Aug 19: loving Long Beach town

August 19, 2013

This post waxes political for a bit, so for pure gardening, move on to August 20!

We began our back to work day with the usual walk to the back garden to check on the greenhouse.  There was little time to goof off; after the hot weather of Sunday, much watering needed to be done at work.

Mary would have preferred I stay home.

front garden by the driveway, looking east, Sanguisorba

looking east on the other side of grass path, front garden

Just down the block and across Pearl, we watered and deadheaded at Larry and Robert’s.

porch

Echinacea ‘Green Envy’ by the Larry Robert porch

We need more rocks for their back garden but have been…goofing off!

It’s handy working so close to home because we can stop by the house before heading out again.  As I was getting back into the van, I saw Tom and Judy waving from down the street.  Here they are, as I always say, just four doors down!

Tom and Judy

There is a little house between the Hornbuckle garden and Mary’s big hedge, and then there are the two shrubs at Nora’s house.

Tom and Judy started walking our way to go “cucumber farming”; our edible garden is so successful in the cuke department that we have plenty to share.

nice!

We departed for the watering of Long Beach.   In the parking lot there, I noticed another delight in our new van: a handy place for our water bottles.  This will be hidden by a plant shelf during annuals planting season.  (It might not be such a hellish season anymore with a large vehicle to work with.)

Then I saw an all too common sight

not nice!

in Long Beach, by which I mean we see this a couple of times a month on our twice weekly parking in the big lots east of the main street: dropped diapers.  Yes, people change their babies, just drop the diapers on the parking lot and drive off.  The mind boggles.  The Long Beach city crew is the best around for keeping the town clean and picking up trash.  I am sure they see this all too often.

So we began the watering round of the 37 planters and 6 whiskey barrels and two stage planters.  We could not take any water out to the planters on Bolstadt because the beach approach was full of kite festival booths and closed to traffic.

The painted sage is starting to brown off, so one planter can take a good long time to deadhead.  One cuts down to the lower buds so that smaller flowers will appear later to keep the show going.

Salvia viridis (painted sage)

no longer at its best

half an hour later

In the same planter, a cute little resident hopped out of the plants.

Pacific tree frog hiding by the bench

From this very planter, I had a view while working of something that repeatedly annoys and upsets me in Long Beach:  the confederate flag flying at a motel gift shop:

It hurts my eyes and my heart because I dislike the message it gives to the many people who drive into our pretty little tourist town.  To me it is a symbol of racism, a reaction that is, I believe, shared by many.  “According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, more than 500 extremist groups use the Southern Cross as one of their symbols.” [Read more: Confederate Flag Controversy | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/confederate1.html#ixzz2dQLwX2bo]

When I first noticed this flag I talked to the young man who owns the motel, to no avail.  (A satisfactory conclusion to me would have been that he stopped flying it, or at least hung it instead on the front door of his motel which is set back half a block from the main street.)   I wanted to know why he would fly a flag that would be distressing to some tourists, especially when he knows full well that other shopkeepers and at least one city official have objected to its effect on the happy welcoming nature of our town.  It’s not like putting up a poster for, say, a political candidate about whom a passing tourist might disagree.   It’s a symbol with a long and upsetting history.  The conversation went in circles.  When I posted about it on my Facebook profile, I got the response from all but one friend (including some who grew up in the south) that it is a symbol of hatred and is disturbing, “chilling”, even “sickening” to see it in Long Beach.  One person felt it was harmless and a symbol of rebellion.

Months later, it still flies.  Some people may think it is not a confederate flag because it has a motorcycle on it.  (Might I add that my friend who goes by the internet moniker “Harley Lady” does not like this flag, Harley-fied as she may be!)  On this work Monday, I noticed something new:  small confederate flags also for sale outside his shop.

Where is the motorcycle on this one?

I had to do some deep breathing to calm down and go back to gardening.  I plan my route on days when the motel shop is open so that I do not walk on that side of the street.  I don’t want that flag to brush above my head.

