the miserable gardener

Digital images instead. Just because. Well, partly because the books that hold the slides have these wicked snaps on them that were obviously designed to be snapped open by steel-fingered robots, and partly just because I can show this.

Crocus baytopiorum

And this.

Adonis amurensis

But mostly because the digital images are more interesting than the slides. The majority of slides were taken because I wanted pictures of plants, for books and slide shows; the digital images were pictures that Cindy wanted to take, and that made a difference.

Chionodoxa luciliae in blue grama

Crocus minimus

Crocus pestalozzae

Crocus minimus

Crocus minimus

Crocus corsicus. the way to tell the difference between this and C. minimus is to dig up a corm and look at the tunic

Bolophyta tetraneuris. The Arksanas River feverfew. I’m probably the only gardener on the planet who thinks this is exciting

Douglasia nivalis, again

a brown flowered stock, Matthiola sp., I got from Panayoti, and I think I’ve lost it now. typical stock-scented flowers

Some pediocactus.

Pediocactus simpsonii. Blooms very early here, March or April; flowers are scented of roses

Pediocactus knowltonii

Pediocactus paradinei

P. simpsonii

P.simpsonii

P. simpsonii

Then some obligatory Cute Puppy Pictures. We got Chess in 2002 from a place down by Pikes Peak, which is how I started this post. (The US government no longer uses apostrophes with place names, as in Pikes Peak, Grays Peak, Torreys Peak, etc. Maybe to counteract all the apostrophes used with plurals these days, who knows.)

I think Chess is the one on the left in the last picture. Like I didn’t want to scoop them all up into my arms and take them home, but some were already spoken for. He threw up in Cindy’s lap on the way home, which I thought was really, really funny, because Slipper had down exactly the same thing two years earlier.

Ending the post, before it becomes obvious that I don’t have much to say and am just posting so I can reach the magic number of 250 (at which point I understand I get a small villa on the Italian Riviera with acreage and a knowledgeable garden staff), one of the last remaining watercolors. I’m thinking of offering this to the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, along with one other. Out of the 29,000 plus accessions there, Cindy’s are the only ones in watercolor pencil.

Penstemon clutei and Hyles lineata