Sunday at home

Today was the last day till autumn to see the garden from my window without the screen in.  From now on, window view photos will have the screen in the way.

Frosty enjoys the view.

looking south

and southeast

I had that list of things to accomplish that I had formulated last night, starting with trimming some penstemons.

east backyard bed

penstemon before

after some trimming

Above, you can see on the other side of the fence that crab season is over and the neighbouring gear shed owners have stacked up their pots.  The pots will sit there looking picturesque for awhile, and then will probably get covered with a big tarp.

Below:  The horsetail is popping up throughout the back yard garden beds but I knew I would have little time to deal with it today.  Such a disappointment it was when it appeared.

hideous horsetail

It had been lurking in the well mowed lawn all along, showing no sign until garden beds were made.

lurking menace

In edible news:  I got the last of the sweet peas planted, and some snow and sugar peas, and even a bit of mesclun ‘Festive Mix’.  I even have some garlic coming up; I had no place prepared for it when my friend Nancy gave me some last fall, so planted it in containers.

garlic

Maybe next fall I will actually get a place in the ground prepared in time.  I do have some edible gardening ideas…thwarted by lack of time.

Back to ornamentals:   My latest plant table (scavenged from a free pile from a nieghbour’s sidewalk) is looking good:

plant table

And in a pot of hostas, given me by a friend who had to move away for health reasons, I see vigorous sprouts:

Miss Mary’s hosta

The tulips are almost ready to bloom in the garden boat.

I got the last of the poppy seeds planted, Sluggo put around, and eight more buckets of little jewelweed (touch me not, wild impatiens) removed.

I am so glad that Allan purchased one of these spotted leaved red flowered trilliums (below).  A big patch grew at Tootie Erickson’s garden in Seaview, but when she moved away and her house sold, the new owners tore down the house and built their new house right on top of the trillium patch!  They did not even know it was there, I’m sure, because it was probably dormant at the time.

Trillium kurabayashii

More plants in Allan’s garden:

a white pulmonaria

a blue pumonaria

a pink pulmonaria

hellebore and cardamine

hummingbird by Allan’s feeder

In the rest of the front garden, it looks like my Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Steroidal Giant’ might finally size up this year.  It got enormous one year in my old garden (and then died in a cold winter).

I hope Steroidal Giant lives up to its name.

Dicentra spectabilis

Very exciting news:  My Dicentra scandens is coming back.  (That axe was stuck in there for Halloween decor and then forgotten.)

Dicentra scandens

The area where I cleared out a great deal of jewelweed and shotweed looks so much better:

hellebores

fairly nicely weeded overview from front porch

Allan, being his usual industrious self, mowed and edged the lawn, put in two hours of work up on Discovery Heights cutting back some ornamental grasses that we had not yet gotten to, and finished making a gate between our fence and the neighbour’s cottage, made of old shutters.  Their cottage, built before setback rules, is a short distance from our property line, so at both ends Allan has made gates that swing over to meet the cottage corner.  This will enable the nice neighbours to come through to work on the siding or wash their windows, meanwhile keeping the deer out.

the other gate, made from an old door

This corridor runs between the cottage and our shed.

the new shutter gate

How very nice!  He even had some black paint to tone with their cottage.  I stuck my camera over the fence to see if it looks nice from their side…and it does.

very nice indeed!

I had my eye on one more project:  pruning the water sprouts out of the old ornamental plum tree:

ornamental plum

It will be a satisying project.  I hired someone to do it once (mainly to be nice because I was momentarily flush and he needed work), and he took out exactly the opposite of what I would have, and left the straight up new branches which are the ones I think should come out.  Last year, Allan worked on it some and I like the shape very much now, but those straight uppy branches will be trouble later if we don’t get them while they are smallish.  Perhaps in a week we will have another day off….

Allan asked if I felt rested after our day off, and I had to admit no, not physically. Nor did he.  Winter is for rest.  Now it is garden season.  Better than rested, I felt a sense of accomplishment, especially because I also got the monthly billing done.

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resort garden checkups

We could not go back to the beach approach project today, even though the weather would have been perfect for it, because there is too much traffic on the beach approach road on spring break/Easter weekend, and part of the job entails standing on the road to reach the outside edge of the garden.

What I most desired to do today was spend the entire time at Marilyn’s garden, doing all the mid spring things that will make it better for its moment on the garden tour in July. But with so many resort gardens in our care, we had to check on several on the way up the Peninsula, mainly to make sure that the narcissi were deadheaded.

But first, the daily check on progress at Olde Towne Coffee!

still coming along!

Then a stop at the Anchorage Cottages just north of Long Beach to deadhead narcissi and pull a few weeds. As we passed through downtown Long Beach, I rejoiced that I had taken time to deadhead there yesterday, because the town swarmed with tourists.

