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 our latest news. You may remember me from such posts as “An Autumn Afternoon”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. 
Right now, it’s very dry here and doesn’t feel at all like autumn. The guy I live worries that it may never rain again, and that this coming winter will just be hot, dry, and windy, like last winter, so, along with all the new plants he’s put in, he’s started a project of raising woody plants that may tolerate the endless heat and dryness, instead of talking about how to water plants during this drought. In other words, he’s trying to keep up with our climate, which has changed so much since he moved here sixty-some years ago that he says it’s almost unrecognizable.
He said he got sidetracked, for some reason, getting into growing a lot of bulbs instead of putting in plants that would tolerate all this dryness, but now he claims to be “back on track” and ordering seeds of dryland shrubs at age seventy-five.
Here are some seedlings of Vachellia (Acacia) constricta.
We showed pictures of some seedlings of this a while ago, but all the seedlings died. This time, which is the third time he’s tried these, he’s being very careful about making sure the pots get watered.
The guy I live with says the number of plants that have died here over the years is “staggering” (and that includes a lot of the bulbs he ordered over the last several years), so today he was really surprised to see that the “grape bush” (Vitis acerifolia) was still alive. Chess, the purebred border collie who lived here before me, wrote about the grape bush.
This makes a bush, not a vine, which is why it’s called a grape bush and not a grapevine. The things you learn, huh? He says you can’t hear anything on it, which I didn’t understand.
It’s native to the region around the two “panhandles”, Oklahoma and Texas, and also southeastern Colorado, northeastern New Mexico, and southwestern Kansas, so it’s pretty obvious why it’s still here.
As usual, more work has been done in the garden. I’m sure you’ll find a great deal of beauty in this new planting.
This is bluebunch wheatgrass, Pseudoroegneria spicata, a cool-season native grass, and the guy I live with assured me these would look better in a month or so. The grass was dug up and divided when the path was widened.
I watched him prepare this bed, which was a “problem area”. (It kind of looks like it still is.)
Supervising can be exhausting, as you can see.
As I said, it doesn’t feel very much like autumn here. The first autumn crocus, Crocus speciosus, came into flower yesterday.
He said this is very clearly virused (the white parts), which he said might be a metaphor, so he tried to dig it up today but the self-sown corm was buried so deeply he couldn’t get to it, which he said was probably another metaphor.
It is technically autumn, even though some wet weather would make it feel more like autumn, and some leaves have turned despite the dryness.
This is Acer grandidentatum:
And the native sumac, Rhus trilobata. These very large shrubs haven’t been watered in thirty-five years.
And Ribes aureum, which is all over the garden here. (That’s a lilac behind it, which the guy I live with has been trying to remove for some years.)
Now that the leaves are falling, we can see all the nests here. This is just one.
Okay, that’s the gardening stuff, on what feels more like a summer day than a pleasantly cool and damp afternoon in October.
The guy I live with’s wife’s birthday was a couple of days ago, and he pretended (or so it seemed to me) that everything was fine. This was her favorite time of year, because it was all autumnal and stuff, not hot and bone-dry, and her favorite holiday was Halloween.
Speaking of which, and trying not to speak of our new residents, I learned to my horror that there are more than three of these terrifying things. Judging from what everyone we met on our walks has said, there could be a hundred, as I initially feared.
I wonder what Halloween night will be like. I don’t want to see anything ursine running around because of the smell of candy.
I’m staying inside, and only going on walks when the sun is shining. Where I am in this picture is supposedly where these creatures sleep in trees, during the day, so it’s “safe”.
Until next time, then.
I think it’s terrific that The Guy is ordering seeds at age 75. I find myself thinking “how old I will be” when such-and-such a plant will be x feet tall.
One hundred ursines is simply too many! I know you will stay safe with The Guy.
Well he’s always liked ordering seeds and has done it since he and his wife moved here, so forty years.
This order is to Alplains, probably the last of the old-time seed lists. Lots of people used to have seed lists that they mailed out.
Halloween will certainly be interesting, but I think everyone in the neighborhood is aware of the situation.
A hundred?! That is way too many! It is probably much fewer than that. Fortunately, the Guy you live with will keep you safe, regardless of how many there are. Is Acer grandidentatum native there?
Yeah, it’s probably only 99. He now carries a whistle, just in case.
The maple is native to the Western Slope; Utah and Wyoming all the way down to Mexico. The selections from New Mexico don’t have the nice autumn color because they’re programmed to turn later, because it gets colder later. At least that’s what happened here when he tried them.
Where is the Western Slope relative to where you are? I suppose that it is, as the name implies, to the West of the Continental Divide, which is West of there.
The guy I live with says he considers the Western Slope to be places like Grand Junction, which is a four-hour drive on I-70 from here.
Early settlers in Utah tapped the maple for syrup; some botanists consider the maple to be a “western expression” of the eastern sugar maple. The guy I live with has tasted the sap when it was running and said it was sweet.
Yes, I remember that it was considered to be a variety of Acer saccharum.
But much more forgiving of soils like ours, and lack of rainfall.
We certainly will have to select plants more resistant to weather changes.
Definitely. The guy I live with says there are at least two very excellent books by Olivier Filippi.
Yes, I have both to hand. Mediterranean-style plantings
The guy I live with says that last winter was so warm it was hardly winter at all, which he takes as a “sign”.
Back in the old days it would have snowed here two or three times at least, by now.
Oh, “Back in the old days” is a phrase to be avoided. We’re not that old yet!
Some people are, like the guy I live with, who remembers exactly where he was when the Sputnik was launched. And even when Disneyland first opened.
I recognise the type – I’m married to one! I don’t remember what I did yesterday.
The guy I live with sometimes doesn’t remember if he took a pill he’s supposed to take. He has a system but sometimes that system breaks down.
And he tells me that ever since his wife died he often thinks he’s forgetting something terribly important.
The heat records set this week in the metro area have me getting cross with weather forecasters who keep saying the super El Niño could arrive any day. I’m tired of the repetitive reguritation. It’s becoming exhausting as well as annoying. I wonder if we’ll ever get any moisture any time soon.
The guy I live with agrees. He feels left out.
Among the many things I have learned from this blog is about the Alplains seed catalogue, an extraordinary resource and endeavor. Long may it persist! What else, if anything, does the guy you live with consult when evaluating his selection of dryland plants to propigate? I love the paper drink cups that Vachellia constricta appears to be growing in.
The guy I live with says Alan, the proprietor, keeps talking about retirement.
It’s a longer story than this, but the acacias are the result of the experience of last winter, and the fact that these love hot weather, which we can provide effortlessly.
Ideally the acacias should be grown in those long plastic tubes, because of the tap root, but he found that it’s difficult to remove some plants from those tubes. And he’d need a greenhouse.
Grief is tough. We never move on. We can only slowly move forward with the memories of our loved ones. I’m glad you were sensitive enough to realise that not all was well. I’m horrified to hear that there are more than the three of them!
The guy I live with was okay for most of the day, and then suddenly not so okay.
He talked to his neighbor who said he hadn’t heard any reports of “activity” lately; there are no apples on any trees here so that’s not an incentive to stay.
I think the super El Nino is finally here! 1.2 inches of rain on Lookout Mtn night before last, a bit more last night. Finally.
Yes, finally. The guy I live with hopes we’ll get more rain, or snow. But especially in the mountains. Like we have to say that.
We can see the lights on Lookout Mountain from our back fence.