the miserable gardener

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to tell you how dry it is here. You may remember me from such posts as “Dry Grass”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.The guy I live with had just said “Good morning” to me, which is why I look so alert.
I often sleep in this chair at night, which the guy I live with says is funny, and comforting in a way, because so many purebred border collies who lived here before me have slept in this ancient rattan chair at night. Maybe it has a vibe or something.
It’s one of those “continuity” things, but I know when he sees me in this chair it makes him miss his wife even more. She loved her purebred border collies to distraction.
I sometimes do sleep on the bed with the guy I live with, at night, when it’s chilly. He says he sleeps better when I’m next to him. There are a lot of my plush toys on the bed, too.

Anyway, it’s been super dry here. They said it might rain yesterday, but all we got was some sprinkles.
I didn’t see so many grasshoppers today, maybe because the nights have been so chilly. It almost froze the other night.
And yet at the same time, the autumn color has been pretty nice. You can see that the Russian hawthorn, Crataegus ambigua, has turned a nice color.
There are still some haws on the little tree. Usually squirrels get them.
I understand that, years ago, the squirrels wouldn’t get them, and the haws would fall on the rock garden below (not much of a rock garden these days); Slipper and Chess, two purebred border collies who lived here before me, would graze on the haws, like cattle or something. I guess the haws have a lot of Vitamin C in them.

You can also see the field behind the garden, because the lilacs have been cut down. Or almost cut down.

You see that little juniper almost in the center of the picture? That’s Juniperus communis ‘Taurifera’, but just to the left of the rocks by it, there are lots of Crocus speciosus in flower. They were sown by ants, who like the sticky-sweet elaiosome covering the seeds, and carry them off to their nest, occasionally dropping some of the seeds.
The dwarf oak has turned color, too.
The guy I live with doesn’t know what species this is. Probably Quercus × pauciloba. The acorns are the size of a pea.

The little shade garden on the north side of the house is partly still green, because of all the hellebores. That’s a mockorange on the right, one of the regular ones, and another mockorange on the left (Philadelphus lewisii), that have turned color.
This little garden is where most of the snowdrops live.
When I go on my morning walk, I’m often surprised by how dry it is. Even the weeds have dried up. This part of my walk is mostly weeds, though the guy I live with often talks about the few healthy native plants in this area, which is north of the canal road I walk on.
The water is still running in the canal; I haven’t seen any trout in it at all this year. I know there are trout, usually, because the guy I live with will say, “Look, a trout!”, even though I almost never see it.

The cottonwoods are turning color, too, though not all at once, because they’re not clones.
The guy I live with loathes the word “clone”. He says it’s an ugly word, and is often misused in horticulture, when the word “form” is meant. A clone would be like all the cottonwoods grown from cuttings from one tree. A cottonwood that had turquoise leaves would not be a clone; it would be a form.

The willows haven’t turned color yet; I forget if they even do turn color, or if the leaves just dry up and fall to the ground. I should probably pay more attention to that.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me walking under the willows.
You can see I’m getting pretty close to the scary one that hangs over the path on the west side of the creek. I would have said to wish me luck, but I made it past the tree, and am here to tell you about it.

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 up to date on all the changes going on around here. You may remember me from such change-related posts as “Another Change”, and “A Slight Change”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.Maybe you can see that the cart full of plants that was sitting on the patio is gone now. Everything has been planted and watered, or put into one of the frames for winter.
There was a lot of extra space in the frames because the crocuses in the pots all rotted, except for one pot, where the corms were fine. (The ones that rotted had too much organic matter in the mix; the guy I live with wasn’t thinking all that clearly when he filled the pots.)
You can also see the little trees, which will be planted later this month. They’re Juglans microcarpa, the little walnut from Oklahoma, Texas, and adjacent Mexico.

Dozens of bulbs have been planted. You should have heard the language used when the guy I live with sliced through bulbs with the trowel. There are bulbs everywhere in the garden, so it wasn’t surprising that this happened.

There are lots of crocuses in flower; the guy I live with has been watering, some. This phone picture doesn’t reproduce the color of Crocus speciosus properly, but here are the crocuses anyway.They’re all over the garden, really. Ants collect the seeds and spread them everywhere. The guy I live with also suspects that mice eat a lot of the corms.

The cottonwoods along the creek, to the north of us, are changing color.
It hasn’t rained much here. Maybe one millimeter since the first of August. So things are kind of weird here. As usual, I guess. But the lack of rain is disturbing to the guy I live with.

The really weird thing, though, is that a lot of work has been done in the garden.
The lilacs are being cut down. So now there’s the path behind the Long Border. The guy I live with transplanted a native sumac, Rhus trilobata, next to the lilacs, and hopes that he’ll be able to plant more, next year.
Of course the sumac doesn’t smell like lilacs do when it flowers, but it does flower every year, has nice autumn color, and isn’t wilted all summer.
The very strange thing is that now my Private Lawn isn’t so private; we can see right across it to the field. (There’s a big pile of branches there, too.)
The guy I live with has trouble working in the garden, since he has some issues with his legs, knees, back, etc., so I was surprised at all the work. He did come inside every now and then to rest a bit.

Well, so, that’s what’s been going on lately. We saw an owl, and every now and then the guy I live with says he sees a large snake head, with eyes watching him, when he turns the faucet on or off.

I’ll leave you with a picture of me, supervising the lilac removal business, and making sure this part of the garden is free from flying, stinging things.

Until next time, then.