We spent considerable time at The Anchorage earlier this year so it’s holding up well. Oh, and I remembered to put Sluggo where I had planted sweet peas.

Viburnum at Anchorage Cottages

Anchorage Cottages trillium

We probably should have driven into the park at Andersen’s RV Park to check on deadheading the narcissi there, but I felt we did not have time, so we just worked on the road box.

The deadheaded road box from inside our car just before we drove away.

We then stopped at Klipsan Beach Cottages, again on narcissi patrol. There, I was thrilled to see employee Luis working on the huge pile of dairy manure (non stinky!). Because we would not have time to address the problem of mulching there for at least another week, I felt great relief that he is on the job.

Luis has already made a dent in the nine yard pile.

beautifully mulched

Mary has a shrub that neither of us can identify for sure, although we think it is a Viburnum. Her brother gave it to her, and it is deliciously fragrant.

smelling the wonderful flower

Then on to check the little garden by Oman Builders Supply in Ocean Park, pull a few horsetail sprouts and deadhead a few narcissi.

Oman Builder’s Supply garden

And then a narcissi and weed session at Wiegardt Gallery, where we could easily have spent more time but we knew that we had debris to haul from Marilyn’s so we had to make haste.

Fritillaria meleagris at Wiegardt Gallery

Wiegardt Gallery

Finally, at last, we made it to Marilyn’s garden in Surfside. Lacking proximity to sugar treats, and not having had time to stop at Jack’s Country Store for an invigorating snack, I popped a handful of wake up beans (chocolate covered coffee beans).

wake up beans

I lose a fair amount of sleep at this time of year counter-productively fretting about how we are going to get all the work done.

At Marilyn’s, we each had a task. Allan’s job was near the street, to find some way to make this area (that I started on last time) look good.

Allan’s project, 2 PM. blurred with debris and native blackberry vines

Allan’s project, 3:25 PM

He got done ahead of time and came to help me with my project, the swale garden behind the house, which started out like this:

swale garden, 2 PM

And ended up like this:

swale garden, 4 PM

There is still some grass to be pulled from along the house, and the whole thing would have been a much easier job if only we had had time earlier to cut back the foliage of the Siberian iris before the new spears began to grow. But it will do. It’s not a very exciting part of the garden, consisting merely of Siberian iris, daylilies, a variegated running grass, and some Persicaria ‘Firetail”….plants that speak to me of a streamside garden. No one else walks back here except to turn on the hose faucet.

Dare I complain that it was hot today, after complaining of the cold yesterday? It was 72 F!! That is too hot! I would prefer 60 degrees with no wind, thankyou very much.

Marilyn’s narcissi display is excellent this year:

at Marilyn’s

and her sword ferns are unfurling:

new fronds

This gives me an anxious feeling about not having even been to the garden called Casa Pacifica yet, where there are many ferns to trim. But there is nothing to be done about it; the beach approach has to be finished before we can move on to the four still untouched (by us) private gardens.

We dumped our load of debris at Peninsula Landscape Supply and I took some photos for their Facebook page.

‘Thundercloud’ flowering plum

We knocked off a bit early today due to tiredness and the desire to go to a housewarming party in Chinook, and as I walked through my garden picking a housewarming bouquet, I realized how much I must do, and immediately:

1. plant edible peas (they are LATE to be planted and may comprise my only early edible crop due to lack of time….so much for this year’s great edible plans)

2. plant poppy seeds (also LATE but I have had success in the past planting them this late

3. put out sluggo! the slugs are eating the narcissi flowers

4. trim the Penstemon! it is all raggedy

5. weed buckets more jewelweed and shotweed out of the front garden!

No matter how direly behind on work we are, I am taking tomorrow off. Allan may be noble and go do some paid work up at Discovery Heights. I also must do the monthly billing tomorrow evening if we are to avoid financial disaster. How very much I wish we could take two days off…but that time will come either by getting caught up or by finally admitting we may have too many jobs.

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beach approach, day three (and more)

First on our daily agenda: The check up on the progress at Olde Towne Coffee. It is surprising how much I miss it being open even though these days I would not even have time to go!

They’re still moving in!

And then….we finally got the tree pocket gardens and the planters on First Avenue in Ilwaco clipped and weeded.

Narcissi in the boatyard garden

I love the way this golden marjoram looks right now.

As always, yellow to match the Portside Café

And then….to Long Beach, but before we got back to the beach approach, other tasks beckoned, in particular, tidying up the parking lot berms one block to the east of the main street.

before and after (Stipa gigantea, my favourite ornamental grass)

All we had time for was trimming the worst messes; weeds at ground level are dire but remain a task for another day.

