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 to bring you the latest news from our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “When Border Collies Attack”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose. I guess you know where the biscuit is.Pretty much less than nothing has happened since my last post. Quite a few days go by with nothing happening at all. Sometimes the guy I live with rakes up leaves and things in the back yard, or takes pictures. Sometimes he just sits inside because the smell from the neighbor’s laundry is so strong. Sometimes he goes to the store.

Then the other day, when we came home from Day Care, the guy I live with discovered that all of the crocus flowers had been shredded by birds. Some language ensued. He said the birds, probably robins, were looking for bugs in the flowers.

There was a tiny bit of rain one night, but mostly it’s been extremely dry. But it was weird to wake up and see things all damp. It was about a millimeter of rain. Or it could have been snow, even, that melted in the morning before we got up.

When the sun shines through the birch (Betula occidentalis) in the afternoon, the sunshine on the twigs makes these peculiar circular patterns. Kind of cool, huh? The birch has been here a very long time, and would be happier growing next to water, but this is where it lives.

A few things are flowering, despite the cold nights and the birds. (And whatever else is chomping on the plants). This is a “regular” form of Iris reticulata. The point-and-shoot makes the flowers look too blue; they’re really purpler. A few days ago, the guy I live with decided to do something he’d been wanting to do for a while, and so he did it. What he did was rake up all the dirt and gravel that was strewn around in the middle of the lawn, and make a berm out of it. If it looks like a pile of dirt and gravel, that’s because that’s exactly what it is.

It was a berm a couple of years ago; maybe you saw me lying on it was I was extremely miniature. Over time the berm got flatter, for some reason.

A dwarf conifer, Pinus monophylla ‘Tiny Taylor’, was transplanted into the berm. Plants get caged for their first year in the garden. (This cage is a bit too tall.) “To keep them in place”, is what he said. And because of the various rodents that might do harm to the little conifers. I know it doesn’t look like much, but not looking like much is kind of one of the garden’s mottoes, and so there you are.

Someone had to protect the berm, just in case. This is me, protecting it. The black tub is a liner for a half-whiskey barrel (half a barrel that used to hold whiskey, not half-whiskey), but we don’t have one of those here. There used to be half barrels in the garden, but they weren’t here when I showed up. Except for the one at the end of the patio, which never has anything planted in it. Someone talked him into taking the tubs and he’s been stuck with them ever since, but they are useful for covering bulbs on freezing nights.

Here I am again, protecting the berm, and keeping a close eye on my stuffed hedgehog lying on the flagstone. You never know what might happen.If it gets windy, which it has, lately, at least part of the berm can be held down securely. This is how you do it. I guess I was lying on some sedums that had been planted there (Sedum rupestre, I think), but I didn’t hear anything about it later.

I understand that some grass seed, buffalo grass seed, will be sown on the right side of the berm (the north side), and that it really won’t look as dumb as it looks now. I’ve heard that before.

So I think that’s it for today. We have a new berm. Or, the berm that was has been made new again. There’s a pile of dirt in the middle of the lawn, really. 

Until next time, then.

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the slightly huge purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you up to date on what’s been happening in our garden, and elsewhere, too. You may remember me from such posts as “Not Quite Like Me”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose. I bet you wish you had retractable ears like I do. A few days have passed since my last post. The reason I know this is that things have happened.

There was a day when we went for our evening walk (which is really in the afternoon, but “evening walk” sounds nicer, doesn’t it?) and it started to snow a little. The sky looked like this, but it was still snowing, because it was darker to the southwest.On the evening walk we go down to where the path, which is really a coyote path, stops, or at least stops for us, because the “open space” stops, and there’s a fence beyond that. The willows are kind of scary where the path stops. That’s the creek, right there.The fence post you see on the left is the corner of someone’s back yard. The guy I live with says the coyotes, Norm and Celeste, keep going, and that their den is quite a ways away from here. My house is, too, but in the opposite direction. The coyotes have a den; I have two snug forts, one in the kitchen, and one upstairs in the bedroom.You can see some snowflakes on me, as I was headed back to my house.So that was interesting.

Then, maybe the next day, or the day after that, I had a slight accident, and broke a toenail. I look pretty sad and pathetic here, don’t I? 

I guess it’s true that I get very good care.

The guy I live with also said that I might be putting on weight, which is why I said “slightly huge” right at the beginning, though of course it’s really just my winter coat. I’m outside a lot, and need a winter coat, you know.

Then there was a day when the guy I live with went back to the place where he worked, for a friend’s retirement party. I had to stay home, because they don’t allow purebred border collies in the building, which is pretty ridiculous, if you ask me.

The guy I live with came back and said that seeing people he hadn’t seen in ten years was a very emotional experience, because ten years ago his wife was still alive, and he used to have dreams in which he would wake up, and she would be there, and all the terrible things that happened after she died were just a dream. He even cried. But he did have to get back to me to make sure I was okay. Which I was.

Then later that same day his friend came over for dinner and I got to jump up on her and stuff like that. Then I pulled the bandage off my foot; it was driving me crazy.

And then the next day I was left alone for kind of a long time, because the guy I live with had to deliver some cactus seedlings to Denver Botanic Gardens. I knew he was going with his friend and since I can tell how happy they are together I was okay with that.

They went into the greenhouse to put the cactus seedlings there. I’ve met this guy.

Panayoti in the greenhouse.

They walked around the gardens, some. Purebred border collies aren’t allowed there, either. I think there might be something wrong with the universe, where purebred border collies have to stay home and not do things like walk around botanic gardens. That’s just my opinion, of course.

Here are some pictures, anyway.This is a big Yucca faxoniana. We have a smaller one in our front yard.Here’s a view of the rock alpine garden. The guy I live with said he always liked to go there when he was feeling a bit down, because it’s so great. There were lots of things in flower, because there are, at this time of year. I mean, not a huge number of things, but enough to look at. This is Cornus mas. There were bees everywhere on it.

That was yesterday. My toenail has completely healed now, though I still have to take an antibiotic. Which is perfectly fine with me, because the last time I had to take a big pill I figured out what was going on, and spit out the pill, and so now I get something called Brie, which is totally excellent. I like the idea of getting Brie instead of getting pills. (Just don’t tell the guy I live with that I really do know what’s going on with the Brie.)

Today we worked in the garden, all day long. I really like it when the guy I live with works in the garden, though sometimes I just lie on the patio rug. There have always been rugs here, I think. The guy I live with says it might be time to wash this rug. You can see the darker one beneath it, which was purchased by mistake; it’s sort of plastic-y and gross, but the one I’m lying on is pretty plush for something out on the patio.Sometimes I lie right next to the guy I live with when he works in the garden, which he likes, too. He told me that Chess, the purebred border collie who lived here before me, used to lie right next to the lady of the house when she worked in the garden, so there’s a kind of continuity there. Sometimes you need continuity, and sometimes you don’t. That’s what he said.

I’ll show a couple of pictures of bulbs flowering right now. This is an Iris reticulata from Armenia.This is Iris histrioides ‘George’. There are bunches of snowdrops still flowering, and I would have posted some pictures, but for some reason I don’t have them here. So you’ll just have to imagine them, I guess.

I think we’re completely up to date, now. It was such a nice day today that I spent some time actually helping out in the garden. My job here was holding down the grass; making sure it didn’t suddenly fly away, like it could have.

Until next time, then.