Just know that there are some of who live, work or shop in Long Beach who don’t want a flag with racist and segregationist connotations to be part of the town we love. I know of another Long Beach shop that got some little confederate flags in a shipment of many little flags and would not display them.  (Thank you.)

So, having reached the south end of town, I headed back up, crossing the street to avoid the flagged gift shop.  Another time, I could feel my blood pressure surging as I walked by the shop; it was the day I was informed it was not really a confederate flag because of the motorcycle.  Fortunately, on that day I encountered an acquaintance who felt the same way as I about the flag, and who also had walking with him his daughter and her very cute new baby who cheered me up almost as much as a puppy would have!

Back to thoughts of gardening:

I still regret the Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ that I did not get around to cutting back by half in early June.

unpruned, it splays open

Pruned at the right time, it stays compact with smaller, later flowers.

chrysanthemums; I love their sharp scent.

a classic and joyous Long Beach sight: tourists doing the frying pan photo

We finished our day watering the street trees and planters in Ilwaco.  Alongside an old abandoned building at the main intersection, I eyed the great big huge dandelions and…then realized I could be the one to pull them even though it is “not my job.”

I pulled, after this photo, but the roots are still under the building…

Around the other corner of the building (which used to be occupied but needs some work to be safe to use), some blackberries defeated me because I was not gloved up to handle them.

SEP=Someone’s Else’s Problem

Greenery is not as much of an eyesore for me as that danged flag…

Oh no, we were a day late watering Ilwaco planters and the Sanvitalia had wilted!

I knew from experience it would perk right up.

I have to admit that the tedium of bucket watering after filling 20 five gallon buckets does inspire us to try to time the watering to do it only every third day.  In hot weather, that is not enough.

Allan called me from two blocks away to let me know there was a puppy coming my way.  These nice people let me pet their pup, but I forgot to take a photo except for this one as they walked back to their boat (probably) from the grocery store.

pup! with the boatyard garden in the background

I am more determined every time I weed the street tree gardens to get rid of the brick edging, fill in with soil, and just keep the plants clipped back.  It is a bugger to weed around these bricks, and they are sunken and uneven.  (Not my job!)

They are horrible, labour intensive, and have got to go.

Since then, I have sent to a message to a member of the parks commission to see if they can re-use the bricks in a park project.  (Waiting for a reply.)

In the boatyard garden, the wild, white, tall clover thingie has popped up here and there…with roots like iron.

It has a gorgeous bloom but would take over if I let it.

boatyard garden, not very colourful today, looking south

looking north, loving the ‘Hopley’s Purple’ oregano

new flowers on just one of the Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’!

But uh oh!!  Someone mowed the field of long grass where we traditionally dump wheelbarrows of debris from the boatyard garden.  (Shhhh….)

Now what?

It was mowed once a few years ago and grew back….

We watered at Time Enough Books as well and admired a brand new sign.

Time Enough Books

The shop is named after the haunting Twilight Zone episode, Time Enough at Last.

At home, I got excited about the idea of a brand new project.  Ever since seeing the scree garden at the Vernon garden on the recent CASA garden tour,  I have wanted to find a spot for my very own scree garden. (Four “gardens” in one sentence!)   So how about ripping many of the plants out of this front section that looks great till about July and then peters out:

bored now

And what if I dug out all of the sod and replaced it with gravel in this entire section AND further back around the beds by Nora’s driveway AND the grass path running west to east in the front garden?  In other words, gravel all the paths outside the deer fence!

All this awful lawn could be gravel instead!

With great enthusiasm, I grabbed the half moon edger and cut a strip.  It was so hard!  Allan helped, but….

one measly strip cut

my big idea to cut enough each week to fill the garbage can, thus getting rid of the lawn by staycation time, came to a halt.  I think it needs to wait till the ground softens in rainy weather.  And I also had better remember that gravel might take more maintenance than just mowing the dried up lawn.  (But would look so great.)

Just after I had given up on filling the wheelie bin, Mary from three doors down and her friend Carrie came to tour the garden.  Carrie was so very enthusiastic and appreciative that it made a wonderful end to a long and varied day.

Mary and Carrie in the garden at dusk.