The temperature had dropped, a chill wind had come up, and we had to put our jackets on. Allan went out to get back to the beach approach weeding, but I needed to walk around town and deadhead spent and unpleasant looking narcissi from the planters and parks.

There was some evidence of finger blight (theft of flowers):

please don’t pick the tulips!

more picking and a bulb pulled out

I think people try to pull a flower, or break and take the stem, and the bulb comes out.

Excuses I have heard for finger blight:

“I have to pick a flower when I see a pretty girl that needs one.” (NOT referring to me!)

“I just had my wedding on the beach and had to pick a bouquet.” (This young woman had her arms full of every tulip in bloom from the beach approach garden on that day, back before the deer discovered those species tulips.)

The same woman, who was the daughter of a local (now out of business) restaurateur, also told me, “I’m making work for you because the city will hire you to plant more!”

“It’s just a few”, to which of course the answer is if everyone picked a few, there would be none for the rest of the passersby to enjoy.

Anyway….Aside from finger blight, I worrited over the rain spotted and pitiful appearance of the tulip foliage in the downtown planters.

ghastly leaves

They get terribly beat up by the weather, but when they start to bloom, the later tulips fill in the gap between narcissi and annuals and provide colour for the parade that is always the first Sunday in May.

so glorious in bloom

tulips

tulips

I did have a brainstorm today though…I am going to make sure to follow through carefully on my half-baked method of planting the big tulips to the inside and species tulips to the outside of the planter array….so that I can yank ALL the big ones every year, because they are never as good the second year anyway (whereas the species tulips can multiply).

I like the new primrose in bloom that Allan brought back from Seattle’s Emerald City Gardens:

dark leaved primrose

Along with the tulip foliage problem, I also pondered how some of the planters still have too much, perhaps, of the original plantings done back in the days of different volunteers doing each planter. I get tired of thinning the vigorous white Achillea in one of them; over the winter, it again took over the whole planter:

Yarrow

And the planter in front of one of the arcades still has shrubs, planted by a volunteer, that look exciting right now but are dull green blobs during the height of tourist season…and are intermingled with mint!

spring azalea planter

I’ve been redoing some of the older planters, but just cannot decide about the one above.

We recently mulched under all the trees and the pocket gardens look refreshed.

tree garden

another tree garden

After checking on all the trees, planters, and parks, I joined Allan on the beach approach garden, where he had tackled the horrible section infested with rush. We only managed to get that one section done, and so we do not feel much closer to the arch than we did yesterday…

where we were at the end of yesterday…

and how far we got today (pitiful!!!)

I did practice saying “no” to something when the parks manager asked us today if when we get the whole thing weeded, would we like to mulch it…or something like that…and I said while I would love to have it mulched, the city crew would have to do it because we still have four private gardens we have not even been to yet this year and we just do not have time…

The only thing that got me through that last hour or two of weeding on the beach approach was a special treat from the Cottage Bakery. They were out of tiger paws, but the nice man made us custom tiger paws out of Persians with chocolate and maple frosting! “We like to take care of our locals,” he said.

custom made fuel for hard, cold work

I have almost forgotten to whine about how cold it was on the approach. Cold, windy, miserably chilly….just the sort of weather I try to avoid out there, and I never would have made it through a whole day; would have gone somewhere less windy instead.

On the way home, we trimmed up most of the planters on Sid Snyder Drive, the other beach approach, and oh my, was it cold…But crocosmia and grasses desperately needed to be cut back in all those planters, also once done by volunteers and still with an odd assortment of plants. I was so glad to be done, at 7:15…

In reminiscing about the dreadful cold wind, I almost forgot to add that Allan took these charming photos yesterday of narcissi blooming on the edge of the approach lawn, where we dump weeds from the garden.

gone wild

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beach approach, day two

On the way to resume the hard task of weeding the beach approach garden on Bolstadt, we stopped at Olde Towne to check on progress of my favourite ever coffee shop.  The sink was hooked up, but Chester would not let me take a picture of him turning the water on.  They still have to have the  inspection (although we are sure that will go well)  before they can officially open, and Chester drolly said that if people saw a photo of running the water, they would start coming in for coffee!

It is hooked up!

I feel urgency about tidying up the little gardens under the trees in Ilwaco, but since the mid morning was still chilly and misty, we decided to postpone it till the end of the day.  I made the same plan yesterday and did NOT get the tree pocket gardens done.

To pass a bit of time till the skies cleared (as I felt they would because the sky was light around the edges), we stopped at Stylin’ Boutique so that I could take some photos as teasers for the next Peninsula Cash Mob (April 13th at Stylin’).

