I did not leave the property today which is just the way I like a Sunday to be. We had been invited to visit friends, and even offered a ride due to our defunct car, but we asked them to come visit us instead and they did.
We sat in the shade because Margaret is going through chemo. I know so many friends who are, or who have done so. They all soldier on so bravely and cheerfully. Margaret and Larry have a charming garden in Long Beach where we put in a flower garden, and Patricia waters it for them.
We put Smokey (the friendliest cat) in the laundry room because Margaret cannot risk getting a scratch. Where people are, Smokey will surely be. Frosty usually follows him, and was mystified why his brother had been put away.
I decided Frosty should go in the laundry room (where the cats have food, water, and litter box) to keep his brother company, so that Smokey did not feel singled out.
After our delightful visit with human friends, we went back in the house to find that the cats had reached under the door, grabbed the hallway rug, and dragged it almost all the way into the laundry room.
How in the world did they get all that rug under the door in such a relatively short time?
They hightailed it out the cat door as quickly as they could.
If our friend Kathleen S has sharp eyes, she will see the cool fire extinguisher bell that she gave us. It has been so unseasonably windy around here, we have been waiting to hang it outside til the weather settles a bit!
For most of the afternoon as I weeded and clipped in the garden, I had the mildly ominous feeling that in the evening we had to go out and water the Ilwaco planters (on foot) and the boatyard. Oh how I wanted to just stay at home. Then I came up with the most cunning plan. Tomorrow, Allan can take the car into the auto shop (turns out it will “go” long enough on a battery charge to get up the highway that far) and then water Long Beach and come home on the bus, while I will water the planters, boatyard, weed down at Howerton and maybe even the mayor’s and Cheri’s gardens. Tuesday, we could do Ann’s garden and if we are lucky enough to get the car back by Wednesday (depending on how fast an alternator can be delivered), I might not have to take the bus at all.
I am a big proponent of public transit, but the bus here is maddeningly intermittent. Oh, and we found so many extra costs in renting a cargo van (such as one that size not even being available here) that we gave up on that plan for now.
With the burden of work off my mind, I was able to find more complete enjoyment in the rest of the day and got almost every part of the garden at least partly dealt with, except for the bogsy wood which has gone to the wild!
We had a raspberry fail; the canes of the early raspberries, loaded with berries, became burnt looking and the berries stopped growing. Fire blight? Allan cut those cane to the ground and they went into the wheelie bin. What a shame, but perhaps the fall bearing ones will be all right.
I do hope all the canes are all right next year. They are sentimental to me because most of them came from my mother’s garden.
We have all these plants to plant here and there and no way to get them to work in the very near future, so I will just get to enjoy them here a little longer!
The garden sometimes looks magical in the late evening light.
I was sitting at my computer typing away, about to share a passel of rose photos because not much happened today at home, when there was a knock on the door. Allan said, “It’s Bill from the Boreas!” I did not even make the connection in my mind that Ciscoe Morris, who was here today to give a lecture benefiting the local Boys and Girls Club, was staying at Boreas Inn tonight. I had not gone to the lecture because of the feeling of being so far behind in the garden and having just one day off and because it was during the day when I just have to be outside. So it took me quite by surprise that Susie and Bill had brought Ciscoe to see our garden!!
Susie had asked me if I wanted to come meet him at the inn but I felt all shy and Emily Dickinson-ish (“I’m nobody, how about you?”) and like it must be tiresome for him to have someone coming to meet him during his quiet time at the inn between events.
And here he was!
(“Nobody can design a better garden for you than the one you think out for yourself. It could take years, but in the doing of it, you should be in paradise.”)
Oh! And when he saw the feathery plant that is on a pot behind him in the above photo, he grabbed a frond and said “A restio!” and something complimentary about cool plants. Yay!!!! (You don’t see Restios much around here because, well, they look a little or a lot like horsetail, but they are wonderful!)
I was awfully glad we were not out watering the Ilwaco planters when they all showed up; I had, as often happens, not turned on my phone during the day, so had missed Susie’s call.
It was a particular thrill for me when we were partway back into the garden and he said again that I had a lot of cool plants that you don’t see everywhere, and asked where I got them, and of course knew exactly what I meant when I said I used to mail order from Heronswood, and that we take a trip most years to Cistus and Joy Creek, and that I had gotten some at Dancing Oaks near where Sheila lives. He said we must go to Far Reaches Farm, and I very much want to. I said we had been to Dragonfly Farms and he beamed. I told him I get to help pick the plants ordered by the Basket Case and that Back Alley Gardens in Gearhart gets plants from Xera. He agreed that if a plant has a Xera tag it is worth trying out, and admired the Eryngium ‘Jade Frost’ and the Verbascum ‘Eleanor’s Blush’ (which was new to him!) that I had ordered through Basket Case. Oh!! And when I said my plant table in the bogsy wood was big enough to be George Schenkian, he knew exactly what I meant. It was just so fun to not have to go into the whole explanation of what lay behind the idea. Not that I don’t enjoy recommending George Schenk’s great gardening books to people!
