When we got home from the Rainyside trip, of course I immediately checked my email and found one entitled “Accident at the Shelburne”. Imagine my shock to find photos, taken by owner Laurie Andersen, of a truck which had landed in the garden! Repair of this garden catastrophe will involve replacement of the antique lightpost and the picket fences, so we spent hours digging out delicate plants (especially the Oriental Lilies) and putting them in other Shelburne garden beds so that Bill Clearman, carpenter extraordinaire, won’t have to worry about where to step while he effects the repairs. (Only plant life and structures were hurt in the accident.)
On the second day of digging and transplanting (having skipped Monday because it was simply too cold for me), we took a break for a lovely lunch in the Shoalwater Restaurant’s pub, where we were grateful to reflect that the truck did not enter the grounds on a trajectory which would have connected with the antique (imported from England) stained glass windows of the Shoalwater. Thanks, friend J9, for the gift certificate to the restaurant!
…..the pub, after lunch………and the arched restaurant window, which was spared, and tulips, brought in from along the fence before repairs begin
In the quite late afternoon, we went down to China Beach Retreat (owned by the same people as the Shelburne) to transplant some of the rugosa roses which came from the garden bed the truck landed on. While they survived, their stumps would have been hazardous for a carpenter to work around. Glorious flowering cherries turned the road down to the garden into a bower of pink.
At the lower curve the the road, we again admired the river rock and driftwood hardscaping by Raymond Milner which so enhanced the creek as it swings past the Audubon Cottage.
On the grounds of China Beach are several windswept fruit trees in full glorious bloom. Last spring the deer went up the stairs onto the house deck and ate the tulips, but this year they decided to let the guests enjoy them instead. How kind!
[2012 note: We let both these gardens go in 2009 (I think.) The Shoalwater Restaurant moved to Astoria and became The Bridgewater Bistro.]
Tangly Cottage Gardening 
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[…] that has happened in any garden of “ours” in the last twenty years, including when the truck went into the Shelburne garden (because that was an […]
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