All that means around here is we crossed the bridge over the Columbia River to Astoria, Gearhart, and Seaside. We began our Saturday with a stop at Larry’s Antique Gallery Too! shop which involved much chatting and dog petting.
Then a stop at Olde Towne Café to trade compost buckets…More schmoozing ensued.
Then, of course, we had to take a walk through the Ilwaco Saturday Market to take photos for Discover Ilwaco.
Had a gander at a garden we used to do. Well, now that we live just a block from there, we have offered to return. It’s looking pretty bad! But for some strange reason they don’t want us back. The mind boggles. Since I offered, and was turned down (hearing that only from a third party after we submitted a bid), it has gotten so much worse I don’t even want it anymore. So there! (The person who cares for it is an excellent gardener but is overbooked and lives much further than one block away.)
Uh oh, somehow it got to be 2 PM and we were still in Ilwaco, so off we went toward Astoria. The previous week, we had had excellent garden company in our garden: Debbie H and Helen W. on Saturday and Laura D. on Sunday. Helen had invited us to come back and see her Astoria garden in June; we had previously seen it in July and in winter.
We also wanted to check out nurseries, and Allan wanted to go grocery shopping (how tedious!).
By 2:37, we were crossing the Astoria Megler bridge, to my usual terror.
I like it when the bridge is being worked on because it slows down the traffic and there is less passing on the bridge.
Somehow, though, we went by the Mill Pond Village and ended up on the road going east out of town, so we turned left into the Alderbrook neighbourhood to turn around. It’s a hidden gem just east of town; I only discovered it because a friend lived there for awhile. Two blocks wide, it’s next to the Columbia River and seems to have a lot of gardeners.
There was an art gallery there, but this cannot really be a grocery store, despite the sign. Or can it?
Alderbrook does feel quite separate from the rest of the town. I was getting anxious about whether or not we would arrive at the Gearhart nursery before it closed, so I did not photograph any houses on the way out, and I now wish I had taken a photo of my friend’s former tiny house and garden; it still looked good from the street.
We did find the Mill Pond Village but will save Helen’s garden for its own entry, next, because it is so lovely.
We got to Back Alley Gardens with 45 minutes to spare (if they close at five).
I got some cool Salpiglossis ‘Chocolate’, another Hebe ‘Quicksilver’, a pretty purple and yellow annual, and some variegated thymes but was sad that they did not have a big shipment of unusual plants from Xera like they did last year at this time.
As always, we admired a lot of the indoor garden themed art in the adjoining Natural Nook.
Then on we went to Seven Dees in Seaside without a feeling of time pressure because they are now open till seven in summer.
Catchy names seemed to abound.
Vanilla Gorilla may have been a Back Alley purchase. On his recent visit to our garden, Ciscoe Morris told us that a study in the UK showed that Astrantia REPELS SLUGS. I already love the plant and now have more reason to collect them.
And an exciting new Eryngium which stays small so might be great in containers:
As we left 7 Dees at 5:45, I suddenly got an ominous feeling: Didn’t Costco close early on Saturdays? We had wanted to go there last to get some frozen food, but we had made a terrible error because when we pulled into their parking lot at 6:05, they had closed five minutes before. This is so hard to remember as it seems so early for a grocery store of any sort to close on a Saturday; it probably goes with their reputation of being very good to their employees.
Oh dear. We stopped at Fred Meyer and while Allan did some minor grocery shopping I checked the plant department and found more salpiglossis. It used to be an unusual annual to find but has obviously caught on.
I also was surprised to see very inexpensive Leycesteria ‘Golden Lanterns’ there.
A very peachy coreopsis spoke to me of Lorna (Andersen’s RV Park) but it was too leggy so I passed it by.
I got myself some more heirloom tomatoes and peppers for the edible garden tour; I still wonder if my garden will look ridiculously under-edible.
Hint of the day:
To my horror, both 7 Dees and Fred Meyer were selling the horrid Aegopodium (Bishops Weed). Do not fall for this dreadful thug.
Do not buy this plant, don’t take starts from anybody, or you will so regret it. This amusing article will tell you more, but I have to disagree with the author’s assertion that Bishops Weed does not seem to grow into lawn turf…because it does. It also looks terrible after it blooms and does need to be sheared at that time.
Back we went across the river…
Allan says the bridge does not bother him although he did find it startling the first time he saw how high the span goes. He does wish that people could not pass on the bridge. We obviously survived another crossing because I am here to tell this story.
A very impressive bridge indeed.
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[…] task of the afternoon was to plant all my acquisitions from Saturday’s plant shopping excursion. The light and not too cold rain made for perfect planting weather, negating the need to water […]
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