Stylin’

And I got to meet shop dogs Buddy and Sadie, both of whom I found delightful.

Buddy and Sadie

By then, I really had put off work long enough, so we headed to the approach.  But on the way, Allan made a little detour and we admired the narcissi that we had planted at Margaret’s garden last fall, in the little beds we made along the street the previous spring.  The beds seem to be doing well and benefiting greatly from an autumnal mulch of dairy manure.

Margaret’s narcissi

Now why in the world did I plant all yellow in one spot and all white in another?  I think that they would look better mixed up, but will I remember to do so later on?

cute little beachy cottage

And…here we go, on the approach, at the spot where we left off yesterday after doing three and a quarter of the twelve and a half sections.  I did hope to get three more done today.

looking east toward the arch

That whole ground level haze of green is almost entirely grass and clover…Oh dear.

Today we were asked three times what the power boxes are on the north side of the street.  Two questioners thought they were for hooking up motor homes, and one had the correct thought, that they were probably for kite festival, a beautiful and beloved local event.  That they are, for when fair booths are set up all along both sides of the street, leading to much back and forth foot traffic right across the garden.  And that is why we planted, from a native plant nursery that offered them for a very low price, Rugosa roses on the beach approach garden.  That is why the garden is no longer full of pretty little annuals and perennials.  It needs something strong enough to stand up to the festival.  See:

The Walk of Shame 2001 (about halfway down the page)

The Walk of Shame 2002 (partway down the page)

The Walk of Shame 2003 (toward the bottom of the page)

The Walk of Shame 2004 (a particularly gruesome one with befores and afters!)

and Kite Festival from a gardener’s perspective, 2007

This is why when we weed the approach now, we wrestle the weeds out from among prickly roses, and pull rose runners off from the very sides of the garden so they don’t overhang into the sidewalk area.    Many people do comment on how much they love the roses in bloom, but I miss the prettier garden of old.  However, the old garden needed watering in the summer, but the roses don’t, so that is a big plus because the beach approach is a bugger to water and involves many hose hook ups and hose dragging.

After two sections, I needed a break and went to my favourite shop, NIVA green, to buy a birthday present for my favourite coffee shop owner, Luanne…and I returned with two Tiger Paws from the Cottage Bakery.  A big gooey chocolate and maple Tiger Paw does the trick of giving us strength to keep going for a couple more hours far more than any healthy lunch I have ever eaten.  I hate to admit such a bad thing, but it is true.

On the way back to the approach, I admired the narcissi along the north side of city hall, a planting I like because they have become  a nice mix of white and yellow over the years.  This is a place where I plant some extra special cultivars (but don’t keep track of which ones).

city hall narcissi

city hall

Finally, fueled by sugar, we finished the third section.  I truly had thought we might not make it that far, and I would have found that very disappointing.  Here is how much closer we are to the arch:

so near yet so far.

There are six sections and a bit to go (the bit at the far end past the last planter), but one of them is so terrible that there,  we pretty much let nature win.

The worst section of all!

This whole section (between a planter and a sidewalk cut-through) is infested with what we call tube grass.  A rush, actually.  Wetlands run on the south side of the sidewalk and lawn, and I am sure that this particular section had the rush underneath it when the garden was made.  We pull out a few clumps of velvet grass in here and then…shocking indeed…we just let the “tube grass” win!  We simply do not have time to engage in a battle for supremacy over mother nature here. I hope passersby, if they are gardeners, feel sympathy and understanding, and that non gardeners just walk on by to a nicer section.

On the way home, we deadheaded the Narcissi at the Long Beach welcome sign.  We have been so busy that we never did stop to get a photo of it at its peak, before it had mostly deadheads.

past its narcissi peak

There are tulips coming on:  red and yellow for this side, and pink and white for the other side.  If we continue to be lucky, the deer will not move in on them.  (Last year, they ominously nibbled a few at the far end.)

We got back to Ilwaco to see more progress at Olde Towne!

Espresso sign in the window

And…we did NOT get the tree pocket gardens done in Ilwaco…yet again.  Tomorrow, we must do them first thing.

I walked around my own garden to pick some flowers for my neighbour and saw some exciting things…

lily shoots!  (and, argh, horsetail)

If these lilies are this far along, I simply must get planted…so late!…the bag of lilies that is still languishing in the garage for lack of time.

Look at the colour on this emerging ornamental rhubarb!

so bright! (and….dwarf fireweed, argh).

And, eying me from my neighbour Nora’s window, her granddaughter’s cat, Coco!

Coco!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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beach approach, day one

Here it comes again, but later than usual:  The yearly first weeding of the Long Beach Bolstadt beach approach garden, which we usually have done by spring break.

