Our plan had been to return to work on Feb 10th. That seemed like a good time, being right after a Saturday Peninsula Cash Mob event. Starting the Cash Mob having been one of my staycation projects. BUT February 9th dawned bright and beautiful. By midmorning that fact registered with us. (We are not morning people.) And we decided we had to work. I could not think of one more staycation garden project to keep us at home.
Our first job as always was the Long Beach parks and planters. A go round of all the planters kept me plenty busy for the first day while Allan worked on the Fifth Street Park. The early crocus rewarded us, but I did not see the snowdrops I had expected. I wonder if they came and went while we were at home!
in the Long Beach planters
The day almost ended inauspiciously with a dead battery caused by leaving the lights on, but Allan got a jump from a nearby Active Enterprises truck (Thanks!!) and we had time to plant two clumps of Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ in Nancy’s garden on our way home.
Nancy’s new garden bed
February 10th brought another day in Long Beach and the downtown parks got groomed to our satisfaction, still leaving Coulter Park just north of downtown and the dreaded beach approach weeding job for later. Public gardening can be a joy when friendly happy tourists want to talk about plants, but it has its downside. Day one in Long Beach had two boozy fellows wanting me to hire them.
cig butts in the park…after I had picked most of them up
Day two in Long Beach had a barmaid from a tavern getting quite shirty with me because I dumped a pile of ten cigarette butts from the adjoining park next to but not into their butt bucket, as I often do. As always, I would walk around the fence later and deposit them with other butts. (Usually I have my own bucket, but that day I had a wheelbarrow for hydrangea prunings.) When I tried to exercise diplomacy by saying my name and that I do the Long Beach parks and planters, she called me a “lying bitch” and informed me that she knows the planters are all done by volunteers because “signs on the planters say so”. I remained calm and diplomatic so as not to disturb the nearby tourists. Finally, possibly frustrated by my refusal to engage in a heated argument, she stormed back inside, leaving me pondering whether or not it was be nicer to toddle into old age doing only private gardens. It’s an idle thought because I’d find the Long Beach planters very hard to abandon. Nevertheless, it was surely the worst start to a work year that I’ve ever had.
On February 12th, we turned our attention to the Port of Ilwaco. (Plenty of rain days make for a choppy schedule at this time of year.)
Allan cutting ornamental grass down at the Powell Gallery.
In the Marie Powell Gallery garden and on either side of the nearby Time Enough Books entrance are some of the few remaining Phormiums in any of the gardens we care for. How I have gone off them! Their tatty old side blades need to be trimmed off, but we will deal with that later.
messy Phormiums
At Time Enough’s garden I averted my eyes from the Phormiums and enjoyed the crocuses while pulling dandelions and little weedy grasses.
Time Enough Books garden
On February 13th we tackled the big ornamental grasses at the Depot Restaurant. Our luscious coating of washed dairy manure on the new section of the ornamental border had promising spears of bulbs coming through.
north side of deck at Depot
chopping the Depot grasses….Allan found a tiny tree frog.
next up on the south side of the Depot deck
As soon as we make the wake up call to all the other gardens, I want to get back to the Depot and dig out all the weed grass and Crocosmia bulbs from this area and turn it into a proper herb garden for chef Michael. We didn’t plant the Crocosmia and it has quite taken over and seems like a useless plant for outside a kitchen door.
I picture a lot more rosemary, chives and oregano. It will be wonderful and fragrant and so much more attractive than a plant which, nice though it is, blooms for only two weeks out of the year.
Another mission I had that day in Seaview was taking some photos for a local real estate page.
Just around the corner from the Depot, the local florist’s building is a garden in itself.
Artistic Bouquets
Near the Seaview beach approach, Allan photographed a quintessentially beach garden boat.
washed into a garden
We got some photos for the Long Beach real estate page as well, including this garden-y one with rose hips.
in south Long Beach
Oh, the garden I would have around that old house!
Next: We head up North to wake up some more gardens.
Tangly Cottage Gardening 
Leave a Reply