the miserable gardener

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 once again to bring you up to date on our latest news. You may remember me from such posts as “The Fast Learner”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
Today I heard kind of a shout outside.
The guy I live with had walked into this.
He knew it was there, and he knew it was the reason why the shed, which is normally and disgustingly filled with flies, was now much less filled with flies, but it still startled him.
It’s an orb weaver web.

Here’s another picture of Solidago ‘Wichita Mountains’ because the guy I live with really likes this plant.
And here’s another picture of Colchicum speciosum ‘Atrorubens’ because the sun wasn’t shining on it.
He got this colchicum as ‘E.A. Bowles’.
Bowles has holes, as you can see. The guy I live with said this could also be ‘Benton End’; you know how names sometimes get mixed up.

And this is the ultimately tesselated colchicum, Colchicum variegatum.
The petals are kind of messed up because it was growing through this ephedra.
It wasn’t under the ephedra last year so it’s going to have to be moved, or be swamped.
This is from Greece, and is said to be difficult in cultivation because it needs a hot, dry summer. The guy I live with said he can provide those conditions without getting out of bed in the morning.

There’s a crocus that’s said to need damp conditions all summer, like a Romanian marsh since this is where it comes from, but it presents no problems here.
This is Crocus banaticus, and it’s really something, as you can see.
There are more of them than just these, some that are two-toned, but they’re not up yet.
And this is the white form of Crocus speciosus. The guy I live with was surprised to see it already in flower.

So those are the flowers for today. I mean the ones he took pictures of.
The guy I live with was pretty happy seeing everything in flower, and he actually did some work in the garden.

And then there was this.

I had to wait for my dinner because thunder is too scary an accompaniment for dining, but eventually the chef called me to dinner and that was indeed excellent.
I did take a look outside, though, just to see if everything was okay.
It was.

Until next time, then.

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 the tomato, and other things. You may remember me from such posts as “Shedding Light”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
There are still colchicums in flower. These are Colchicum cilicium. (Sometimes sold as C. tenorei, but there’s another colchicum, C. × ambiguum, sold under that name too.)
You may well ask why it’s Cyclamen cilicium but Colchicum cilicicum. Both Latin words refer to the ancient Roman province of Cilicia, now in southern Turkey. But having to check the spelling is annoying. (There’s also a snowdrop, Galanthus cilicicus, in the garden here.)
Colchicum speciosum ‘Album’ is almost open.
Both of these colchicums have been in the garden for about thirty years, but the white one has been very slow to increase.

Thanks to the rain, the first crocuses have appeared. This is Crocus kotschyanus ‘Reliance’.  (Yes, it should be ‘Reliant’, which makes more sense.)

The goldenrod, Solidago ‘Wichita Mountains’ is in fully flower now. This is one of the guy I live with’s favorite autumn-flowering plants.
You can smell it and hear it from quite a distance away. It’s usually covered with bees.

And…the tomato.
A few days ago a neighbor gave the guy I live with a homegrown heirloom tomato, maybe ‘Purple Calabash’.
It sat on the counter for a couple of days, and then he sliced it and ate it.
I could tell how good it was by what he said.
Then he wondered why he was spending all this time growing difficult or rare plants to post on social media when he could be growing tomatoes. Not to mention plants hummingbirds love.

I would quote Yeats’ poem “The Fascination of What’s Difficult”, but you can look that up online.

So this edifice, which was going to be a frame for growing difficult bulbs, is going to have tomatoes in it next year.
The guy I live with said he’s still not too old to learn valuable lessons.
It’s in the hottest part of the garden so the tomatoes will appreciate that.

So that’s our news for the day. I’m very used to having the guy I live with change his mind constantly so I was able to deal with this quite easily.

Until next time, then.