the miserable gardener

Greetings and salutations everyone; it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, yet again. You maybe remember me from such posts as “Last Seen Wearing” and “Another Busy Day” among so many, many others.

The weather has now officially turned excellent. Almost freezing at night, and misty, drizzly, and raining during the day. Perfect weather for border collies. We got all wet on both walks today, and I got to track in a whole bunch of stuff onto the carpet, so of course it was totally excellent. Here I am after being dried off with a towel.

The guy I live with isn’t complaining about the weather. For once, huh. He got a bunch of cyclamen from Hansen Nursery yesterday and planted and planted, and then it rained on them, which, if you were a cyclamen, you would say was excellent. I guess I have something in common with cyclamen.

Then he got some more from Edgewood Gardens after he’d spent all this time planting, so then he planted and planted and planted some more.

He says you can grow them from seed too. Even old seed, though some people say not to. What you do is sow them in a pot on top of a soil-less mix, water the pot gently, then put it in a plastic bag with the top open but turned over slightly, so that some air can get in, then put the pot in a dark place until the seed germinates, making sure the soil-less mix doesn’t dry out. Then the cyclamen can be grown on a windowsill for the next year.

Isn’t that interesting?

Now that we have a rainy season (this is what the guy I live with is saying anyway), we have mushrooms.

The guy I live with says he’s going to write a book called Mushrooms for the Rock Garden. I can hardly wait.

And now, of course, he wonders why he gave away all the rhododendrons that were the only plants most visitors would bother to look at, instead of all the grasses and weeds and stuff. And, he now says “the sudden appearance of a marked rainy season in our garden renders the purchase of plants like this moot”. I think moot is a funny word. I could have been named that instead of Chess, and then when my name was called people would think that the people calling me were cows.

“Plants like this” means the ones below.

The one in the back is the ubiquitous Ephedra equisetina, which the guy I live with really likes, though it does have a strong tendency to ubiquity, and in fact there’s still one in the front yard that he thought was dead after being chewed to pieces by voles with sinusitis, but it came back, and now that he’s planted other things there he wishes it wouldn’t, but it is, and probably always will be coming back. This one is going in the North Border in the Hopeless Section, because the plant will grow anywhere. Except, I bet, where he wants it to.

The other two, which look the same but as if an elephant sat on them, are the native ones, Ephedra torreyana, which doesn’t spread. The guy I live with had this idea of having a garden with nothing but ephedras, which I thought was a darn silly idea, but no one ever asks me about anything not having to do with walks or food. I like both. I’ve never had a biscuit on a walk, and that sounds pretty good, but the guy I live with would say I’m too busy barking, telling the whole neighborhood I’m going on my walk, and that I shouldn’t bark with my mouth full.

So anyway, there are the ephedras, epitome of dryland plants, just sitting there on the patio, in the rain. Like something from Hemingway, huh.

I’m not sure what the point of all this was, but I guess I’ll go now, and see you next time.

Hello everyone, here I am again. Chess the purebred border collie. Filling in for the guy I live with, even though he insists on taking really dumb pictures of me, his faithful companion. You may remember me from such posts as “Where We Live” and “One Thing Follows Another”, among many other wonderful posts. I mean if I do say so myself, which of course I do.

In none of those posts was my picture as silly as the one I get to provide today. (Notice that I know the word “none” is singular. I don’t always follow the rules of grammar, what with being a dog and all, but I thought I’d show that I do know the rules, at least some of them.) Anyway this is what we get for tonight.

He calls this chiaroscuro. I think it makes me look ridiculous, but he says it’s my fault because I wouldn’t sit still for a “real portrait”.

Well, time to turn the tables, I think. On our walk this morning, we saw frost along the banks of the creek. It’s true that this can happen long before frost reaches the garden itself, since the creek is lower than the garden and cold air drains down from Mount Lindo a few miles away, but it got the guy I live with thinking. That’s right, thinking.

All of these plants will need to be brought inside within the next month.

These too.

And, oh yes, these.

He claims that the Dasylirion berlandieri in the pot on the left isn’t very heavy, but the nameless agave next to it (to the left of the manzanita), is. Really, really heavy, and stabby too. The variegated one isn’t heavy.

Oh, and these. The slipper plant (the green sticks) in back left isn’t very heavy, nor are the Dasylirions miquahensis (or whatever) and quandrangulatum, or even the Nolina nelsonii. The tecoma thing, though, in the big pot, is really heavy. The sharkskin agave isn’t heavy, just planted crookedly. (I didn’t do that.)

And, uh, these as well. The Agave horrida in the back, on the left in the blue pot, is super extra really heavy (so he says), and he’s sure to be sliced to pieces just trying to pick it up. He gets scratched just looking at it. (That’s Opuntia santa-rita, Dasylirion acrotriche, a couple of dyckias, one of which is about to flower, as we showed a while ago, and Aloe ferox, if you wanted to know.)

Really good planning, I say. All of these plants have to be carried inside, and up the stairs into the spare bedroom. Who exactly did he think was going to move all these heavy, stabby plants inside?

The guy I live with, figuring that I’ve built up my muscles dragging him along the canal road on our walks, thought it might be a good idea to hitch me up to a cart so I could drag these things inside. I think not.

My job is doing things like following the hose.

I’ll sign off with that. If the guy I live with skewers himself moving all these plants inside, I guess I’ll have to learn to take pictures, too.