Aug 8: work, Aug 9: home

 

Allan had actually worked while I toured with garden club on August 7, watering, weeding and trimming the Long Beach street tree gardens and the beach approach planters.  He also….bought a van from the owners of The Basket Case!   Now we will be able to buy lots more plants…but it would be a couple of weeks before we would have it ready for work with a trailer hitch installed.  While leaving the car insurance office in Long Beach he overhead the call of “Hey! Ho!  Let’s go!” and followed the sound to Veterans Field where a very youthful band was performing Ramones songs.

These young men had excellent taste in music.

August 8

On August 8th, we had a normal work day, beginning with a stop at Olde Towne Café to switch the compost pail.  (We take the coffee grounds and fruit and veg trimmings home to enhance our compost production.)

at Olde Towne

We stopped at The Planter Box on a small errand, to get some barley to keep our square water boxes clear.

At The Planter Box, a shy little sunflower

Then, work.  I felt like I had been slacking, but it was only going to get worse with the edible tour coming up.  We began up north at Klipsan Beach Cottages.  Last year’s dahlia had finally bloomed after just sulking the previous summer.

grown in a very big pot to help protect it from snails

at KBC: berries of Billardia longiflora

lilies

the blues: Agapanthus and Strobilanthes

I have always found it difficult to get a good photo of the hardy Strobilanthes atropurpureus and it is also hard for me to remember the name of both of these plants.  I now remember Agapanthus as “a mystery…Agatha Christie…Agapanthus” and “bright blue and white…strobe light…Strobilanthes.”

Strobilanthes backed with Agapanthus with a blue globe thistle to the side.

strobilanthes atropurpureus…Hardy Persian Shield from the Himalayas in Northern India

The Tetrapanax ‘Steroidal Giant’ has so not lived up to its name at KBC.  This year it is finally putting on some height.

not very steroidal nor giant

Some of the Alliums have broken or fallen over so I stuck the stems firmly into an ornamental grass.

a good way to display old Alliums (better yet, spray paint them!)

another lily

inside the fenced garden

and outside, with sweet pea success

After KBC, we spent an hour watering at Golden Sands because…surprise (not!), the oscillating sprinklers for which I long had not been installed yet.

At Golden Sands, a dahlia

one of the pretty, twirly, expensive but fairly useless sprinklers

We still, due to hand watering needs, had no time to weed or cut back….’

messy

An Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’ surprised me by putting out a new flower (pale blue than its earlier ones).

a nice surprise

The maintenance man had been moving the pretty twirly sprinklers around to help them reach more areas.  Unfortunately, he is not a plants person.

oops

After Golden Sands, Andersen’s RV Park got some time weeding and deadheading.

west side poppy garden

And then, Long Beach, for watering the main street planters.

evening light on a planter

Geranium ‘Rozanne’, Coreopsis ‘Jive’, ornamental oregano ‘Hopley’s Purple’

The bench is still gone in that planter (northernmost one on west side).

wondering if the curry plant and lavender in that planter will ever brown off so I can cut it back!

horses heading for the beach past Long Beach’s main street

We watered Gene’s garden because he had gone out of town for a few days on a trip which was later written about in our local paper.

from an article in The Chinook Observer

And then home in time to put the barley into the water by our patio.

the barley solution to still, murky water

August 9

Friday was my big day planned to get the garden perfect for Sunday’s edible garden tour.  I did accomplish a lot….perfect weeding in the bogsy wood, deadheading and more weeding all around….and was so busy the only photos that I took were of Smokey being irresistibly cute on the patio.

Smokey and his rock pillows

He is wearing his BirdsBeSafe collar.

There may have been a bit of sitting and visiting with Judy during the day, which just may be when I noticed Smokey’s cute pose.  Allan did a superb job of mowing the lawn but we decided the edges did not need another go-round with the strimmer.

I had planned to have Saturday off to prepare, as well, but it had transpired that part of the day would be taken up with an edible garden pre-tour.  I decided to relax and go with it as I had heard that at least one of the other gardeners was not aspiring to perfection.  However I still thought that since I would probably have the fewest “edibles” I had darn well better have a perfect garden.