the miserable gardener

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to talk about the weather, and some other things. You may remember me from such weather-related posts as “Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
It’s been raining here. Not a huge amount, really, but today we’re under a flash flood warning and supposed to get a huge amount of rain, which we actually do not need, according to the guy I live with. He’s been struggling to weed the garden, not very successfully, since every drop of rain that falls germinates a million weed seeds.

The guy I live with was going to go to the store today, but when he saw the weather forecast, one to three inches of rain in an hour, he decided against it, because the car’s driver’s side window won’t roll up all the way. He took the car to the dealer this past Monday, but they had to order the parts, so he’ll go back and have the window fixed.

A lot of rain washes the grape jelly out of the oriole feeders, and makes the orange halves all mushy. He’s gone through five jars of jelly in as many weeks, but we’ve had a lot of orioles, which makes up for the expense of jelly and oranges.
It’s my job to chase squirrels and robins away from the feeders, since they both spoil things for all the other birds by guzzling the jelly, and the squirrels eat the oranges.

The plants from Digging Dog perked up a lot after being rained on and getting some sun in between showers. They had a rough trip here, traveling in a cardboard box when it was 100 degrees or hotter, but the nursery grows nice plants that do well.
The last of the eremurus to flower this year, Eremurus olgae, had the tips of the flowering stalks toasted by the heat a week ago, but they’re still doing okay.The guy I live with thought he had lost the large plants of Salvia ringens, but they were just waiting until the weather got nicer this spring.
It’s funny, maybe, that the place he bought these from said they were “xeric” and “sensitive to moisture”, which the guy I live with ignored, since he said all plants need water to live, and that more water doesn’t hurt plants nearly as much as not enough water.
The Latin word ringens means “gaping”, and I think you can see how it gets its name.
The plants have seeded around a bit, too, which the guy I live with says is “totally excellent”.

One plant that doesn’t care if it rains or not is Cylindropuntia imbricata. It’s native here, though not around us; it grows a bit farther south. (South of Colorado Springs.)
You can see that it has new leaves, which I think will transform into spines.

The guy I live with discovered a new setting on the phone camera, and so I’m supposed to show these pictures, even though they’re of the same things we always show pictures of.The guy I live with says he going to cut down the blue spruce you seen in the next picture. It’s suffered a lot in the last few years and will never recover enough to look nice again.The path to the “way back” is almost completely impassible now. Unless you’re me; I can just run through it. 
It’s possible that there’s too much Melica ciliata in the garden, but the guy I live with likes the look of it.
Not much else has been going on. The guy I live with’s friend came down, and I got to say Hi to her. She and the guy I live with went to eat sushi and then look at a garden.
At least it isn’t roasting hot any more. I was afraid I would be cooked by the heat.

The guy I live with has been brushing me every day, but he said I was going to go to the spa some time as soon as the car window is fixed; I didn’t mind the spa last time, and looked all spiffy afterward.

The field was mowed. At least the parts that have paths, and close to houses, too. Maybe you can see the bunny here, trying not to be seen.
The coyote path was slightly lower than the rest of the field, so it kind of weirdly remained green, after the grass was mowed, as you can see below.
It’s still not raining, but I guess we have until midnight for the big rain. We’ll see.

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 tell you just exactly how hot I’ve been lately. You may remember me from such heat-oriented posts as “Into The Garden, Endlessly Roasting”, among so many other heat-related posts.

Here I am in a characteristic, though not particularly horticultural, pose.
You mght wonder what’s going on here. Well, it’s been so unbelievably roasting hot (100 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 37.7 Celsius) that even squirrels need a drink once in a while, and I was watching a squirrel drinking water from the birdbath. You can see its tail, between the flowerpot and the plastic pool.
It was so hot I didn’t even bother to chase the squirrel, which is one of my most favorite things to do.

The guy I live with set up the pool for me, but I’m not all that interested in it. I was when I was littler, but I’m older now, and I prefer napping.

Not very much gardening has been done lately. The guy I live with might go out and pull a few weeds, or water something, but really, when it’s been as hot as this, the best thing to do involves some sort of napping. We are both very good at taking naps.

The main thing involves birds.
I showed a picture of the two oriole feeders earlier; they’ve become so popular that the guy I live with has to rejellify the feeders more than once a day. (I didn’t know that “rejellify” was a word, but the guy I live with said that it was, since he made it up.)
There are like six jars of Welch’s grape jelly in the pantry, since that’s what the orioles like, and a bunch of oranges in the refrigerator.
Sometimes we can hear demands for more jelly at like 11:30 at night.
And of course he has to make sugar water for the hummingbirds every single day, because the sugar water will go bad when it’s this hot. We haven’t seen or heard as many hummingbirds as usual, this year, maybe because all the rain has been good for flowers up in the foothills and mountains; flowers we don’t have in the garden, like Ipomopsis aggregata, which is a hummingbird favorite.
(The guy I live with said we used to have that ipomopsis, but not for several years now. He said he would be very happy if there were drifts of it in the garden, but I guess there hasn’t been much viable seed available.)

Today, the guy I live with left me for a couple of hours. It wasn’t too hot in the house, fortunately. He went out for sushi with his friend. I hadn’t seen her in quite a while. He said he felt kind of teary being at the sushi place, since he hadn’t been there in over a year. He used to go there with his wife, and then, later, with his friend.
Things have been so weird for so long that I was surprised I remembered her, but I did.
I don’t really like it when things are weird. I prefer just being here with the guy I live with. I understand that he has to go out from time to time, especially to get food for me (he eats food, too), and sometimes do other stuff.

Well, so, anyway, that’s what’s been happening. Lots of roasting. Fans running all day long.
A couple of days ago the guy asked me if I wanted to get soaking, and I wasn’t sure, but he soaked me with the hose anyway. I got totally soaked. I did feel cooler after that.
Maybe you can tell.

Until next time, then.