First though, a check up on my favourite coffee shop, Olde Towne, which is making progress toward re-opening after their move to 108 First Ave in Ilwaco.

still coming along…

I am finding it surprisingly disturbing to be without my coffee shop, even though in work season we did not stop there every day!  But just knowing it’s there is important to me.

Then, on to Long Beach where we went to the outermost western end of the beach approach garden.  Thirteen sections long (two small end pieces are counted by me as one section), each section taking an hour or more for two people….What a chore.  It is a tedious job, and one that is truly miserable in wind or bad weather which is why we jumped on it when we saw the mild, warmish day today.

from the west end, looking east

Far in the distance is the Long Beach arch claiming (incorrectly but with admirable chutzpah) that this is “the world’s longest beach”.   First, I spent an hour walking and weeding the raised planters while Allan got started on ground level weeding.

a sea thrift blooming at the west end

Here’s a practical demonstration.  All along the beach approach and in the planters, I have planted Santolina (lavender cotton), both the silver and the grey.

Take your Santolina at this time of year when it looks like this:

Santolina, before

And trim it to the tight new growth so that it looks like this:

Santolina, after

That will keep it in an attractive ball shape and keep it from getting too woody and leggy.

Santolina virens (the green one), before

Santolina virens, halfway trimmed

Santolina virens, done

This could even be cut a little closer and more tidily, but I have many to do and am in a big hurry.  But not to big of a hurry to show you that out of the trimmings, you can take little hardwood pieces that look like this:

a small trimmed piece

and just stick it in the soil like this:

little hardwood cutting, stuck firmly in the soil

…and you will almost always get a new plant.  I love this plant so much I always mean to make trays of cuttings at home but I just don’t find the time.

Now, a little tour of the beach approach garden today while I check on the planters:

in a planter: Hermodactylus iris tuberosus

at ground level: species Narcissi and Anemone blanda

Anemone blanda blue shades

Narcissi bulbocodium ‘Golden Bells’ (yellow hoop petticoats)

more small Narcissi

I used to plant lots of species tulips out here as well, but the deer discovered this garden about four years ago and now decimate them.  I don’t know why it took the deer several years to start eating the tulips.  There are still some that survive to bloom but nothing like the show I used to have.

For those who haven’t been to Long Beach, here’s how close we are to the beach at the western end of the garden:

west end of approach garden

After about ten hours of weeding, we are now this close to the arch:

nine and a bit sections to go.

One of the things that makes this long job more enjoyable is we get to see lots of cute dogs walk by.

dog and friend

On the way south toward home, we planted thirty six blue and white violas in the new Veterans Field garden.  I hope they last well till the dedication ceremony in early May.

Veterans Field garden

I like the mostly white narcissi, which will not last till May…

pale yellow and white narcissi

Tomorrow, if the weather is as pleasant as today’s, perhaps we can make more progress toward the arch out on the beach approach.  I so much want to get back to the private gardens that still need their first visit, but must take advantage of pleasant weather days for the beach job.

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fritillaria photo

I am doing a little test to see how blogging works from my phone. Here is one of my favorite spring bulbs, Fritillaria meleagris aka Guinea hen flower or checkered lily, growing in my front garden.

I won’t check the entry till morning so if this does not work out, oops, never mind.

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finishing Jo’s project, for now

While the weeding and prep was not entirely done at Jo’s, we started the day by picking up a generous yard of Cow Fiber (washed dairy manure) at The Planter Box.   The cow fiber, by the way, does not smell of poop.  But on the counter of the Planter Box, an Erysimum ‘Charity mix’ filled the air with the intoxicating scent of wallflower.

Erysimum ‘Charity Mix’

Planter Box still has the primrose for sale that caused several comments when I posted a photo on my blog:

Primrose ‘Antique Mauve’

All loaded up with cow fiber, we took a detour through the nearby Andersen’s RV Park to get some flower photos for owner Lorna, who has not been able to be here for her latest narcissi show.

Andersen’s

Andersen’s road box

She also wanted lots of scilla on the edge of the trees, and this patch is just getting started.

scilla

She bought the really big flowered narcissi like King Edward and Ice Follies, whereas I usually buy the smaller ones (as in the whiskey barrels), so it is of interest to me to see them blooming in quantity.

One of six whiskey barrels of Narcissi

Lorna’s choice

I found a packet of sweet peas that I had missed, so finished the run all the way to the corner of the picket fence.

a bit of weeding after planting sweet peas

Hmm, no wonder people think I have such a strong back.   My legs get much more sore than my back does, even though this is my usual work posture.

Then, on to Jo’s.

