the miserable gardener

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here after another long and very chilly absence to bring you up to date on the latest news from our house and garden. You may remember me from such change-related posts as “Another Change”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can see there’s still snow in the garden. It’s 69 degrees F (about 20.5 C) right now, but last week we had three very chilly nights, with snow again. I think it got down to about -5 F  (-20.5 C) at least one night, in some parts of the city, anyway.
It was very unpleasant, even for me. I had to wear my boots on a couple of walks because it was so cold during the day.
The guy I live with was going to drive the car over to the car dealer’s, last Monday, before it got cold, but discovered that the cars available on the website weren’t there yet, so he put down a deposit on one. This is kind of exciting, even though he hardly goes anywhere, preferring to spend time with me at home. I can be delightful, if you didn’t know.

The ice on the paths is still quite thick, even though it’s so warm.
All of the snowdrops were totally exposed to the cold before the snow fell; it was about 5 F (-15C) when that happened.
The guy I live with felt sorry for the snowdrops, but they were all perfectly fine.

Here are some Galanthus elwesii that have escaped from the “main flock”.
The “main flock” itself looks okay, even after all that traumatic weather.
You can see that the snowdrops have seeded around a bit. There are some other species here, but Galanthus elwesii is the main one, and over the last quarter century or so they’ve started to go a little crazy.
We have a lot of ants in the garden; ants do the work of spreading the seeds around.

Except with this one.
This is Galanthus alpinus var. bortkewitschianus (really),only known from a tiny area in the western Caucasus. It’s sterile, and so doesn’t set any seeds.
It doesn’t grow very tall because it’s weighed down by its name.

With all the warm weather of the last few days, the crocuses are up. This is Crocus ancyrensis ‘Golden Bunch’.
And some of the spring-flowering colchicums, too. This is Colchicum bulbocodium (which you can buy as Bulbocodium vernum; DNA or something showed this was really a colchicum, but the name Colchicum vernum was already taken).
So that’s it. We hope there are no more deep freezes.

I’ll leave you with a picture of me hunting for voles on my morning walk. I didn’t find any, but it was still fun.

Until next time, then.

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you a post kind of like the last one. You may remember me from such posts as “The Long Darkness”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can see how icy the paths are, still.

The warm weather has brought out a few flowers, and the sun came out this afternoon. Here’s Iris reticulata; this is a form grown from seed collected in the wild, I think.
And snowdrops, of course. There are more than there were yesterday.
There are a lot more to come, even though it’s going to snow. Most of these are Galanthus elwesii ‘Theresa Stone’ (pictured below)  and its offspring (crossing with other forms); they were planted twenty-two years ago.
This is what the “flock” looks like from the eastern end, though there are quite a few behind where the guy I live with was kneeling to take this picture.
Galanthus gracilis, ex Highdown, looking a little frazzled from all the cold weather.
Galanthus koenenianus. The very distinctively-ridged leaves have barely appeared.
Galanthus plicatus, from the Ukraine. The guy I live with said to say where this comes from.Those are the flowers for today.

In my last post, I forgot to mention something that some people might find strange: the guy I live with still buys presents for his wife.

He bought this book just the other day.
He said she would have loved it.

Several years ago, he bought this “poacher’s spade”, because she always wanted one. It’s never been used, and never will be.
There’s another thing that he bought for her. The car. She only drove it once before she died.
The guy I live with calls it “our metal friend”. It doesn’t even have fifty thousand miles on it.
There were issues with it starting, a couple of years ago, and that totally freaked him out. A car not starting when it’s in the garage is one thing, but not starting when the guy I live with is out somewhere quite another thing. He’s been thinking about getting a new car ever since, even though some people, naturally, said this was the wrong time to get a new car. We need a car.
Today he went to the store. The car had some trouble starting, but eventually it started. But when he left the store, the car didn’t want to start at all. Finally, it did, much to his relief (and mine, since I need my dinner), which is why it’s in the garage.

He called a friend who worked for Subaru for thirty years, and whose judgment he trusts completely. The last time it didn’t start, his friend said it was the fuel pump, so he had a new one installed. (The guy I live with used to work on cars but doesn’t do that any more.)
But his friend said that even though the car has low mileage, it is fifteen years old, and parts wear out.  The fuel pump that was installed may have gone bad, and even though that may be under warranty, it’s still an issue. The car has had to have non-cheap repairs three times in the last three years.
And that maybe it’s time to consider getting a new car.

So I guess that’s what’s going to happen. He’ll have to remember how to drive with an automatic transmission, because standard transmissions are rare these days.

That’s all I have for today.  I hope you found this post interesting.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me, and the box my bowl sits on, waiting for my dinner, which of course I got.

Until next time, then.