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 some gardening news. You may remember me from such posts as “Before It Snows”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
It was sunny on and off today.
You can see what it was like here yesterday morning.
It snowed, but only this much. The guy I live with says the rest of the month looks pretty dry, with the “exciting addition” of high winds, blowing dust, and fire weather warnings this coming Thursday.
He says we have to face the fact that the weather here has changed, and very dramatically too, in the years he’s lived here.
No rain in March is just bizarre, but the last several springs have mostly been unpleasant, in the sense of almost no rain and record cold temperatures.
He was talking to his friend the other day, telling her, because he’s lived here longer, how we used to have these long periods of mist, drizzle, and rain, any time between March and October, and sometimes more than once during that period. Lots of overtime when he worked in telephone repair. The last time that happened was in 1995. It snowed, but didn’t stick, every day in April into the middle of May, and then rained every day until the first of June.
He might take quite some time to adjust to these new weather patterns.

Last autumn, the guy I live with planted five Eremurus robustus, and there’s no sign of them, even though the one already in that border is up.
He doesn’t know why the new ones never came up.

He also doesn’t know why so many of the seedlings that resulted from the nicking and soaking business died, but he’s okay with that. He just did it to have something to do.
The seedlings of Ipomoea leptophylla, also nicked and soaked, are very much up, though.
And, if you remember my post “Una Furtiva Lagrima”, he was hoping there would be some results from last year’s sowing of calochortus seeds. It looks like something might be happening here.
I did hear another “Ha!” of triumph.
It’s not very likely these are newly-germinated seeds.
So he’s pretty happy about this, especially if the seedlings live.

I’ll leave you with a picture of me in one of my favorite places. You may be able to see my nose under the curtains, in a place where the guy I live with said “a certain purebred border collie puppy” chewed the bottoms of the linen Pottery Barn curtains.

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 yet another post. You may remember me from such posts as “Stuff And Nonsense”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose.
(I’m in the doorway.)
You can see how overcast, dry, and gloomy everything is. The guy I live with, besides complaining about how overcast, dry, and gloomy everything is, has been rethinking the idea of having so many native grasses in the back yard. I’m not sure how this will pan out, as they say. (The guy I live with said that was an old gold miner’s phrase; we live in a state where a lot of gold mining was done, and still is.)

Okay, so, anyway, you may find this a dumb and repetitive post, but considering the volume of mail we get asking about this and that (“Strangely”, the guy I live with said, “never about Opera Day”) I thought I would answer some questions about tools.

The guy I live with isn’t much into power tools. He has an Echo gas-operated trimmer, and an Ego battery-operated leaf blower, which he uses all the time, to blow fallen leaves off the raised beds and into the borders. It doesn’t make very much noise, but I still bark when it’s running.
The guy I live with really likes Ego tools, no nonsense about having to get gas all the time, and is thinking about getting one of their snow-throwers.

“But what about trimming the edges of the raised beds?”
The guy I live with uses these, which I think were made by Burgon & Ball.
He’s used sheep shears since, like, forever. His grandfather had some in the shed in his garden in Los Angeles. They make a very pleasant whisking sound. (He stuck the shears into the ground while using them and didn’t clean them off afterward.)

“Besides the grass sickle, what does he uses for cutting things down?”
These; they’re Japanese, and very high quality. Also, probably carbon steel, which takes an edge better than stainless steel. They came from Hida Tool.

“Do these get oiled?”
Yes, with camellia oil.

“What about loppers?”
These are Bahco, from France, for vineyards; the guy I live with’s wife bought these after doing a lot of research. They’ve been used a lot, and I mean a lot, since they were purchased.

“What about a favorite weeder?”
Any kind of nejiri kama, Japanese weeder.
The guy I live with’s wife used one of these, all the time. She loved weeding.
There are of course other weeders in the tool shed.

“What about a favorite trowel?”
This one, from Sweden. It was given to him by a friend who lived in Sweden. The guy I live with hasn’t heard from him in a while, but after his wife died so suddenly, a lot of people were uncomfortable talking to him, which he understands, but this is a pleasant memory of days gone by, and a wonderful trowel.

“What about garden twine?”
Japanese garden twine.
Also Nutscene, from England, which is hard to find in this country now. If you’ve been reading this blog for a long time (and believe it or not, some people have) you’ll remember when Earl, the squirrel, stole the whole can of Nutscene for his nest.

“Since we’re talking about twine, what about knives?”
Opinel, from France. Pruning knife above, garden knife below.
The guy I live with’s wife had a smaller one, which she kept super sharp.

“Talking about sharpening, how does he sharpening pruners?”
With this, Pruna Mate from England, available from Garden Talk. This has lasted a very long time.
Really easy to use, and easy to get the blade sharpened quickly.

“The guy you live with uses Felcos?”
Well, yes, but there are also these. Tobisho, hand made. A next level up from everything else.
The guy I live with likes to talk to visitors about pruners, and then he hands them these, and has them cut something, and watches their expression.

“What about a favorite shovel?”
This, from Bulldog Tools in England.

“Are there any tools the guy you with live has purchased and then never used?”
Yes. This poacher’s spade, from Bulldog Tools. The guy I live with’s wife always wanted one, so one day, after she died, he bought one, and has never used it.

And that’s what I have for today. There are a lot of other tools in the shed, but these are some of his favorites.
I hope you found this at least a tiny bit interesting. You can see how much I did.

Until next time, then.