Hello everyone; once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, here to bring you the latest news from our garden. You may remember me from such riveting posts as “Left Alone”, and the other post called “Left Alone”, and “Home Alone Once Again”, and “Guarding The Fort”, among so many, many others, most of which weren’t about me being left alone.
Here I am in a characteristic pose, after the guy I live with came back home after leaving me alone for two whole hours. 
Now, you may not think that two hours is a long time, but it is to a purebred border collie, and besides, the guy I live with’s whole life revolves around me, so you would think he would do something less selfish than take a trip to a nursery, but he did anyway.
He made it all better when he came home, of course, and I even got some pecan-smoked salmon, since he smoked some yesterday, and it was good. But still ….
It is Saint Patrick’s Day, and the guy I live with is partly Irish, and at this time of year he’s really ultra sad (though not as sad as I was when I was left alone for two whole hours), and also his great-great-great (etc) grandfather had to leave Ireland under what the family said were “unknown circumstances”, and he was a gardener, too. And of course both my grandpa Flurry and my buddy Slipper were named after characters in The Irish R.M.
He went to Timberline Gardens for some plants he “had to have”, and so, well, he was gone for two whole hours.
Setting up the tables.
He wandered around, like he does, and then his eye caught the cactus display garden. Or, no, wait, the cactus display garden caught his eye. (That would hurt, I think.) I showed that a while back when everything was in full bloom, but the guy I live with says things should look interesting in the winter, too. So he took some pictures.
By the way, you can get these cactus at the nursery, or at Cold Hardy Cactus, online. You can embiggen these pictures by clicking on them.
Chocolate Princess
Hawaiian Punch
Dark Stem
Golden Lion
Snow Leopard
Then he went into the greenhouse to look at Cupressus arizonica ‘Fandango’ again.
Oh, and then into the Agave House. Most of these are selections of Agave parryi.
Agave havardiana
this parryi is at our house now
Agave palmeri
Then some stock plants.
a Pediocactus simpsonii with nice spines
Opuntia basilaris var. brachyclada
possibly a form of Opuntia rutila from the San Gabriel Mtns in southern California, not really hardy here
So then, he came back home. I was really glad. And of course, the minute he came home, he had to go out and take some pictures.
Crocus biflorus subsp. adami
Iris rosenbachiana Tovil Dara
I got to go on my walks, of course. Both the morning and afternoon ones were really long, so that sort of made up for being left alone for two whole hours.
The guy I live with pointed out to me that the willows along the creek are rather attractive trees in winter.
He might be right.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Snow leopard is very lovely. Those ‘possibly Opuntia rutila’ plants look like they’re trying to spell out something (what, I don’t know). I went to our local nursery today & bought pansies, which I will plant tomorrow. Because, spring.
Went to the nursery, because spring. The purple-in-winter opuntias are very attractive, though they take up a lot of room. The ones here are now next door, because more room. The guy I live with reads Language Log, because language. Because is now a preposition. Supposed to snow tomorrow, again, which is good, because precipitation. Snow is better for the zillion seed pots; melting instead of dripping. Many species of alyssum from Turkey already up; the seedlings can take freezing, which is good, because climate. Which, by the way, when the guy I live with goes to a place like Timberline and sees all these cool named selections of native plants, makes him glad he gardens here. Even with all the snow.
Because, because, because, because, BECAUSE! Because of all the wonderful things it does! ‘It’ could mean the word because or going to nurseries or . . . purt near endless possibilities.
I feel the same way about the native plants here. When we were in Flint, MI, we decided we would like to live closer to family, so my husband applied to a university in San Diego (I had a brother there & he has a sister still there). A couple of days before we left to attend a conference there, he got a call from the university saying he’d made the first cut & was he still interested. He said yes. While we were in San Diego, I paid a lot of attention to what it would be like to live there. I decided the gardening was just too different from what I am used to, and gardening is too much of who I am, so I didn’t want to live there. He apparently didn’t make the second cut, so it was a moot point. But it was interesting to learn that about myself. We love best what we love first. Because home.
