Due to my rashly planned mini-trip this week, I have so much to do that I could not take the day off today. We did begin with a worthwhile errand: acquiring yet another free composter, this time from Cheri’s garden. It may have to be roped back together, but it will work:
The compost pile was not broken down enough to put it on the garden, so we set it to one side. Two snazzy new rotating composters will be installed here side by side.
I had a bit of anxiety that some of the special plants at The Basket Case Greenhouse would sell out while I am away on my three day trip, so we detoured from our Ilwaco gardening plans to go up and snag some more Sanguisorbas and Agastaches. Fred and I discussed what we could put in the Veterans Field garden for the red colour needed for the dedication ceremony on May 5th. He really wants me to plant red geraniums but I have annoyingly strong opinions that certain plants (geraniums and petunias!) belong in containers rather than in the ground so I am hoping to find something else that is red and blooming. But if not…I know where to buy some very fine dark red geraniums.
Later for the (first ever for me because I am not a nationalist) red white and blue theme I will have more interesting plants: Salvia patens, Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’, Cosmos ‘Purity’, Salvia ‘Lipstick’ (or is it Hot Lips? anyway, a nicely shaped red one), Barberry ‘Crimson Pygmy’, Sapphire blue oat grass and Lobelia tupa.
A friend last year was searching hard for the Aquilegia called ‘Clementine’. and this year The Basket Case has it.
Speaking of red, white and blue, when we stopped back at home I noticed that my Pulsatilla ‘Red Clock’ is in bloom.
The very cool contorted English Hawthorn that I got at Joy Creek two years ago seems to be doing well after struggling for a couple of years. (Picture Allan and I having an argy bargy about how to best face it up* while planting the large root ball and then hearing an ominous crack in the lower trunk.)
We began our post-shopping workday at the topmost garden on Discovery Heights, where we found my favourite ornamental grasses, Stipa gigantea, looking surprisingly tatty.
Allan combed them out while I weeded. I found a mysterious sight: another grass sitting sideways out of the ground. And not a small grass. What happened here, I wonder?
You can see that the garden is full of Montbretia. The rampant orange one came in on the soil that was used (not by us) to build the garden bed. The owners actually like the montbretia so I just try to keep it from swamping everything and making a monoculture out of the garden.
The stipa looked much better after Allan had attended to them. I wonder if they will flower?
On the way down the hill, we stopped to photograph a stunning display of native plants below a curve in the road. I believe this might mean this is a moist spot. (My botanist friend Kathleen Sayce will tell me what it is and I will add the name.)
Kathleen says: “Sweet coltsfoot, loves wet seeps, and flowers relatively early, tho’ it’s late this year.”
We skipped the T Junction garden (three quarters of the way up the hill) and went to the middle garden by the gate. I walked down partway, pruning some sword ferns by a couple of the light bollards, and Allan deadheaded middle garden narcissi. A scrim of maddening horsetail is appearing but the narcissi should provide a distraction and let us postpone a thorough weeding for another week.
That bit of ocean is at Beard’s Hollow where we cleaned the beach yesterday.
I had a revelation that I could use Ceanothus as a green backdrop in Marilyn’s deer-chomped garden because the deer do not eat it here.
I credit my friend Terran with the idea to plant all white Narcissi. The narcissi “All White” mix from Van Engelen has lasted so well in this middle garden although it has petered out a lot in the lower and T Junction gardens.
A Hellebore feotidus has reseeded itself below the rocks in middle garden.
This hellebore has amazed me by coming through year after year in these harsh windy and not very shady conditions.
We also skipped lower garden because we needed to do some weeding and planting at the Ilwaco boatyard garden, especially one long section that I knew had lots of horsetail.
My guru Ann Lovejoy says you must cut rather than pull horsetail or you will make it worse:
“Chemical warfare only takes out this season’s stalks, while mowing is more effective and less environmentally damaging. That’s because the best way to get rid of horsetail is to cut, not pull.
Pulling horsetail actually stimulates new growth. Pull one stalk and three or four will take its place. Cut it at ground level and you will slowly deplete the roots.” (Ann Lovejoy)
We don’t cut it but we do break it off pretty close to the ground. Even in places where we have greatly improved the soil (like my own garden) it comes back but it does weaken in time. We did a quick job today because a thorough job will need to be done before the day of the children’s parade (May 4th).
A lot of the green is from California poppy seedlings.
This Stipa gigantea at the boatyard is putting out flower stalks, as it should, unlike the battered ones up on Discovery Heights.
At the southern end of the garden, the horsetail had not sprouted back with such force, but many mushrooms had appeared. I am no mycologist so I can’t ID them.
They do come in sometimes, but not always, on the Soil Energy mix….
I photographed some boats in the yard for the Discover Ilwaco Facebook page and we then moved on to the Marie Powell Gallery garden on Howerton. (More boat photos from earlier years here.)
While weeding the Powell Gallery garden I pondered on how I think the plants in it are too tall. I am hoping to convince the powers that be to remove that pampas grass with a large machine.
I prefer the shorter plant schemes in our newly redone garden beds on this street.
The pampas even hides Marie’s print making shop from street view.
I also pondered how much I dislike weeding among river rock. I wish it were confined only to a faux stream bed!
The river rock does set the plants off nicely so I should stop whinging, I suppose.
By six forty five, I had tired of an increasingly cold evening wind. We went home…just a block away! and I tried to plant 18 or so small Nicotiana langsdorfii in my own garden. I hit the wall after only three. Why did 51 degrees seem so very chilly? Could it be that working on the blog seemed more amusing than being outdoors?
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*Facing a plant up is when you put its best side to your most important view of said plant.
9999I bought seeds of N. langsdorffii and sylvestri but am having poor germination…I think it may have gotten too hot in the GH. I have more seed so will try again. However, I have noticed that the seed I’ve gotten from T&M in recent years (since US division was purchased) just hasn’t been as good as it once was.
Hope you can turn your mind off work and enjoy your annual mini getaway.
Is there a form of sanguisorba that has broad, low-growing leaves? Can’t remember buying it,
but it has pink fluffy flower spikes.
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Last year I thought I couldn’t enjoy the break but I did. Too bad Carol not into gardening. Then we could buy plants and visit gardens.
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Oh I missed the last paragraph. Persicaria bistorta Superba?
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I look forward to seeing how your snazzy new composters work out.
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Have not quite figured out where to put them all, but after buying two, I know how pricey they are and am thrilled to get two for free.
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Remembered that the fuzzy pink spike plant is a persicaria.
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