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 show you crocuses, snowdrops, and willows. You may remember me from such posts as “Forty Degrees”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
I think you can see that it snowed again. And now it’s supposed to be about 55 degrees (F) every day for a while, which is typical for December.
We only get a “white Christmas” about once every three years, and this probably won’t be one of those years.

Anyway, there’s some action in the pots of crocuses upstairs. This is Crocus laevigatus ‘Fontenayi’.
These came from Brent and Becky’s, and this crocus is another species which has overwintering leaves, so the guy I live with decided to give them a “boost” with their leaf-growing in their first winter. He dug up the pond basket they’re growing in and repotted it upstairs. There are some other Crocus laevigatus in the garden, as well.
The rest of the crocuses upstairs are doing well.
And there are snowdrops, too. Here’s ‘Potter’s Prelude’ again. It’s been moved around a lot, but this seems like a good place for it.
The guy I live with just noticed today that Galanthus cilicicus is up:
This is kind of a weak grower here.

So that’s the gardening news, such as it is.

On one of my evening walks, the guy I live with took a picture of Jupiter, practically over our house, and also said that star on the left is Sirius, “the dog star”.
I thought it was very nice to have a star named for dogs. He said it was very far away.
The only other thing I have is more pictures of the willow at the end of our walk.
These were taken over the last few evenings.
Pretty cool, huh? The willow used to have this long branch hanging over the path, but it was broken by snow a few years ago.
In the last picture you can see where we used to cross the creek, to our side, because it’s so shallow there. But we rarely do that now; there are dogs that jump the fence and that’s kind of scary. So we stay on the west side of the creek.

That’s all I have for today. I’ll leave you with a picture of me near another willow.

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 many things. Not shoes and ships and sealing wax, but just things. You may remember me from such posts as “Before The Deep Freeze”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.You can see that there’s still a little bit of snow in the garden. It’s been warm enough that working in the garden is pleasant, but not warm enough for all of the snow to melt.
The soil is still very damp, even in the field.
And apparently not cold enough to do away with all the yellowjackets. I saw one just this afternoon.

Today, the guy I live with was “going to do something”, but he didn’t know what it was, so aside from filling the bird feeders (they eat a lot), he went around taking pictures.

This is Lilium candidum. There used to be five of them, but “someone” sliced through some of the bulbs with a trowel, and so now there are only two.
The guy I live with said you used to be able to get the bulbs almost anywhere, but not any more. You plant the bulbs about an inch deep, in August or September, and shortly after that they send up these leaves which overwinter.
These are very poisonous to cats, by the way, but not to dogs, which I’m.

Here’s another picture of ‘Potter’s Prelude’, showing how well the bulbs are increasing. They were planted in the shade garden where they didn’t flower very well so a couple of years ago they were dug up and moved to a place where they get sun now.
Technically, I guess, this is a selection of Galanthus elwesii var. monostictus Hiemalis Group, though the marking on the inner segments is larger than most in the Hiemalis Group. (Hiemalis means “winter”.)
Personally, as a border collie, I don’t really care about any of this. Seeing snowdrops flowering at this time of year makes the guy I live with happy, and I do care about that.

There are other snowdrops that flower at this time of year. I’ve already shown Galanthus bursanus and ‘Barnes’, which is in the Hiemalis Group, but some others have not done as well as the guy I live with hoped they would.
These “should” be in flower now, and so the guy I live with is going to put a flag by them and transplant them next spring. They’re in too much shade where they are.

Speaking of shade, the guy I live with went into the shade garden today to look at things.
There are some Cyclamen hederifolium.
One leaf of Arum byzantinum:And then he saw this, emerging from the deep leaf mold. (It’s taken about thirty-five years for all this leaf mold to form.)
It’s not really safe to walk in this part of the garden right now, but the guy I live with knows where to step. He pulled back some of the leaf litter and looked into the deep, damp leaf mold. (I know this doesn’t sound like Colorado at all, but here we are.)
If you look carefully, in the bottom right of the top left quarter of the picture, what look like little white worms are really snowdrop seedlings.
There are dozens and dozens of snowdrops just in this picture, under the leaf litter and leaf mold.

You may be wondering why the autumn-flowering snowdrops don’t do well in the shade garden, when there are snowdrops up there right now.
They do okay there, but they don’t flower as early as they would when they get more sun, that’s all.

And that’s the gardening part of my post.

The other part, and maybe you guessed this already, consists of willow pictures. I like walking along the path on the other side of the creek, though it doesn’t go all the way down to the end of the field like the path on our side does. It’s always been overgrown, and full of mowed-down stumps from another species of willow, Salix exigua.
These two pictures were taken yesterday evening. It’s interesting how different they are.
The guy I live with says it’s best to click on them to see them better.
(Editorial note: the guy I live with realized how dark these pictures were and so lightened them up a little.)

Then here’s the one taken this evening. Again different.
This one is even darker but if you click on it you can see it.
So that’s it for today.

Until next time, then.