the miserable gardener

still more spring

Hello again. It’s me, the dog, Chess. You may remember me from such excellent posts as “Drip Drop Drip Drop” and “Memory and Desire”, which were mostly about me. That’s why they were excellent, of course. Here I am on the couch, which is really old and creaky; it’s made of rattan and all the border collies who have lived here liked this couch. You can see that this weather puts me in a really good mood.

I always thought “spring” meant flowers and warm weather, but the guy I live with says things change, and now “spring” means endless snow and gloom. I think he’s thinking about himself too much. Instead of me, I mean.

In fact, the guy I live with now says he’s never going outside again and will spend the rest of his life looking at gardening books instead of trying to garden in a place where it’s always snowing. I hope when he says he’s never going outside again that means except for our walks.

It doesn’t get much better than this.

just another spring day

Just another spring day. Look, it’s spring. Blue sky. The honey locust, which was here when we moved in, and which I would cut down (stupid locust pods everywhere) if I could get rid of the wood, has had the good sense not to do anything rash, like leaf out. The really smart plants died over the winter.

I took some so-so pictures to prove that it’s spring. It was so sunny and warm that the pictures didn’t come out too well.

An hour and a half or so later, things changed, the way they do. Look how fast the clouds on the right are moving.

I realize that this sounds repetitive, if not downright boring, but the forecast calls for a foot of snow tonight and near-record cold temperatures tomorrow night. This is the third or fourth occurrence of a foot of snow in combination with near-record cold temperatures in less than a month. I’m beginning to wonder if we’re not stuck in some sort of time loop.

I took some more pictures, still trying to prove it’s spring. Fritillaria pinardii:

Corydalis glaucescens ‘Pink Beauty’. I’ve posted this before, but that’s because it seems to be having such a good time here. Not much else is.

The ultimate harbinger of spring in Colorado (aside from the foot of snow business), Mertensia lanceolata, in bud:

And in flower:

In flower again:

A primula whose name I forget. Or, whose label was pushed so far down in the trough I can’t find it. This is one of those Primula allionii hybrids; the only primulas I can grow.