the miserable gardener

on the mend

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to bring you the latest news from our garden, and (definitely more interestingly) the latest news about me. You may remember me from such posts as “Dogs”, in which I think I introduced myself, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristically sweet pose.If I look like I could be cuddled, it’s because I can be. My mommy cuddled me all the time, and as many of you know, I’ve been really sick, and technically still am, but I’ve been stuffed full of medicine now, and even ate some roast beef and, of course, some Brie. True, it wasn’t the most expensive Brie that the guy I live with could buy, but it was still really good.

I did hurt one of my toenails, so my walks aren’t going to be all that long until that mends, but I feel so much better that I thought a short post might be in order.

Oh, this is funny, though it didn’t really involve me. The kid across the street, who “might be in second grade” sometimes comes over to hang out after the bus drops him off, until his parents come home from work, and the other day the guy I live with was kind of at a loss as to what to do, seeing as how he was in the second grade in 1958, when all kids had to play with were sticks and rocks, but then he suddenly had the brilliant idea of letting the neighbor kid use the Pik-Stik (the “grabber deal” that he uses to pick up stuff when he can’t bend over or he’ll get dizzy), which the neighbor kid thought was “totally cool”, and the two of them walked around picking up trash; the guy I live with held the trash bag. Even the beer and wine bottles someone threw into the field, near where I walk, got picked up. The guy I live with said he was “a genius” for thinking of this. I had to listen to the “genius” business for the rest of the day ….

Today, the guy I live with got these things in the mail. They remind me of the thing that grabbed John Hurt’s face in the movie Alien, which was a really scary movie, but the guy I live with said they were eremurus, and not to worry. It’s true that these are only ordinary eremurus (E. stenophyllus), but we didn’t have any in the garden any more, because of what the guy I live with calls “trowelitis”…..You plant the growing part just below the surface of the soil, and then spread out the roots very carefully (they don’t really need to be soaked), making sure that none get broken (or dusted with sulfur if they do).The guy I live with says you then ignore all the stuff people write about “drainage” and things like that, because eremurus grow in a climate similar to ours, though it is important not to plant them in a place where there’s standing water in winter. We only have one place like that, where water from melting snow flows down both the paths, north and south, and into the “way back”, which of course is where there were some eremurus planted last year, and they rotted away to nothing, since the soil was frozen, but the top part was ice water, for weeks on end.

And, oh, he says if you think eremurus are cool, which they are, then there a Russian website with pictures of lots of species (can be translated), and when the guy I live with looks at that, he wonders how he could get a bunch of seed of all of these, besides going there himself.

I was also going to show bunches of crocuses blooming here today, because autumn crocuses are one of the guy I live with’s absolute favorite things (besides me, of course), but I’m only showing two pictures.

Crocus speciosus

Crocus pallasii

If you want to see more of our crocus pictures, there are more in our photobucket. There are still more to come, and so watch that space for the next couple of months.

Thanks for all the comments wishing me well, by the way. I have things to do now.

Until next time, then.

some autumn color

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, who’s too distracted to be able to function properly. You may remember me from such posts as “Under The Weather” and “Trials And Tribulations”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.Events of this morning have revealed that I’m pretty sick, and I’m going in for ultrasound tomorrow morning. My doctor said it could be some upper gastrointestinal inflammation, so we’ll see. You can probably guess what the guy I live with thinks is going to happen.

So I don’t want to dwell on this too much. I know I could make a whole post just about me, but I’m not feeling so hot, as maybe you can tell by my characteristic pose.

It was “desperately gloomy” and chilly yesterday, and then rained, about a quarter of an inch (1.25cm). They said it could snow, and freeze, but it didn’t do either of those things.

Instead, the morning was clear, if a bit cool. I prefer cool weather.

The guy I live with got some daffodil bulbs in the mail (yes, believe it or not, he sometimes orders bulbs from regular places), and, again, soaked them in water. He says daffodils need to form roots as quickly as possible in our climate, and that soaking them triggers rooting, whereas (I do say “whereas” sometimes) just planting the dry bulbs would make it difficult to get water to them in heavy soil, unless it rained for days. Maybe I already said this. The guy I live with repeats himself so often that I’ve picked up the habit.

He did figure out that soaking them in the bag made more sense than soaking them out of the bag.

(He forgot to change the settings on the point-and-shoot, which is why these pictures are so small. Now come real pictures.)

Various forms of Salvia greggii are still in full bloom. I think this one is ‘Cold Hardy Pink’.

And ‘Furman’s Red’. There are bunches of other forms in the garden here, for testing, because the guy I live with says that there’s no place where Salvia greggii grows in the wild where it gets really cold, and so he thinks if these are hardy, all the others must be too. That’s proved the case with ‘Wild Thing’, ‘Grenadine’, and some others.

And some autumn color. Colorado isn’t known for autumn color, except for aspen, so gardeners have to do most of the work. (This next one is a native plant, though.)

Ribes aureum

Cotoneaster acutifolius

And the tecoma ‘Orange Jubilee’ is flowering like crazy. The pot that this is in is extremely heavy, and when it gets moved inside, the guy I live with employs “plant-moving language” which I understand is similar to “car repair language”. But much different from “dropping a fully-planted trough on his finger” language. We have a regular tecoma, T. stans, that’s got tons of buds, and also gets moved inside. My mommy grew that one from seed, from Southwestern Native Seeds, about a quarter century ago. It’s pure yellow. Incidentally, the beauty of the plants is matched by the fact that if he leaves them outside and it freezes, they grow back, just like if he forgets to water them.

Well, that’s my news. I admit that it really is more about me than the plants, but I go in early tomorrow, and my doctor has known me since I was extremely tiny, and I don’t have to be put under for the ultrasound. I can just lie there. Like I always do.

Until next time, then.

the miserable gardener

on the mend

some autumn color

Recent Posts

Archives

Meta