Not much got done today to progress toward the end of the planting of the annuals. There are certain obligations that I have placed upon myself, one of which is taking photos every Saturday from May through September of the Port of Ilwaco Saturday Market. Allan filled in once when I was at the Hardy Plant weekend, so the only day we have both missed since 2010 was last year when our garden was on the Peninsula garden tour.
Today I made it to the market almost at opening time (ten AM, early for me) because I had another place to be at 11.
On the way out our front gate, I noticed this stunning tulip had just come out in my garden.
Just around the corner, a mown path led enticingly into the neighbourhood’s lost garden.
At the market, the De Asis produce stand had asparagus.
I try each week to get dog as well as people and products photos. These same two brown Boston Terriers had walked by us in Long Beach yesterday while we worked on the planter outside Home at the Beach.
To stick with a gardening theme, here is a bouquet at the Niceland booth:
Some bright wooden flowers at a booth that sells wooden toys:
Gnome doors from The Wood Elf:
Quite a good price on a Wiegela:
Plants from The English Nursery (located in Seaview):
stone vases:
Colour coordination with the next door t shirt booth:
One of the regular booths had added a line of bright and clever planter boxes:
Another regular has gnomes:
…and decorative globes with sayings on them; I like these very much and should get some for my garden.
Pink Poppy Bakery always has flowers as well as treats:
This week I was in time to get a like bundt cake. It looked like they were soon to sell out; no wonder I did not get one when I ambled in at 2 PM last week.
I pulled a few small shotweeds out of our new garden by the port office but did not have time for a thorough weeding.
I need to get some painted sage into there.
Hurrying home, I saw that the California poppies are just starting to bloom in the Howerton Street gardens.
Then we were off to the Peninsula Cash Mob event at the Home at the Beach shop in Long Beach. As an organizer of the mobs (where shoppers boost a business with small purchases on a prearranged day), I feel the need to be there to take photos. Yesterday, we had redone the planters in front and they looked fresh and pretty.
I won’t say what I bought because it is a future gift for Montana Mary, who might read this!
Our friend Kathleen S. joined us. She just may have found a house to buy in Surfside, thus possibly becoming a step closer to being a full time Peninsulite! In fact, she would be more of a Peninsulite than we are because technically Ilwaco is not part of the Long Beach Peninsula.
We ate at Benson’s By The Beach Restaurant, as there is almost always a café associated with the cash mob event. I got a very different view of the Fifth Street Park gardens we often work in.
Years ago, Montana Mary herself wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper based on her experience sitting in the park.
We had a great view of tourists taking pictures of each other by the giant frying pan.
At one o clock we simply had to roust ourselves out of all this fun and go to work, back to the planting of some annuals at The Anchorage Cottages (from whence Kathleen had just checked out to return to her city home up north).
That poor Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ in the small pot is rather bringing down the tone and will probably have go be ousted in the next round of planting.
After the Anchorage, we continued north, gathering up more Cosmos and painted sage at The Planter Box. I was hoping to get as far as Klipsan Beach Cottages today but it was not to be.
We wanted to make sure the tulips at Golden Sands Assisted Living were deadheaded for Mother’s Day guests and were saddened to find that no one, no one at all, had done any watering there during the dry spell. I thought we had had that all clear by last fall, that dry weather meant watering simply must begin. I should have known better.
One of the elderly residents commented to Allan, “The plants need water!” Our mission there is to create a beautiful garden for people who have had to leave their own gardens behind. Some of the plants we had transplanted from Cheri’s garden last time had survived except for the phlox. It will probably come back but looks terrible:
I was, however, quite pleased that our plantings of mostly free and simple plants had held up well.
But all three birdbaths were bone dry, and no one even had the key to turn on the second faucet. Fortunately, we had enough hose for Allan to hose water the whole garden from one spigot. That left only one of us to weed. I removed a wheelbarrow load of creeping sorrel and that infuriating wild strawberry.
An attendent walked by and cheerfully told me she had eaten the flowers of all the chives. I went from being the nice gardener who had provided said chives to the mean (but trying to say it very nicely) gardener who asked that the chives in the ornamental garden be allowed to have pretty purple flowers without being eaten. I felt bad about the whole thing but I want those flowers in there!
I pointed out that the chives outside the ornamental quadrants were up for grabs but then realized how puny they are compared to the luscious ones that have been fed and manured.
This brings me to the problem of all the areas outside our four quadrants….a mess of weeds among some free daylilies we bunged in there last year.
I’m not sure the work budget even allows for the expenditure of time to get this all cleaned up, even though we charge considerably less here out of memory to my mom, for whom we started the courtyard flower gardens during the year she lived here.
My vision of a river of blue Geranium ‘Rozanne’ down the center of the drainage area was just ridiculous; they will never get enough water to grow well.
I tend to feel pretty discouraged by the lack of watering here. The maintenance fellow, we are told, will set up the sprinklers on Monday, and we hope they will have better coverage than the cute and twirly but ineffective sprinklers of last year.
We had brought a few annuals to plant but took them away with us; we’ll wait till some rain (we hope!!) gets the soil damp deeper than on the surface (please!) before we inflict this environment on new plant babies.
Can this enclosed, deer-safe and wind-safe and every so promising garden ever become the paradise that I imagine it could be? I refuse to give up on it. It is better this year than last year so maybe there is hope that the dream can be achieved.
The watering is obviously an example of an SEP (someone else’s problem). There are a lot of these about.
LikeLike
I love this!
Sent from my iPhone
LikeLike
I just love your blog. I cannot get enough of it. I learn so much about plants and what’s happening around here
LikeLike
Thank you so, especially for being entertained by all the complaining!
LikeLike