Here is the garden as of our leaving time yesterday:

1:00 PM today

Allan whacked away further at root mats while I weeding the rest of the garden more thoroughly and then we mulched, mulched, mulched.

2 PM

all mulched

The west side beds needed mulching, as well, and we ran out (as I knew we would) and went back to The Planter Box to get more.

The pile is getting lower!

Raymond loading us up

an audience appears to check out the good stuff

The fella in the white hat intends to order some.

three scoops with the Kubota

Then, back to the grind.  And what makes it particular hard at Jo’s is:

three steps up

I’ve seen worse situations with stairs, but it is always a pain to have to haul buckets rather than just use the wheelbarrow.

So here is the area that Jo wants to be “just like” my (backyard) garden:

yesterday

today

What Jo wants:

our garden, July 2012

our garden, July 2012

And here is what *I* wanted when I moved, in 2010, from my old shady garden to a sunny lot

Jo’s west side garden in summer

Jo’s garden on the garden tour, 2006

So our inspiration has been mutual.

When Jo and I walked though my garden in late summer, she pointed out the following plants as the ones that called out to her:  Calendula, Verbena bonariensis, variegated sea holly, assorted poppies. hardy fuchsias, lilies, Verbascum chaixii, and she said, and I agree, NO to daylilies.  (We are both kind of tired of them, although I have quite a few, but she wants something more exciting in her small planting area.)

By 6:45 PM, after much exhausting schlepping of buckets in an increasing and unexpected rain, Allan and I had our results on the west side.  (We had been hoping to come over the west lawn and into the gate with the soil, but the neighbour where we would have needed to park was spraying the whole parking area with Casaron.  Not what we wanted near us or our organic mulch.)

yesterday

6:30 PM today

I still regret that the damnable geranium ‘A.T. Johnson’ is still on the left side.  Maybe later this spring I will have time to remove it.

yesterday

6:45 PM today

Thank goodness that is done.  Now we can move on to the gardens we have not yet even visited this year:  Steve’s garden, Casa Pacifica, Ann’s garden, Erin’s garden, and the dreaded and painful weeding of the Bolstadt beach approach garden.

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another garden re-do

We started our day checking up on the moving progress at our favourite coffee shop, Olde Towne Café.  As we dropped off some more boxes and newspapers for packing, I found it poignant to see the empty space where I had spent so many hours in the past two years.

Olde Towne of old

We would love to have stayed and helped pack things but work called, so we left for the Port of Ilwaco….after taking a peek into the new shop where I plan to spend many future hours.

Luanne and her son Michael in the new shop

Now that the nights have stopped being almost freezing, we planted up the south side of the Port Office.

Allan working

We’ll add more plants as we acquire interesting ones, all rather low growing so they will not interfere with the hanging baskets that the port always acquires from The Basket Case Greenhouse.  Note that there will be room to walk behind the plants and wash the windows.

still room for more

Planted:  three different kinds of Lavender (including ‘Blueberry Ruffles’, ‘Wings of Night’ and, um, Lost Taggii), Armeria ‘Victor Reiter’, Santolina ‘Lemon Fizz’, ‘Archer’s Gold’ Thyme, and the new variegated Knautia ‘Thunder and Lightning’, and Agastache ‘Navajo Sunset’ and ‘Cotton Candy’.  I want to add my favourite Eryngium, ‘Sapphire Blue’.  And not to be too predictable, but some Salvia viridis (painted sage) would be nice.  And some Cosmos ‘Sonata’;  no surprise there.

Then, off to Jo’s to again to work on fulfilling another dream of someone who came to our garden on tour last year and said “I want my garden to look like yours!”   The ironic thing is that her very floriferous and sunny garden is one of the inspirations for my wanting to leave my old shady garden and move to a more flowery and sunny one.

She decided she wanted a somewhat shrubby area cleared and planted with more flowers, and late in the summer we walked around my garden and talked about what plants were her favourites.  Last month we took out a couple of shrubs and finally today got back to the project.

the area in question at 1:30

and at 4:30 (still in progress)

This is a garden we work on only a few times a year, so we were dealing with some masses of roots which Allan picked out.

Meanwhile, I worked on the west side gardens, where my mission was to remove the Geranium ‘A.T. Johnson’ and the lady’s mantle, both of which I am heartily sick of.  Both were planted by the person who originally designed the perennials plantings back in about 1993!   I have reached the breaking point with those two plants, just as I did with Phormiums a few years back.  Neither have been allowed to enter my new garden.

before

after, awaiting mulch

I am going to leave the hardy geranium against the sunporch step for now, just due to lack of time to remove it.

Tomorrow, I’ll finish this area while Allan hacks out more matted roots from the area he cleared today.

around the corner

I love Jo and Bob’s new puppy, Coco, now eight months, but once she warmed up to me she wanted to be right under my feet, so I had to put her in the house to protect her from swinging garden tools.

