I am determined to catch up, having fallen behind on the caterpillar emergency non-blogging day, and skipping a day has been exacerbated by the long hours of daylight. You see, if I suddenly pop my clogs, Allan would know how to keep the business going just by reading the blog for 2013 and replicating the work! It is the same every year, pretty much!
He would find three jobs had been quit this year, but there is plenty to fill in on the other jobs (thus the quitting).
So: Friday and Saturday in Long Beach and Ilwaco.
Friday, we began with some deadheading at Larry and Robert’s garden half a block away. No watering necessary due to blissful rain!
My dear friends Judy and Tom’s new car shows up pretty and red in this photo.
The empty new planters had been put in place in downtown Ilwaco (more on this later) but not in the best spots (more on THAT later) so Allan shifted two of them. While we were parked for that task, our good friend and brilliant carpenter Bill Clearman stopped for a by-the-car visit. Allan provided a bucket for a seat.
Bill is an inspiration to us, still working hard at 70 plus.
We checked on The Depot Restaurant garden next.
Next we drove up to The Basket Case to get soil for the Ilwaco planters. Because Basket Case closes for the season in mid July (having originally been mostly annuals and hanging baskets), we are glad to have the chance to help them sell more of their soil now.
I wish I had bought myself one of their yellow Shasta daisies! I just was not quick enough with the realization that I want one. Or two.
Next: Long Beach. I will regale you with some photos of the planters downtown; I walked around weeding and deadheading all of them while Allan went out to Bolstadt to weed the beach approach….a job we had planned to spend two days on but wind and rain intervened. At least I did not have to water the planters!
My goal: to have two Rozanne in each planter. I formulated this goal too late to add them this year, as I think good, damp planting season is over (and the planters are full of annuals). Rozanne has surpassed my expectations as a good container plant. I might buy some and hold for fall planting.
The big planter by Lewis and Clark Square is a mish mash that I am not very happy about. I have gone through phases in this planter. The phormium phase…long gone. The Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ phase. Still pulling those as they come back. I like the Erysimum. Every time we tear into it to do it over, we manage to puncture some sprinkler hoses, thus not making parks manager Mike K happy.
I have tried to get rid of all the Lady’s Mantle and look how much has come back. Oops.
Across the street from Home at the Beach, the painted sage is fabulous in a re-done planter. Good, new soil has it thriving.
Kitty corner to that by an empty lot is a planter that continues to thwart me. I keep thinning the yarrow, planted by a volunteer back in the day, in order to add more interest, and the yarrow keeps winning. This is one that can only be fully changed by ripping out plants, soil and all and starting over. It is pretty enough when the yarrow blooms….
The planter in front of Home at the Beach cheered me up again.
I made it through all the planters and walked past City Hall to join Allan on the beach approach.
I love Astilbes and should plant more in LB.
The wind knocked my prize goatsbeard specimen over so badly that we had had to cut half of it back off the sidewalk earlier in the week!
Now, the beach approach. The rugosa roses, which have taken over the whole garden pretty much, are glorious right now.
I checked the planters all the way to the end, where the two westernmost ones (planted with horribly dense vinca by volunteers way back when) have practically merged into the dunes.
The last planter is just feet from the Long Beach boardwalk. It could be so much better but we would have to tear out ALL the soil because of the dratted vinca and start over. This has been the case with a number of the volunteer planters. We manage to redo one or two a year.
The beach approach garden itself, due to our lack of time this week, did not get done as well as we could have with an extra day….the day we went to a sheltered garden to work instead because of 30 MPH winds. We (especially Allan) did, however, make a difference.
Then we had to leave to get those three Ilwaco planters done. They had been languishing in semi-hidden neglected spots in private yards; the city crew had gathered and emptied them and placed them for us to fill with soil and plants.
First, we did one in yellows down by the Portside Café.
I will now illustrate with buckets how we found the planters placed this morning at the intersection of First and Spruce, where big trucks and trailers sometimes swing wide.
The planters would have been wiped out there, so Allan had moved them inboard.
That odd little planter is left over from when there used to be a café and antique shop on this corner, whose owner had put out several containers of plants.
The planters are mismatched because I could not find any more good Erysimums for centerpieces.
That Hebe is left over from when I thought I needed one for a spot at Andersen’s RV Park…and didn’t…
When this job was done at sunset Friday evening, we had the refreshing feeling that we now had two days off!
Perhaps our plan of a Saturday taking photos at Saturday Market and then the Doggie Olympic Games was not entire a prospect of leisure, and not my perfect day off at home in the garden…but when I checked my email I realized we had to do a bit of work Saturday after all.
One of the port business owners wished to have her garden tidied, and while we did not need to jump to it, I did want to get it done for the fourth of July and especially for the Ilwaco sixth of July fireworks. So in order to get it off the list, we did it Saturday late afternoon after Doggie Olympics.
We had a wonderful reward for doing that job when we did. While dumping the debris out in the field at the east end of the port, we saw the Tall Ships set sail and were able to photograph them on their way to their Battle Cruise. Cannons, sea shanties, climbing the rigging, and other delights awaited the passengers. Well, the passengers were not made to climb the rigging, but I do believe they had to sing sea shanties.
Technically, they were motoring, not sailing, till they got farther out.
I reflected, as I often do, on what an amazing place Ilwaco is to live in. Somehow, through a series of events that often seemed like mistakes, we ended up in this glorious place and with right livelihood.
Your final paragraph (….Somehow, through a series of events that often seemed like mistakes, we ended up in this glorious place and with right livelihood) was a beautiful one – a most suitable summary for the beauty you are adding to your sweet Ilwaco!
We don’t battle vinca here, but I am a tad overwhelmed by some sort of wild strawberry. Equally aggravating, I think….
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Agree with Rebecca; I was so charmed by your last paragraph, I had to reread it.
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