Hello everyone; once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to bring you the latest and greatest news from our garden. You may remember me from such great posts as “Words Of Wisdom” and “The Third Wave”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristically squinting pose. 
The guy I live with said that if I squinted, it would accentuate my “hound dog lips”, but it was kind of bright, looking into the camera. Whatever, huh.
At least the coffee cup was found. The guy I live with said that from now on, he’ll look in the microwave first, no matter what it is that he’s lost.
Now that that’s out of the way, today I’m going to talk about form and texture, because everybody else seems to, when talking about plants and gardening, so I figured why not give it a try myself. Besides, the guy I live with took some pictures of form and texture, so it would make sense to talk about it.
As many people know, my mommy was an artist and was really into things like form and texture. She would spend hours at the art supply store looking at paper. The guy I live with had a great deal of patience, obviously, because watching someone look at paper, especially handmade paper that has both form and texture, is rather boring. There was also this book, or books, since it comes in two volumes, called On Growth and Form, by D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, which my mommy said she always wanted, way back when she and the guy I live with were first together, and one day she asked the guy I live with if he thought the books were too much money, and of course he said no, and so she ordered them, and they came, and she was very disappointed. The books weren’t about what she thought they were, and she felt really sheepish about spending so much money on books it turned out she didn’t want, but the guy I live with just dismissed that, since he did that all the time, and still does, but not so much. 
Oh well, huh. The books sit on the shelf alongside other books with similarly-colored bindings, so there is some color coordination at least.
The guy I live with always thinks of this little episode when he thinks of form and texture, even though they aren’t quite the same. He thinks about a lot of things that aren’t quite the same, but that’s the way he is.
Some plants came in the mail today, from Miles’ To Go, and a few of these have quite a bit of form and texture. The guy I live with thinks the flower buds of gymnocalyciums (“naked calyx”, literally, “naked pod”; the word “chalice” comes from “calyx”) are especially attractive.
Some other plants. Aloinopsis malherbei.
And this thing. It really is a plant. Aloinopsis schooneesii.
And, I don’t know, green fingers coming out of the earth, or something? A green octopus? Ebracteola wilmaniae. 
Here’s a really form-y and texture-y thing, Agave utahensis var. kaibabensis. This is in the garden, but it still counts. These plants are well out of my way, behind a bunch of other stuff, in a garden I don’t go into, ever, in case you were worried. The guy I live with does think about things like that, you know. 
And, of course, there’s this, for total excellence of both form and texture.
So there you have it. Some form and texture. Maybe sometime we’ll “make a dramatic statement”, too. I mean if plants can make statements. I think purebred border collies can, at least. 
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 