planting at Jo’s

The sprinkler system at Jo’s, where we dug out some boring perennials from an old section of the garden, is fixed at last.  Today was planting day for her usual set of annuals and some new perennials for the re-done area.  Of course, the reason the former perennials were boring ones is that they were thuggish, some kind of lysimachia and a not very obedient plant that does not want to go away, so they are already trying to sprout back from deep down roots.  This will make it an ongoing process of removing any sprouts of the unwelcome returnees.

Fred from The Basket Case had kindly dropped off the annuals in Jo’s garden at 7 AM (!!).  We went to The Planter Box for some cosmos and painted sage and over to the Basket Case to add some more Eryngiums and other plants from a new shipment.  Fortunately the two nurseries are close together because we often go back and forth between the two.

Basket Case Fred counts up our plants.

The latest shipment of Eryngium ‘Jade Frost’ is about to flower.

We don’t make any profit on the plants that go to our clients;  plants are so expensive as it is.  What keeps us earning is the labour time spent planting them.  (I have been advised many times to have a nursery rather than a garden maintenance business, but the idea of having to keep hundreds of plants in pots alive is daunting to me!)

ready for planting at Jo’s

Jo’s gardening mission this year is for her garden to look like our back garden did on last year’s tour.   The problem is that we have three huge beds, but at Jo’s we just cleared out two rather small spaces.  The irony is that one of the reasons I moved from my old shady garden to the new sunny one is because I wanted MY garden to look more like Jo’s!  I could not achieve the glorious colour of her west side L shaped bed without more sunshine.

I planted the perennials, as many as I could fit, in the area pictured above and spread some more throughout the west side of the garden.  The soil is much improved by the mulching with two yards of cow fiber from The Planter Box.

planted

My plant choices:  Nicotiana langsdorfii, Cosmos, different Agastaches, assorted Sanguisorbas (because I have a thing for them, ever since I heard Piet Oudolf speak and show slides featuring sanguiborbas).  Painted sage, Eryngiums ‘Sapphire Blue’ and ‘Jade Frost’, Verbascum ‘Clementine’.  Agapanthus ‘Stormy Skies’.  A sidalcea.  Knautia ‘Thunder and Lightning’.  Verbascum ‘Violetta’.

Meanwhile, Allan planted the usual run of red and pink geraniums along the entry sidewalk.  Even though I rarely choose to plant geraniums, I also find that they look great here by Jo’s design.  Pink and red are staggered and alternating.

lined up for planting

all in, including windbowboxes

I’m sure I have mentioned before that I do not enjoy planting.  I particularly do not like planting at ground level.  Planting in containers can be moderately enjoyable if there are just a few; a full day of planting in the Long Beach planters can be wearing.  I often can delegate all the planting to Allan while I weed and prune, but today was pretty much all planting all the time so I couldn’t weasel out of it.

Jo’s impatiens

Jo always likes impatiens under this rhodo (above).  Behind the fountain is a truly dead flowering currant.  I think Jo’s spouse accidentally sprayed it with weed killer instead of fungicide.  I must ask her if we can just cut it to the ground; she could put a large planter there instead or some sort of rustic shelf.

Jo’s is a garden I have admired and worked in for 19 years, and her mother, Maxine, was my first gardening client on the Peninsula and taught me useful things like how good it is to pinch back cosmos and godetia to make them bushier.

The area I planted is behind this arbour.

one side of the west L shaped garden

looking in the gate as we departed

We both felt the planting task took a very long time and I had moments of despair that we would never get done in time to plant the ten plants that I had  for the Boreas Inn gardens…but we prevailed and got to the Boreas in time.  (It’s right across the street to the north.)

looking east to the Boreas

To take the above photos I stood just where the trail to the beach begins.  I need something to fill in those two circles; the daisy divisions will not get big enough this year.  It was wonderful to plant here today in the soil all deliciously loosened by the big project we did earlier this spring.  (The one where I almost lost my mind.)  Hmm, I think I LIKE planting in brand new lusciously mulched beds.

(Added today:  Agastaches, Eryngiums, more Nicotiana langsdorfii because the three I planted last time did quite well.)

We then had time to plant two more Eryngium ‘Jade Frost’ and some more of the Nicotianas in the Fifth Street Park in Long Beach, along with a Rose mutabilis at the very back of the garden.

And we planted an Eryngium and a Gaura ‘Whirling Butterflies’ at the new-this-year Port of Ilwaco garden by Queen La De Da’s Art Castle…

planting at Queen La De Da’s

The Queen must have watered  because despite the lack of rain the garden felt damp underneath.

Finally, we planted some Eryngiums, Gaura and Agastache to finish off the boatyard garden’s newest area.  Now we just need some cosmos and painted sage there and any other very special drought tolerant addition that we might find.

Ilwaco boatyard garden

The Stipa gigantea is starting to flower.

With all this accomplished, not only did we amaze even ourselves but I can, even though I should not, take the day off tomorrow to try to get my own back garden dealt with before it becomes an intolerable mess.  Allan will put in some time at Discovery Heights gardens while I weed at home.