Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you the latest and most exciting news from our garden. You may remember me from such exciting posts as “More Form, Less Texture” and “Big Metal Chicken”, among so many other design-oriented posts.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. Notice that I have a new rug, and a new mat, which is actually a doormat, so it’s much easier for me to get up. There are five of these large black doormats in the kitchen, all for me, and as you can see, we’re on the cutting edge of style here, as usual. I like the new mats a lot. 
Continuing this “new wave” approach (you can see how sophisticated I am by titling my post en français..), the guy I live with took a picture of the usual thing he takes a picture of, the path going through the “lawn” to the arbor on the north side of the garden, but this time at dusk, which he says makes a better picture than if it were taken in the gloom of a thunderstorm, which is what we usually have here. You can see that the solar light is on. The lights are there so I can see stuff when I go out into the back garden at night. The mulleins are Verbascum densiflorum. 
Even more astounding, and I bet this catches on very quickly, is the stylish placement of a trash can in the garden. The guy I live with says it’s okay to be jealous of his ability to create garden art out of objets trouvés.
I don’t really know why the trash can is still there. It was out in the garden to collect a bunch of rain water for the house plants on the two days when it rained a lot, and then it was moved closer to the house, but it hasn’t been moved since then, and there isn’t any water in it now.
la poubelle dans le jardin
Well, whatever, huh. I like my mats quite well, as I say, but I’m not so sure about the trash can. The guy I live with says it’s “symbolic”. He looked at this book about gardens “designed to be read”, and so he says this is the same sort of thing.
I guess it’s time for a plant picture, before we lose all credibility. I know I keep showing pictures of this, but here’s the colony of Ipomopsis rubra again, which he says refuses to come into focus. How can plants refuse to come into focus? (Oh, and yes, there is an echinacea in the garden, at the bottom of the picture. This is E. tennesseeensis. Maybe that’s too many Es.) 
To get a colony like this, in focus or not, you order seed from a seed company, and sow it any time before the first of the year. Then next spring you get a bunch of ferny rosettes, which turn into these, the year after. (Seed companies like J.L. Hudson or The Fragrant Path sometimes offer seed of this plant.)
Speaking of seeds, the guy I live with has been potting up more seedlings for the rock garden plant sale this September. He says he bets most rock gardeners don’t have Acantholimon curviflorum or Achillea sipkorensis. (Yes, the plants could be bigger, but I’m sure you remember how much complaining there has been about the lack of sun here this summer.)
To get back to interesting stuff, this is me, inspecting the garden for weeds. The guy I live with says that we don’t pay much attention to weeds around here except on Weeding Day. 
Me again, if you couldn’t tell. We had a couple of hours of sun in the afternoon today. You can’t see the trash can from here, which I don’t think spoils the overall effect at all. (You can really see it, but you have to look for it, which spoils the “spontaneous gesture” which it was claimed to be earlier today, and definitely not by me.)
We even had a sunset this evening. 
Okay, now that really is all for today. Sorry about all the French at the beginning. The guy I live with was talking about style and design, and I got carried away.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 