Coco!

On the way home, we stopped at Olde Towne to take more photos.  (We do photos for their Facebook page and wanted befores and afters of their day as well.)   I can certainly envision spending many happy coffee hours in their new space!

the new Olde Towne is coming right along.

Right outside their new door is one of the Ilwaco planters that we care for.  We will, of course, make sure as best we can that it is an extra special nice one.

Olde Towne planter

My new plan of pretty much buckling down to one big job till it is done, even though it delays us getting to the gardens we have not yet been to, is making me happier than jumping around all over the place.  I think that this is, however, the first year that we have not had the Long Beach beach approach garden weeded by spring break.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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weeding at home

I had every intention of helping to pack antiques for the move of Olde Towne coffee shop to its new location at 108 First Ave (just two blocks further from our house).

Olde Towne on the move

But the weather was simply too good to not work in my garden.  Fortunately, Allan was gung ho about helping wrap antiques, and he stayed all afternoon.  Since I had only offered originally to help for one hour, I think it all worked out.

Allan wrapping glass

On the way home, I planted sweet peas at the post office garden and I hope they do better than last year…when they were a complete bust in that location.

Then I admired a few things in our garden.  This is the first recent day that has felt at all springlike and warmish.

Ribes sanguineum ‘King Edward VII’

Ribes sanguineum ‘Apple Blossom’

Rhubarb leafing out; one of the few plants that was here when we bought the place (in a whisky barrel).

lily buds

I pondered for awhile about why my Rosa pteracantha has no sign of life, not even at the base.  I looked hard to acquire it, finally finding one on a trip to Cistus nursery, and it has done fine til now.  I hope it is just much later to start than other roses, because it is not one that I can replace here.

Rosa pteracantha

The thorns are so large and close together than I am not about to scratch the stem and see if there is green life underneath.  On new growth, they would be bright red and glow when backlit by sun, and I am not seeing anything on this rose that looks lively.

Rose pteracantha thorns

on my latest plant table

Enough wandering about admiring; I had tasks to do, notably, pulling out the reseeded wild impatiens from the front garden.  All OVER the front garden.  No wonder it is a class B noxious weed.  It amuses people greatly when the seed pods burst, but I was not much amused today.  It was in my old garden when I bought the place in ’94 and migrated with me to my new garden to sprout up again the next spring.  It is a beautiful and fun plant and I got soft on it and let a few grow near the house.  Now I am doing penance.  (It never jumped out of my old garden, but in the shadier conditions there it also did not reseed this madly.   I have seen it in gardens all over the Peninsula, and used to see it when I walked through Carkeek Park in Seattle.)

thick patch of seedlings

I am not the only one regrettably enamored with this plant;  Dave’s garden has a forum where it is much admired.   I ran across a British article in defense of some so called invasives which particularly defended this one, pointing out that it is easy to remove.  Which it is, given time.  Its juicy sap is well known to be soothing for poison ivy and other itches.

I need befores and afters to compare my progress.  One thing about pulling this rascal:  It needs to be done only once a year.  It won’t come back this year like horsetail, bindweed, creeping buttercup, my triumvirate of most hated weeds.

front garden with lots of baby jewelweed

an hour later

I’ve almost got a handle on it in this front garden bed as well, where I just tossed it to the back as green compost.

front bed, mostly weeded

In the area of my first photo of it, I only got a spot dug out for the sweet pea planting.

One more weeding session needed here…

I had plenty of company in the garden.   Calvin is getting more confident outside.

Calvin

a sleek, handsome boy

Frosty, Mary, Smokey

During the “after” photo session, I also focused on some plant beauties in Allan’s garden:

Pulmonaria

Allan brought home three heathers from Seattle, all the same cultivar, which I must admit has pretty foliage:  Calluna vulgaris ‘Wickwar Flame’, lower right.

Below, two more areas in the front garden where I must rogue out a lot of jewelweed:

by this charming vignette

and atop the low brick wall

and right around here

Meanwhile, before the pre-sunset hour got too chilly, I got all the remaining sweet pea seeds planted around the fences areas where I grew them last year.  This sounds like a big long day but it was in truth just four hours starting in mid afternoon because I frittered away the first part of the day with the struggle to sleep after an insomniac night.

The sweet peas that I planted this year at various gardens:

Watermelon, Royal Wedding, Streamers, Incense Peach Shades, Saltwater Taffy Swirls, Mary Lou Heard, Zinfandel, Lipstick, Regal Robe, Captain of the Blues, Miss Willmott, Cupani, Lord Nelson, King Edward VII, North Shore, Blue Celeste, Velvet Elegance, Scented Pastel Mix (including Jilly, Chatsworth, Sylvia More).