He had interesting information about many of the plants, and of course my mind was sort of reeling and I probably have forgotten some of it. I think tomorrow I’ll walk our route around the garden and see what I remember. One particular thing he said was, upon admiring a pinky-mauve Astrantia in the front garden, that in England a garden was planted almost all in Astrantias and the garden had no slugs and snails so they might actually repel slugs. Must get many more of them.
He remarked upon a particularly large Oriental poppy that had thrived on the dairy manure. Susie was very pleased to hear it is one that I acquired from her former volunteer planter in Long Beach where I thin them out and replant them here and there so they don’t take over the planter and then leave a big gap when they go over.
I promised Susie to bring a piece back to her garden!
Everyone was in an exuberant and happy mood.
Ciscoe admired Allan’s own garden and seemed to think it clever that I had offered him a larger area so I don’t have as much to weed. Of course, he is famous for his funny stories about how he and his wife have separate garden spaces and sometimes compete for plants.
He also seemed to enjoy Allan’s spreadsheet of all the plant names, but could not help identify the one mystery fern that we just call the lettuce fern.
And like me, he was amazed at the chocolate scent of one my Xera plants, new last year, that had finally bloomed and that he had never heard of either!
You have to lift the blossom to smell it. Ciscoe said “Now I want a candy bar!” Maybe he even said “Ooh la la! Now I want a candy bar!”
As we lingered around Allan’s garden, we heard our friend Devery’s voice at the gate. Not ten minutes before, I had been telling Ciscoe (as we were by the transparent fence that gives a clear view of Nora’s house and gave Nora a view of our garden) about how when Nora and a friend of hers and Devery had heard Ciscoe was coming, and when I said (but not seriously believing it) that Susie had wanted to bring him to our garden, they all got very excited! Especially Devery, who is a big fan and watches his show every Saturday and just loves him and Meeghan Black. It was poignant that Nora’s funeral had been yesterday (I was explaining the big gathering of chairs for our memorial get together in the garden afterwards.)
Devery was walking by our house on her way to close the curtains of Nora’s house, and she had heard and recognized Ciscoe’s voice in the garden. Oh please, do come in and meet him! I said. She was so filled with delight, I could not have thought her naturally happy personality could get any bubblier, but it did!
This made me happier than anything, to have a part in bringing Devery so much happiness.
Allan, Devery and I were all quite giddy after Ciscoe left to go back to the inn with Susie and Bill, and we hung about the front steps chattering and laughing until it got so cold that we parted. Devery said we must get together more, and idea that I was so glad to hear because we like her so very much and I have been worried we would lose touch with Nora gone.
There are people who just exude joy and bring happiness wherever they go. Ciscoe is one and Devery is another and the fact that they got to meet in our garden is the happiest thing of the whole delightful evening.
So jealous!! Love Ciscoe. I also watch his show. He’s such a character.
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He was an absolute delight!! Sorry you did not also happen to be walking down the street like Devery was!
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I’m loopy from a pain pill (popped my back out tonight) and having a hard time writing (about to go to bed), but wanted to tell you how very happy I was for you as I read this…seems we both had a fabulous day. More later when I can think straight.
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So glad you waited til after the garden open before you popped your back! Now you can relax plus the perfection in your garden should hold for awhile!
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Happy for YOUR happiness yesterday. It ended on such a positive note. Gardens are for “happiness”! (And I am learning so much from your verbal descriptions, all the links, and lovely photos.
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What an exciting day! Sharing your garden with Ciscoe! Ooh la la! It must have been thrilling! Thanks for sharing the story through photos and your wonderful way with words Skyler. Loved it! 🙂
P.S. I haven’t seen your garden since February 2012. Through the many, many photos you’ve posted since then, I can certainly tell it is really something special! Can’t wait to hopefully see it again when I next visit the beach!
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Do come visit!
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P.P.S. Smokey and Frosty are clever and hilarious! 🙂
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[…] « at home, and a big surprise! […]
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So fun to read and enjoy the visit along with you!
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Thanks, Shelly! The evening went from mundane to fabulously fun in an instant. Ciscoe has such high energy I lost all the limping around that I usually experience at the end of the day.
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Loved this entire account of your day, especially about the labels, the spreadsheet, and mention of my favorite nursery–Joy Creek. When I was in France a few years ago, staying at a very charming B&B, the host and I had a great time touring his garden. He spoke no English, I have only high school French, but thanks to the fact that all plant names come in universal Latin we communicated wonderfully. K. Sharon Van Heuit
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I had the same experience when a German gardener stayed at Andersen’s RV park!! It was wonderful. We just said plant names to each other.
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[…] Wednesday was the kind of day I like, where we accomplished much and also had some fun. I’m dividing the post into sections because of three quite different subjects. Nicer for search engines. Should have done that with Ciscoe so people did not have to wade through my quiet day at home to get to the exciting Ciscoe visit. […]
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[…] declassé! What, I wondered at the time, would famous NW gardener Ciscoe Morris think when he came there to stay (as planned for June). The week after, I saw on his telly show that he loves glads. Now, with […]
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