We’ll get to the woe about halfway through the day.
First we went back to Larry and Robert’s as I had decided to stuff even more annuals into the boat.
Larry has told us he is getting lots of compliments on the garden. I am determined to mulch with cow fiber this fall. I avoided it because I figured their three little dogs would be too interested, but the garden does need it.
Next, some more watering and garden boat plant addition at Time Enough Books…
Should I pull the golden marjoram at the back end of the boat’s outside and have it be ‘Rozanne’ all the way around?
I was relunctant to pull the toadflax that has reseeded here but I think, looking at the photo, that it is time.
Next, on to the Depot Restaurant garden, where one bright dahlia calls out for more tall bright dahlias…It does catch the eye more than my beloved cosmos.
At the restaurant entrance, the plantings by Nancy Aust of The Basket Case are thriving.
The Basket Case was our next stop of the day to pick up some annuals that they were donating for the Golden Sands garden. It’s always poignant for me when The Basket Case has closed for the season!
They will re open late Feb ’14 with the first spring annuals. Meanwhile, Fred and Nancy’s work is not over as they tidy up the greenhouses but then they will have a nice relaxing end of summer.
I have been becoming increasingly anxious about the state of my “edibles” for the edible garden tour on August 11, so we stopped at Peninsula Landscape Supply so that I could buy some “Fox Farms Grow Big” liquid fertilizer!
Next, on to Nahcotta/Ocean Park for weeding and deadheading at The Wiegardt Gallery. Hint of the day: When your Alliums fall over, stick them into a shrub (here, a cistus) for a surprise. You could even spray paint them with exotic colours.
Next, all the way to almost-Surfside to check up on Marilyn’s garden and to pick up the table and chairs we lent her for garden tour day.
Next, we worked on the garden at Oman Builders Supply in Ocean Park, several miles south of Marilyn’s…
This is a garden which does not get enough water. My drought tolerant selections are doing pretty well. The staff do water with a soaker hose but it does not get to every plant. I don’t think much of soaker hoses!
Klipsan Beach Cottages was our next job and I found much of beauty there:
Mary wanted mostly low plants in her driveway garden and it has turned out well.
Leaving the paradise that is KBC, where I can always count on Mary and Denny to keep the garden well watered, we drove just a few blocks down the road to Golden Sand Assisted Living. I had a whole wheelbarrow full of wonderful plants for the garden there, some perennials donated by my friends Kathleen Shaw and Sheila and some annuals from The Basket Case Greenhouse.
I had had a long talk with the maintenance man at Golden Sands a couple of weeks before about making a better watering system with raised, permanent back and forth sprinklers like the set up at Pink Poppy Farm and I had hope that I would find the new system in place. But no, all was the same as before with cute twirly sprinklers that do not work well to cover the whole area of each garden quadrant in the courtyard. I spoke to Pam, the activities director, of my deep frustration and woe and she took me to talk to the director. Turns out the watering plan, even though it had been mentioned at a staff meeting, had not made its way through channels to get to her, and she is willing to make it happen. In fact, she wants to get a plumber in to find out once and for all how the wonderful sprinkler system (which has a leak somewhere) can be made functional again. I am now a big fan of hers; she says she “makes things happen”. So once again I am filled with hope…but meanwhile I cannot plant any of our donated plants because the conditions are not good enough for them. This is a bad time of year to plant without good watering.
The Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ shows the effects of the sprinklers not reaching all of the plants. I dragged a chair over to give a height reference.
In my own garden, Klipsan Beach Cottages garden, Andersen’s garden, Jo’s garden, Fifth Street Park in Long Beach and others where the plants get watered sufficiently, Helianthis ‘Lemon Queen’ is already towering over my head.
There are some good things going on in the garden at Golden Sands. Due to the cow fiber mulching earlier this year, the dahlias in the quadrant outside my mom’s former window are finally going strong. Wish she could see them. Some people believe she can.
Here is another example of water woes. In the quadrant where we ran out of cow fiber, the dahlias are small and languishing. The dairy manure helps so much in keeping the garden moist and happy.
We hose watered all around the edges. This is not cost effective and takes up all our alloted time, leaving us no time to weed.
If the watering problem is solved, I believe that this garden has so much potential that it could be on the garden tour; it could be a tropical-feeling paradise.
The edges of the quadrant gardens and the areas outside need mulch and water, and with the addition of some more good plants it could then be tour-worthy and that would be wonderful for the residents…what fun it would be! I hope that by this fall my watering woes here will be solved.
Here go the plants back out to the car…unplanted…
The most maddening thing was having to stuff them all back into the tiny car again.
I shook off the frustrated feeling and we went on south to the Anchorage Cottages.
And then we ended the day with the weekly deadheading of the Long Beach welcome sign.
We use the more compact bidens in the sign garden. The first year I used a very trailing kind and its sharp little seeds tormented us every time we deadheaded!
I like the way the old aliums are exploding out of the shrub like fireworks 😀 Regarding the old peoples home, do you think a couple of the more active folk would be allowed to water the unwatered sections till the spinkler system is back up and running properly?
LikeLike
Oh I wish they could. The faucets needs a key to turn on and both faucets are in a corner where one must negotiate through shrubs to get to them and then unscrew a hose that goes to the ineffective sprinklers and then screw on another hose (we have to bring ours in from our vehicle). It is ridiculously complicated and should have been designed to let former garden owners participate..but wasn’t.
LikeLike
Ah that’s a shame. I bet a few of them would relish getting out in the garden. Lots of gardening knowledge fading away in there.
LikeLike
That is so true and the ones who were gardeners are well aware that it needs more water. Sometimes they comment on the problem with sympathy.
LikeLike