying to keep up…
There aren’t too many weeds here. I can tell, because I’d be hearing all the colorful language.
Probably Maximilian sunflower would be a better choice than regular sunflowers. The guy I live with gave away the two plants he had (he likes giving stuff away); they look pretty good in neighbors’ gardens. The one across the street is never watered because when the guy I live with planted it, years ago, he said to forgo the watering business.
He got two more desert willows, three Brickellia californica, some artemisias, a dwarf rabbitbrush, and a Purshia tridentata, which we have in the front garden but it got almost shaded out by an oak.
He says the bulbs ought to be at DBG, and they no longer fit into the overall plan here of not watering plants to force them into flower.
I’ll probably do a post on this, later.
I noted a range of plants of sphaeralceas in a garden I visited recently and was very taken by them.
The guy I live with says we have a native little one, Sphaeralcea coccinea, oddly called “cowboy’s delight”. There are some growing near the cable TV company parking lot that I walk by sometimes.
The one in the picture is a frightful spreader, like some other species, but the guy I live with likes it. It also comes in pink and orange. Maybe S. ambigua.
The super-ultimate one for rock gardeners is S. caespitosa. The guy I live with grew it, but it was a victim of rust, probably from hollyhocks in neighboring gardens.
I haven’t seen them on offer here but live in hope
The guy I live with says they’re pretty easy from stratified seeds.
A possibility then if I can source seed.
The guy I live with says maybe Chiltern, or one of the rock garden societies. Though getting seeds and bulbs from other countries isn’t what it used to be.
He gets his seed from Alplains, here, and I think they do ship overseas. (The guy I live with just looked at their catalog, and they don’t ship overseas if a phytosanitary certificate is required.)
Such purrty flowerss inn pink an orange Mani an Guy! Wee admire yore deetermination Guy! You keep yore Gardenss lookin guud wven without rain… Wee FURRY happy yore getting sum rain. Wee want tos end you sum butt wee not had enuff eether. Mani you look so thottfull down bye THE river…hope they were happy thottss…..
**nose rubss** BellaDharma an ((hugss)) BellaSita Mum
Thanks. I like walking way over there, kind of a long way from my house.
We got about a minute of rain every day for like four days, but none today.
It seemss lovelee bye THE river Mani…peecefull. Youss’ need more rain thatn that!! Wee gotted rain Wednesday butt again, not enuff…*scratchess head* It iss so weerd…
It is very nice. It’s an irrigation ditch, really, that was dug in the 1880s.
We had seven drops of rain yesterday. The guy I live with said it was such a relief. He can be sarcastic where the weather is concerned.