I would still love to acquire some ‘Alan Titchmarsh” sweet peas in honour of Ground Force.  If I got organized enough to search in mid winter, I could probably find a US source for them.  Next year, I hope I will.  A quick search now tells me it will might not be easy.  It seems I might have to buy them on E Bay UK unless Thompson and Morgan seeds sells them in their US catalog.

I am not at all one to make a so called “bucket list” but if I did, to grow Alan Titchmarsh sweet peas would be high on the list.

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a scattered today

Early this year, I suggested on Facebook that the Long Beach Peninsula should have a cash mob, and within days Michelle Z from the Breakers resort and I had, at her suggestion, gotten together to create one.  The idea is that a group of shoppers meet at a little store and spend between $5 and $20 dollars and also, if they wish, follow up with lunch at a local café.

My very favourite local shop, NIVA green, was the settings for today’s cash mob, but before that, Allan and I went to the Empty Bowls of the Long Beach Peninsula charity event that benefits local feed the hungry programs.

Empty Bowls

For $10, you get to choose a bowl from many created by locals from schoolchildren to professional potters, and you then get a bowl of soup.  Not in the bowl you choose, which was good because Allan chose a cute but tiny one.

bowl selection

Then we went up to NIVA green (New, Vintage, Inspired, Artful).   Our friend Sarah Sloane, who we met when she toured our garden last summer, had her beautiful topiaries for sale outside the door.

Sarah and her topiaries

The juxtaposition of a charity event as the lunch spot with a shop as cash mob made for rather a scattered day.  Our lust for the best bowl selection meant we missed getting to photograph the first cash mob rush.  We did stay for awhile and saw the delight of people, some cash mob attendees and some tourists, who were visiting the shop for the first time.

NIVA owner/artist Heather Ramsay makes these wonderful lamps.

at NIVA green

at NIVA green

at NIVA green

Then we had to go do some work, so we chose to plant sweet peas seeds and viola plants at the Anchorage Cottages.

The ‘Apple Blossom’ flowering currant was a hummingbird magnet.  I put the kibosh, I fervently hope, at the thought of pruning it lower.

Ribes sanguineum ‘Apple Blossom’

I planted sweet peas along the chimney in a small courtyard, as last year, but we must go back and inset a bamboo trellis.

sweet pea spot

hyacinths by office window

I like the small narcissi in the window boxes, and how precious they look coming up through moss.  But when they are done, I must replace the soil in all four boxes because it is not draining well, thus the picturesque moss.

mossy green

One of the spring pleasures at the Anchorage is in the trilliums that pop up by one of the cottages.

well established trillium patch

Allan planted violas in the main courtyard pots and pruned two branches of the flowering currant away from the window in hopes of making it more acceptable.  It will not be cut down while I am around to defend it!

Then we went down to Veterans Field in Long Beach and planted a couple more red leaved little barberries, six ‘Sapphire’ blue oat grass (the cultivar with the bluest, widest blades), and I had a little brainstorm that I could plant blue and white violas there for the May 1st-ish dedication of the monument.  I”ll need to find some early seasonal bright red flower  also.  But the main colour will come, year round, from foliage, because I don’t like to be overly jingoistic in the planting scheme.

Back we went to check on how the cash mob was doing.  I could not tell who was cash mob and who not, but it was quite busy at NIVA green!

at NIVA green

Multi talented Sarah Sloane made this marble board as an illustration of her children’s fantasy novel,The Marble Game.  The book is available locally at NIVA Green and Time Enough Books.

Sarah’s Marble Game

treasures of NIVA green

Back again to work, but first, a trip to The Basket Case to buy the white and blue violas while those colours are still available.

at the Basket Case

Then back to Long Beach, where Allan weeded and I planted sweet peas along the fence in the Fifth Street Park’s northwest quadrant.

box of assorted sweet peas

Now I have only two places left to plant sweet peas:  The Ilwaco Post Office and my own garden.

sweet pea planting and weeding: done

Leaving, we were amused by the usual sight of people taking pictures of each other in the giant frying pan.

the traditional frying pan photo

But wait!  Upon arriving at the car, we found a phone message from the Basket Case…We had left the violas there, in the excitement of buying some other perennials, so a trip back was necessary.  Fortunately I had not planned to plant the violas today because it is supposed to get almost freezing tonight.  Better to wait till Monday.

I just had time at home to upload today’s Cash Mob photos before we went across the river with our friend Susie, owner of the Boreas Inn.  One of the best parts of our gardening business is, over the years, having become social friends with some of our clients.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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