stormy weekend

Saturday, September 28, 2013

gale warning

In the late morning, I wanted to get a telephoto of how the two flags at the port office (signifying a gale warning, 39-54 mph winds) had slipped halfway down the flagpole.  It came out rather blurry, but there it is.  The wind, while strong (I later learned it had been 61 mph at Cape Disappointment, the backside of which I can see from my window) was not a cold wind.  So during a lull in the rain, I went out to take a video of the windy bogsy wood with my phone.  You may be able to view it here.

I became thoroughly occupied with a new Facebook page that will be a repository for my non-Ilwaco photos of the Long Beach Peninsula.  I had no intention of going to Olde Towne in the bad weather…until I get a message from Luanne who sounded kind of lonely!  So we went, and I was glad we did as our friend Kelly was there and, with no other customers except for her niece, Luanne was able to sit and visit with us.

almost empty on a stormy day

I was also glad that I had not walked there as the rain was absolutely sheeting down beyond any amount I have seen so far this year.  (I later learned that Astoria had something like three inches of rain.)

In case of a power outage, Olde Towne has a good stock of oil lamps for sale.

Amazingly the rain stopped for awhile after we returned home.  The Danger Tree was still standing and had not lost a limb.

stubborn old thing

In a lull with no wind, I took a walk through the bogsy wood.  It had been completely devoid of any standing water the evening before.

The bogsy wood is bogsy now.

Path next to the Danger Tree: The water came almost over my shoes.

It’s rare to see the water standing this deep on the lawn to the north of the bogsy wood.

between danger tree and bogsy wood

The swale under the bridge was overflowing.

I’ve never seen the bridge swale this deep this early in the year.

I would love it if this were full of water all year.

from the bridge:  more standing water beyond the deer fence

next to the bridge

the big swale in the middle of the bogsy wood

looking north to the house

Sad though it is, I think I must admit that the cosmos in the garden boat are goners.  Some years they bloom into bulb planting time.

maybe if I cut them halfway back….

I’m not much for going out in the evening (except for dinner) anymore.  Something certainly changed in me along the way because in my twenties and thirties I was out clubbing two or more nights a week.  (Some of those evenings turned out so boring that I would have been better off staying  in and reading a book, although many excellent bands were seen back in the day.)  However, after our recent daytime visit to The Sou’wester, where I lived for a year in 1993, I resolved to go out to more of their musical events…for old times’ sake.  It was an effort to leave home comforts to go out the door at almost 8 PM to hear a concert opening their Artist Residency program!

Once we were there, the living room felt so familiar.

At the Sou’wester

We talked with a teacher and mechanic couple who were visiting from Portland.  She had fallen in love with the Sou’wester much as I had in 1991.  I warned her how I had come on vacation in fall of ’92, a vacation that got longer and longer until I suddenly upped stakes and moved here.  She loves her job in Portland, but don’t underestimate the lure of Seaview.  While we talked, I absorbed the familiar details of the room.

the glow of light on the beamed ceiling

The sound of guests in the four upstairs suites going up and down the stairs took me back twenty years.

before the performance…looking to the south windows of the lodge living room

Many an hour I had spent in the office just to the left in the above photo.

New owner Thandi has a staff of friends to help her run the place.  Back in our time, Robert and I were the only staff to do all the cleaning, repairs, office work, lawn mowing to help the previous owners who were in their mid 60s at the time.  With the staff who were there that evening, and a few guests who attended the performance, listening to songwriter Nick Jaina was a quiet and personal experience.

Allan took this photo just as the show started.

Nick Jaina at the Sou’wester

I wanted to get a photo that captured how I felt being surrounded by Sou’westerness again and listening to the songs at the same time.

I think I got it.

He told us the story of having stayed in one of the vintage trailers to write twenty songs in one day.  In his article about that experience is a photo of the exact trailer (I think) that Robert and I lived in for several months in ’93 (unless the resort has acquired another Spartan RV with curved front windows like that).

I remembered so many things while sitting in the living room listening to Nick’s excellent songs.  How I knew that the previous owners had bought the Sou’wester (in a state of great disrepair) when they were fifty.  I moved there when I was thirty seven, and ever since I have thought that age 50 was the benchmark for starting a big new thing and after age 50 it would be too late.  Now I am 58 and that is a disturbing thought.

Then I thought about age for quite a few minutes.  A lot of the people at the Sou’wester now look to be in their 20s and 30s.  I thought, Do they realize we are pretty much the same?  I know I did not realize that about “older people” until I became an older person.

