Friday we checked on a number of different gardens from Long Beach to Discovery Heights and weeded and cleaned up some of the streetside gardens along Howerton Way at the Ilwaco Harbour Village: the port gardens, the Port Bistro restaurant, and Time Enough Books.
(left) at the McD drivethrough in Long Beach, yellow Tulip ‘Big Smile’ has stood up well to all the recent storms. Note to self: plant them more thickly next year for a more vivid display.
(right) The same Tulip giving us a big smile from the boat in the Time Enough Books garden.
When we went into the bookstore to get Allan’s present for his sister Pam, we found something more exciting even than plants: The owners are fostering a Boston Terrier puppy. Their sweet golden lab, Harper, loves the puppy and particularly enjoys trying to share the bottle, then carefully licks all the milk off of the well-fed sleepy puppy’s face.
Saturday morning Allan and I joined the Grassroots Garbage Gang’s beach clean up session. The rain had slowed from an early morning storm and it did not occur to me to suit up in rain pants, a decision which I later regretted (as did Allan, who made the same ill-fated choice.) Indeed, the rain returned in force. I had two winter scarves wrapped around my head because I do find hoods so uncomfortable and lacking in clear visibility.
Allan hauling soggy garbage…and a landscape design by mother nature
Because the beach between the Seaview approach and the creek had been well cleaned, we walked back via the Discovery Trail, where Allan pointed out the sort of naturescape that inspires the driftwood decoration of gardens.
We arrived at the Senior Center almost too late for the thank you lunch provided for the beach clean up volunteers; it had become quite absorbing to go just a little bit further up the beach for another cluster of bottles and cans. Then home, warmth and dry clothes and some email time and later a delicious dinner at the Depot Restaurant.
At home the next morning I had a very slow start involving sitting in a chair by the pond for at least an hour, counting the new fish babies (fifteen or more!) Later I pruned a large and overly rampant honeysuckle. I found a baby offshoot of my Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Steroidal Giant’, just about my favourite plant of the year, which caused a greater shout of glee than even the baby fish because a Tetrapanax ‘SG’ costs about $30 to buy. A few more brief pond chair sitting sessions were necessary to get through the day, but I finally got my birthday present from Allan (five bales of compost!) spread in my new raised garden bed.
Allan pruning the last sword fern on the Big Rock
Tangly Cottage Gardening 
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