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 mostly to talk about my Private Lawn. You may remember me from such posts as “Clearing the Path”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
This is mostly what I’ve been doing, since it’s been so hot.
A few days ago, despite the unrelenting heat, this happened. It sprinkled on and off all day, too.
And then there was this, which I didn’t see.
Despite this, there’s yet another fire, this time near Lookout Mountain, which is several miles to the northwest of us. It was started by lightning. We can see all the communication towers with their red lights flashing if we walk out to the very back of the garden.
Buffalo Bill was buried on Lookout Mountain. The guy I live with has been up there once, the first or second year his family moved here.
The guy I live with saw the first Cyclamen purpurascens in flower today. They flower before the leaves appear, here. In other regions the leaves might be around most of the summer, if not all year.
He says you can tell it’s Cyclamen purpurascens because the bottom of the flower is sort of blunt. C. hederifolium, another species which flowers in autumn before the leaves appear, has little auricles at the base of the flower. They look like little ears, which is what “auricle” means.
Anyway, I should talk about the title of today’s post, and let me say I take no responsibility at all for that title.
The guy I live with has been hemming and hawing, mostly hawing I think, about whether or not to mow my Private Lawn. I didn’t have an opinion. I like my lawn a lot, though.
At first he said he wasn’t going to, because the lawn is buffalo grass, and it’ll start to go dormant next month or maybe a bit later. It would need to be watered after being mowed, but the guy I live with has been watering more than in any summer I remember.
He finally made a decision, and got out the lawn mower. I’ve shown this picture before.
I hear it’s really easy to use and does a nice job.
So he mowed, while I stayed indoors for safety reasons, and then he got out his gardening bench, kneeled on it, and trimmed the lawn with sheepshears, like he’s been doing for a long time. His grandfather showed him how to use sheepshears in his garden in Los Angeles, in the 1950s, so that’s how long he’s been using sheepshears.
This is a different, newer pair.
And this is the result. This is ‘Cody’ buffalo grass (nice tie-in with Lookout Mountain), which was sown from seed, before buffalo grass seed got very expensive.
He said that empty area by the hose will fill in next summer. Bunnies have been nibbling at the grass, which he said is okay.
If this had been done earlier in the summer he might have used the edger to make my Private Lawn fancier-looking, but this is more than acceptable.
By the way, the guy I live with said the reason he didn’t recommend buffalo grass in his last book was because of all the chemicals, like pre-emergents, people said you needed to get a lawn established. He didn’t use any chemicals; the lawn just grew. I live here, too, so chemicals are out of the question. He did use burlap to keep the new lawn in place; I think Chess, the purebred border collie who lived here before me, showed how that was done. (If you want to see that post, it was called “My Strange Little Garden”.)
So that’s all I have for today. I’ll leave you with another picture of me lounging on the bed.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 