the miserable gardener

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you the latest news, which I have to admit isn’t much. You may remember from such posts as the similarly-themed “A Jar Of Ants”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
It’s been pretty hot here lately, so not much has been done in the garden.
But I have to tell you my little story.

A couple of days ago, we were out in the “way back”, and when I went to look out in the field (that’s why there’s nothing growing here; it’s one of my lookout points) I saw something under this lilac.
There was a rattling sound, and I jumped back about three feet. The guy I live with of course totally freaked out, thinking it was a rattlesnake, even though there was only a short bit of rattling.
He started to clear out a bunch of plants to the left of this lilac, and then he saw the snake.

It was a western yellow-bellied racer (Coluber constrictor, “the farmer’s friend”). A very large snake. So he looked online and sure enough, racers do rattle their tails in dry leaves, sort of to fake out purebred border collies who don’t much like snakes.
I’m glad I didn’t see the snake in all its hugeness.

So that was pretty exciting.

He’s been watering, some, with the new sprinkler. The garden doesn’t really need it, but there are all these cow-pen daisies that look pretty pathetic without water. They grew really tall when it rained a lot, and then when it stopped raining, they wilted.
He admits there might be too many of these in the garden. They’re annuals with very shallow root systems, and seeded all over the place last year.

The only part of the garden that gets regular watering (about once a week), besides the little shade garden on the north side of the house, is the garden in “the enclosure”.
The aster ‘Vasterival’ and its purple companion (on the right) have been flowering for a little while now.
The guy I live with thinks this is a pretty sad little garden, though people who see it don’t have any sense of that sadness, which he says is the way things are.
His wife designed this, and he’s slowly replacing the fence she built, because it started to fall apart.
Maybe when it gets cooler, like it’s supposed to next week, more work will get done.

The only other thing that happened was that he got some autumn-flowering crocuses in the mail. He just wanted more, like Johnny Rocco in the movie “Key Largo”.
The corms were soaked for an hour or so, in their bags, just to help them grow roots as quickly as possible. The corms need roots in order to form new corms for next year.
All 120 crocus corms were planted in a couple of hours. It’s surprising how quickly he does this.

I think that’s all I have for today. We’re hoping to get some rain next week, which will be nice.
I’ll leave you with a twilight picture of me on the canal road, with a view of the sinkhole.

Until next time, then.

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to bring you the latest news. You may remember me from such posts as “Some Adventures”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose. I’m watching for bees.
You might have to look closely to see me. Or maybe not.
The guy I live with says bees are good, and I agree. They’re pretty tasty. He keeps saying not to eat them, but I can’t resist.

Yesterday, the new sprinkler came in the mail.
As you can see, it works. It isn’t as fancily-made as the sixty-year-old Rainbird sprinkler we have, which still works, but this tripod-mounted sprinkler seems to be just the thing for getting over taller plants.

A few days ago the guy I live with looked at this bare area and thought it should have some plants in it.
That self-sown Mahonia repens will have to go. There are already enough of them here.
The guy I live with said that thymes would be an excellent choice, so he ordered some from Mountain Valley Growers in California.
Chess, the purebred border collie who lived here before me, showed pictures of the amazing way the plants are packed, but I’m going to show this again.
It’s really hot today, with fourteen percent humidity, so the plants had to be treated to the “super genius” method right away. They were repotted into larger pots and watered.
If these had been left in their little pots, or planted directly into the garden, they would have been dead within days.
The plants, with new soil around the root balls, will sit on the shelf for a week or so, well watered, until the roots leave the root ball, and then they can be safely planted.
I should emphasize that I take no responsiblity at all for the title of today’s post.
There are fifteen potted thymes on the shelf, and they’re ones that don’t need a whole lot of water. Sometimes, some thymes do (sorry), but these don’t.
The ones in the middle are Thymus odoratissimus (T. glabrescens), which is one of the best for our garden.

The only other thing I have to talk about is what’s here now that wasn’t here this morning.
The guy I live with went to see his friend today, and they stopped off at a nursery near her house where they sell “local” produce. By “local” I mean from the same state.
This is a cantaloupe from Rocky Ford, which is two hundred miles away from here, to the south. The guy I live with isn’t a melon chauvinist or anything, but Rocky Ford cantaloupes are the best. I’ve had cantaloupe. Purebred border collies love cantaloupe.
He also got two of these things, which are called “wallermello” or something like that. He gave one to his neighbor, the neighbor who lost his wife recently.
So that’s my news for the day.
I’ll leave you with a picture of me lying under the table, catching the cool breeze from the swamp cooler.

Until next time, then.