On revient toujours à ses premiers amour, says the guy I live with, but in this case it would be living in a dry climate, which California, where he grew up, is. Denver is really quite similar in many ways. The “sun-blinded streets”, and things like that. In other ways it’s totally different, of course. The difference, snow and stuff, are probably what make so many people think this is really a western enclave of Vermont. It isn’t. There is a lot to be said for home. The guy I live with constantly says we are lucky to have one, one we own. He would rather be at home with me than anywhere else, because me, and because home, and because my mommy lived here. It’s really cold and windy today, and snowflakes are dancing in the air. It’s supposed to get down to 20F tonight (-6.7C), then back to 60F (15.5C) tomorrow. Up and down, up and down.
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?
Oui.
Two whole hours! You are right, Chess, to give the guy you live with A Look such as you display in your portrait. Though I am beguiled by certain of those cacti. If we were not trying to maintain a friendly yard – given confined space – I would me tempted. The photos of crocus, iris and willow taken on your guy’s return are some of the best, prettiest I’ve seen on this site. And I’d rank pecan-smoked salmon as a bit of consolation for your abandonment.
Thanks. The crocus and iris pictures were taken with the DSLR. Some of the opuntias are spineless, though they do take up lots of room. Or rather, they should take up a lot of room. This is the way to grow them. The smoked salmon was really good, and salmon is good for me. Not very smoky either. The guy I live with likes pecan or oak for smoking. He mostly just smokes salmon. My mommy was Scandinavian, and so she loved things like smoked salmon, or trout, and it’s one thing that he’s kept on doing since she left us. He says it’s very important that you brine the salmon first. There’s a 3×5 card with a bunch of stuff that my mommy wrote on it, like what makes a brine, and how many cricket chirps per minute to tell the temperature, and things like that. She did the cooking for a while, then he took over and cooked all the time, except when she wanted Minnesotan food, like “hot dish” or tuna noodle casserole. Oh, that sounds really good. And she cooked the turkey on holidays. I’m getting carried away now. The brie is all gone.
Nice!! Thanks, Chess
Thank you.
Hi Chess. The cats that run the show here in the house I live in (Ted and Doobie) think you are pretty wimpy about the two hour thing. They say you need to man-up..sometimes they are here alone for two whole DAYS ! The guy you live with has good taste in Optunias though..you should be proud.
Two whole days? Yeah, but cats don’t need to sleep on soft Pottery Barn sheets and be tucked in at night. The guy I live with said that when cats lived here (a horrible thing to think about) they would sleep on the bed, but purr so loudly that eventually they were banned from the bed. The jumped back on the bed, anyway. I don’t purr, but I do snore.
Hi y’all from icy NC. Although not anywhere near as bad as Slovenia (tell the guy you live with we appreciate the reference. The pictures online were awesome in their beauty but frightening in the scope of damage and hardship.) So with yet another ice storm, we’re living vicariously through you; both for the pecan smoked salmon and the visit to various nurseries. My gal sure would love a Fandango but she said living on three acres of hardwoods does not allow for the indulgence of another tree. We also love the colors in the pediocactus, crocus and iris. My gal thinks at this rate, we won’t see spring until next month even though it’s two days away. Sure has put the kibosh on our southern flowering anything. Ooops, I ‘ve just been told to stopping hanging out on the internet and head out to the front garden bed. It’s that time of the year for the DVO – dreaded vole attack. If I want my tuna juice cocktail, I’d better fulfill my obligations as the house kitty. Stay warm, dry and safe.
Oh, the DVO. Had those here. Total massacre of large areas of the garden. When my grandpa Flurry was here, voles didn’t stand a chance. Blood meal, or Plantskydd (pretty much the same thing, skydd being the Swedish for “protection”, and not pronounced like it looks, more like “shwee-ut”) chases them away. Kind of gross, but sprinkled around the entrances to their tunnels does have a deterrent effect. You could have the person you live with do the blood meal thing, and then pretend it was all your doing. I do the same thing with the brie. Fandango is something else, is it not? Not in the trade, yet, though. (The plants in the picture are about to be tested, I guess.)