the miserable gardener

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, your popular host, Mani the purebred border collie, here today to tell you how roasting I am, among other things. You may remember me from such posts as “Ultra Roasting”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
It’s 93 degrees Fahrenheit (33.8C) today. Way too hot for purebred border collies. Only 19 percent humidity, though.

Last week we had a torrential downpour which was pretty scary. There was a bit of hail, but so much rain, so quickly, that some of our neighbors’ yards flooded for a while.

And now I’m roasting. The guy I live with said it’s supposed to be hot all this week, but he did install another fort for me down in the basement, where it’s a lot cooler.

The heat causes trouble for newly-planted plants, so the guy I live with constantly has to remember to fill the heavy watering can and go out into the garden.
There are a couple of plants of Salvia pachyphylla on the flagstone which need extra attention.
As you can see, these are pretty big plants, but the pots they came in were pretty small, so the salvias are being treated to the “super genius” method, and that very porous mix surrounding the rootball can dry out very quickly in heat like this.
As soon as the roots have left the rootball, the plants can be planted out, though they’ll still need to be watered.

Speaking of water, last Monday, on my morning walk, there were people from the parks department out in the field. I walked up to them, and the guy I live with introduced the people to the sinkhole’s discoverer, me. They were very impressed.

It turns out that the 48-inch (122mm) pipe has a collar (I could relate to that) that separated during the big flood, and that caused the sinkhole.
Either the collar will have to be replaced, or the entire culvert will be. That means digging under the canal.
There’s going to be a bunch of work done out in the field. It might be scary. But the guy I live with, and at least one of his neighbors, says this will be very interesting to watch.

Another thing, and this can only be described as a “valuable addition to our modern lifestyle” (especially mine) is this:
It took a lot longer to install than the instructions said it would, partly because of the old, cheap windows, and partly because the guy I live with kept incorrectly measuring the boards needed to tilt the air conditioner slightly outward. He finally got it right, though.

So now my bedroom is air-conditioned, and I have the portable swamp cooler in the kitchen.
The swamp cooler makes a pleasant gurgling sound, and keeps the kitchen, the room where we are the most, very cool, so there’s really no reason to leave the house now, except to go on walks.

I’ll leave you with a picture of me, in the kitchen, with the swamp cooler running.

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 talk about some stuff. You may remember me from such similarly-themed posts as “Birds And Stuff”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
Bright, I know. The guy I live with said that’s what happens when you point the camera at the setting sun.

It’s hot and dry here, now, which, in a way, is a relief from constant daily thunder;  the portable swamp cooler runs almost all day long, and into the night. I like lying in the path of the breeze made by the swamp cooler.

Even though it’s hot, the field is still green.
The ratibidas, Ratibida columnifera, are having a very good summer.
You can see that some have red-brown sterile ray florets; I think these are the ones, or maybe all of them regardless of color, that are called “Mexican hats”.

Yesterday his friend came over, and I took her out to the “way back” to show her how huge everything was there. Lavatera thuringiaca especially. Not the greatest picture in the world, I guess.
There are a lot; all self-sown.

Anyway, last week the roses came in the mail. The guy I live with wanted some for “the enclosure”. He’s never been able to figure out what to plant there since his wife died. So he decided on roses for the sake of sentiment.
The roses planted there last year all died over the winter, which made him sad, but he did admit to forgetting to mound soil around the little roses.
‘Celsiana’, “Léda’, ‘Kazanlik’, and ‘Banshee’.
This year he promises to remember to protect the little roses for the winter.
(Um, the cinder blocks. The troughs sat on those, and now that most of the troughs are gone, there are a lot of cinder blocks. He might find a way to give them away.)

There are other plants on the patio, being treated to the “super genius” method so that they’re well-rooted before being planted out.
And these. Some super-rare plants he successfully grew from layers. You can imagine the triumphant strutting. I know they don’t look like much. (The plants in the pots on the left, and in front.)  From the Pamir Range in Kyrgyzstan.
He hesitated posting these on Facebook, because then someone might want these super-rare plants for free, which he finds unpleasant, to say the least. So he’s contacted a couple of botanic gardens to see if they want these plants. (He says they’re crazy if they don’t want them.) If no one wants them, he plant them here.

So that’s what’s been going on. It’s hot. It’s the guy I live with’s birthday, and he can’t go out into the garden because of the laundry smell from next door, which he says smells like “poisoned perfume.” Though really birthdays aren’t that big of a deal to him any more.
Tomorrow will be hot, too. It’s supposed be 99 Fahrenheit (37.2C) on Monday, which is extra-hot, for us, and then maybe we’ll be back to thunderstorms for a while. 

Until next time, then.