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 today to bring you up to date on all our news. You may remember me from such posts as “Baked Again”.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
Even with the air conditioner running full blast, I’m not having a good time, as you can see.
It’s hot, and people are shooting off fireworks.
No fun at all.

The guy I live with watered most of the garden yesterday to prevent it from being set on fire by fireworks landing in our yard. That has happened once, but it was before my time.
Fortunately nothing happened, because we haven’t had any rain for ten days.

The guy I live with said it did rain here today. Twice. He said he counted fifty-three drops.

Since I haven’t seen a bear in ten days either, I guess I’ll show you some pictures of plants. The guy I live with said this time of year is strangely melancholy for him, but that the plants make things a bit better.
This is Alcea rugosa. It does seed around a bit, and gets chewn by Japanese beetles (chewn is a word), but the guy I live with still likes it.
You can see that it’s not a small plant.
Right next to it is Lavatera thuringiaca (now Malva thuringiaca).
This also seeds around a bit.

One of the guy I live with’s favorite sights at this time of year is Allium pskemense. You have to walk behind part of the garden to get to this place.
This is a really big allium, if you couldn’t tell.

Then there’s Penstemon richardsonii flowering very happily in a glazed pot that’s cracked at the base, but then, it has been outside in Denver since about 1965.
The penstemon sowed itself in this pot several years ago; the plants in the garden died.
And lots of Ratibida columnifera. The guy I live with likes this very cheery plant.
You’ll notice I’m not in this picture.
There will be lots of seed this year. You just grab the seed head and sprinkle the seed wherever you want plants.

And, finally, Yucca reverchonii is in flower for the first time here.
Maybe you can see how fuzzy the stems are.

I did spend a very pleasant hour napping this afternoon, with the portable swamp cooler blowing nice cool air on me. Aside from breakfast and dinner, and my walks, this was the highlight of my day.

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 our latest news. You may remember me from such posts as “Float Like A Feather”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
You can see that it rained here. It rained for about half an hour.

I saw a bear today. I had smelled something very interesting and new along the canal road, on my morning walk, and when we came back home I sensed something highly unusual in our neighbor’s apple tree. No one lives in that house now, but there are still apples, and I saw the bear and jumped about six feet.
It was hard to see, and it was a little bit bigger than I am, which made the guy I live with worry about the mother bear, whom he said we do not want to meet.
I knew there was talk about bears being around here, and now I know it’s not just talk.
Other people came over to look, and I think the Division of Wildlife was called, maybe to relocate the bear, or bears, to a more bear-friendly habitat.
The whole thing was very scary.

The guy I live with spent some time clearing out the border in the “way back”, even though he saw the bear too.
It’s a real mess, as you can tell.
The guy I live with worked on this until he couldn’t work any more. I didn’t think this was all that interesting, because I saw a bear.

There are some things in flower here. I’d show you more pictures than this, but I saw a bear.
This is a very yellow seedling eremurus.
The bear wasn’t yellow. It was black.

This is Lilium martagon, also not a bear, flowering next to the apple tree. The guy I live with said the apple tree didn’t flower this year, so we won’t have bears in the tree.
That’s the plinth for the broken birdbath, if you were wondering.
The guy I live with said plinths won’t attract bears.

That’s really all I have for today. “All” meaning of course I saw a bear. I looked in the neighbor’s tree on my evening walk, hoping not to see a bear, because I’ve already seen one now.
I’ll leave you with a picture of my walking through the sea of smooth brome.
I think I told you that I saw a bear.

Until next time, then.