Your Gardening Assistant

[tsbccowboy]

Tell us about your gardening assistant. Is your gardening assistant a person, a pet, a tool, other ( past or present)? Who or what helps you or "helps you" in the garden?

Nike is my gardening assistant.


Nike


Nike


Nike
After a large snow. Nike would take a couple steps, then stand up to see where to go next.


She was with me for 16 years before leaving this world, but she is still with me each time I go out into the gardens. She was an incredible dog. Nike would smile at me each day I came home from work, at least I called it a smile and not just baring her teeth at me. When I first met Diana I told her Nike could smile and Diana said "yeah, right". Diana wasn't too believing, but the first time Nike smiled at her, it melted Diana's heart. I also told Diana I was 6 feet tall (I may be short of 6 feet on the outside but I'm 6 feet on the inside) and my dog was a Doberman (Nike was also a little short on the outside but on the inside she was a big dog).

I like popcorn and often times made a large bowl of popcorn for myself. Nike also liked popcorn but could only have the ones that fell. Nike would sit beside me while I ate popcorn and would nudge the bowl with her nose to try and make some popcorn fall out (like I couldn't figure out what she was doing). Popcorn probably wasn't the best thing for a dog but I did brush her teeth every day.

Nike has some Dachshund in her and I always wanted to enter her in a Wiener Dog race. She was super fast running and it was fun to watch her run. Her ears would be straight back and she looked like a bullet. If she could have been in a race with purebred Dachshunds, she would have blown away the field.

Who is your gardening assistant,
Cowboy

[McTavish]

What is a garden without pet's helping you? Here are a couple of older pictures. I'm trying to learn how to post pictures on this forum. This is a different way than the pictures on the thread of what got us interested in Hostas. Let's see what happens.

Sunny Delight 10-8-13 (50) by mctavish6, on Flickr

Big Ben and Little Ben 9-12-13 (7) by mctavish6, on Flickr

That seemed to work.

[harryshoe]

Manfred helps to remove pests from my garden. This picture answers all questions concerning his ability to hold on to his snacks.

[hippieindenial]

The two goldens are mine - Talia and Tucker. The Beagle/Bloodhound mix is my parents' dog - Sadie.



Vanessa

[Don_in_Colorado]

Cujo has been my constant companion in the gardens for several years now. Hunts voles like a champ.

Don B.

[tsbccowboy]

Love all these guys but what planet did Manfred come from?!?!?!? WOW!

[kHT]

Look at all those assistants and I'm betting a lot gets done in everyone's gardens. Our four legged friend is Sable and she
pretty much has her own area, if allowed into the garden she will bee line to where there is soft dirt and rolls in it. Or will
find all the sap in the yard and again have it all over her fur. Don't have a current photo but will try to add one later.

[Pieter]

One of my past gardening companions, now at the Rainbow Bridge, eating more grass.... and the occasional hosta...

[Chris_W]

So nice to see everyone's companions and helpers, past and present

These are a few of my assistants. We've had lots of past ones too unfortunately, but these three are still with us after many years.

Cleo is the resident vole and rabbit hunter. You won't see her very often but she is my shadow when there aren't customers around:

Next is Scratchy. She is our 2nd best hunter and she loves to catch mice and voles. Usually she works the night shift so you will find her in my office most of the time:

The last one for me to share is Foxy. Her job is to look pretty in the hosta gardens:

Maddie is also around all the time as our official greeter, but I don't have a picture of her at the moment. She spends her entire days greeting guests during the summer and won't leave the sales area until closing time.

[tsbccowboy]

Each one of these gardening assistants is so precious!!!

[McTavish]

Here are a few to add. Everyone's pets are beautiful. First of all I'm jealous of Chris and Don's hunters. I used to have hunters but they all died of old age within a few years of each other. This one, MItzi, is new to us. She's a sweetheart and does catch the occasional thing but not very often. She is more interested in seeing just how fat she can get. I notice in this picture she is much slimmer than she is now. That is not a good thing.

Mitzi 10-7 14 (20) by mctavish6, on Flickr

Bo's purpose is decorative. He follows me around and poses. He's in at least half of my garden pictures. In these shots he is pretending to be a cat statue.

Bo 10-8-14 (71) by mctavish6, on Flickr

Bo 10-8-14 (82) by mctavish6, on Flickr

Brody the sweetheart. He's 12. It scares me

Brody 10-8-14 (63) by mctavish6, on Flickr

[Chris_W]

McTavish, your assistants and gardens are lovely. Thanks for sharing

[DelawareDonna]

Manfred's brother, Manny hangs out in my garden.

[thy]

Garden helpers

LOL the first dog I had with hostas in the garden loved to dig them up and plant a bone in the hole. Not an easy job for a Bison Frise, they dig with their noses... very easy to confirm on a white dog
Miss Amanda did not like soil on her feet, she preferred tiles, if she walked with me in the garden it was just because she was so afraid I would get lost... from her... she did snap a bumblebee or a little bird once in a while

The only dog with interess in the garden is my sons, she follow me around, sticking her nose in the plants and look at me... think she wonder why I scratch the soil and not her


It is amazing how elegant and careful this huge dog can walk my narrow patches.

But I do have an excellent helper or rather had when she was a student... My daughter

Welcome to the new members

[funnthsun]

Here's mine. Her name is Abbey and she is always outside when there is gardening happening. She really enjoys it!





She smells every single plant that I put in the ground, supervising the process and goes on my daily walks through the garden, sniffing everything in sight. I just love working with the best!

[tsbccowboy]

It is so fun to see each of these "assistants"

[Linda's Garden]

I love seeing everyone's pets! Everyone should have a helper or two (or three in my case). My three dogs follow me around in the garden and are generally well behaved. The husky loves to go out and lay in the sun while I work in the garden.

Linda

[Carol O]

Here's Lily. She's sometimes more of a 'pest' than an assistant!

[bkay2000]

Thy, is that an Irish Wolfhound?

Gorgeous dog.

bk

[Linda's Garden]

I recently got another gardening assistant LOL...she is just here for a bit though...I am fostering her for a local rescue group. Her name is June but I call her Junebug. She is a Border Collie/Terrier mix.