Nick closed with the most amazing song…something like “I’m in the middle of a story that is breaking my heart; I won’t be with you when our plans finally come apart.”  It certainly brought back memories of assorted heartbreaks.  As I said, I have not been to a concert of this sort for a very very long time.  I bought Nick’s CD.  The song is called  “I’ll Become Everything.”   Give it a listen for some angsty memories.

Upon departing, the sight of the lodge with its windows aglow reminded me of evenings walking back from the beach at dusk and seeing these lights, and then the light in the window of the old Spartan Manor trailer that I stayed in.

Sou’wester by night from K Place

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Rain.  Wind.  Blogging.  Did not set one toe outside.  Deleted over 2000 extra photos from iPhoto and got the “Our Long Beach Peninsula’ page well stocked with photos.  I want to leave some history behind, but it is all based on the hope that WordPress and Facebook will linger on long after me.

Allan pointed out that our dinner was 75% food from the garden:  three different kinds of peppers and garlic sauteed with baby red potatoes, and tomatoes, and Cox’s Orange Pippin apples all next to some fish.

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gardening and art

Friday, September 27, 2013

With much rain predicted, I was sure we could get the entire day off.  I had various computer projects in mind, mainly sorting out and deleting some of the 16,000 plus photos I’ve taken since my old computer crashed last February.

I walked down to Olde Towne in the wind while Allan continued to snooze.

strawberry waffle

He joined me after awhile because I had gotten thoroughly soaked by sideways rain and buffeted by wind on the way to breakfast.  While he took the opportunity to go to a shop in Seaview to have new shocks installed in our van, I got a ride home from Queen La De Da and told myself I would put ten things away before I booted up the computer.  After maybe thirty things had been properly dealt with, I proceeded to sort cerinthe seeds that I had collected over the summer.

Cerinthe chaff

Out of that pile of chaff (in a bowl made by my friend Sheila (New Leaf Plants and Pottery), I got over 150 seeds.

Cerinthe seeds

They are large and each plant produces so many that I am amazed at how expensive a packet of Cerinthe major purpurascens seeds is.

Allan returned from his errands and told me that, as the rain and wind had slowed, he had seen the Port of Ilwaco crew out removing (with a backhoe) some of the tall ornamental grasses we had tagged earlier in the week.  We waited long enough to give the crew a head start and then went out…leaving the cats snoozing.

Smokey and Mary

The crew had done a wonderful job of tidying up after themselves after removing grasses to the north of the old Port Bistro building.

where once were grasses

We had just a bit of cleaning up to do so we also clipped the big, woody old lavenders.  We may replace them next spring.

before (Sept 25)

after

I am a big fan of ornamental grasses; the problem with those is that they blocked the oncoming traffic sightline of people leaving the nearby parking lots.

Just to the west in the next curbside bed, the removal of another large Miscanthus had pulled the root mass of a Ceanothus in a way that reminded me of the ruching up of a rug.

root mass out of place

Allan managed to get it back where it should be with the pick, and I did some pruning on the Ceanothus and pulled as much soil as possible into the hole where the grass used to be.   We’ll get more soil but we want to wait till the removal of the rest of the tagged plants because we will have more holes to level off.

by the tuna club…I’ll plant something smaller in this spot.

At home, the cats were still snoozing but Mary welcomed some attention.

waking up

At five PM we walked three blocks down to the museum for opening night of “Charles Fitzpatrick: Pen & Photo”.  On the way, I admired a stunning gazania in Judy’s garden.

Gazania

The rain held off for our walk to the museum, and the snacks were excellent.

refreshments

Peninsulites examine the photos.

One panel of photos was especially interesting to me as it showed a lot of old hotels, including the Grandview Lodge…AKA The Sou’wester.

enlarged

Back in those days, the beach came right up to J Place in Seaview and was at the Sou’wester’s front door.  Now it is half a mile to the west because of dune accretion.

Every November, the museum has a lively auction of small pieces created by local artists and craftspeople.  The display was up for preview and I now know which ones I am going to bid on.

preview of 6×6 art auction

Unfortunately, so do a number of other people.

art collectors plotting

We were able to walk home without being rained on.

heading home past Larry and Robert’s garden boat, with Judy and Tom’s house in the background

Soon after we were cozily indoors, the rain returned with force and remained for most of the next two days.  As it was only 6 PM, I had a good head start on writing the blog post about the wonderful bayside garden I had seen the day before.  What with getting the photos in the right order and side distractions such as messages from friends, it took four hours to complete the entry after all.

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Sept 26 — a bayside garden

McCormick-Stephens Garden

Consider this your first sneak preview of the Music in the Garden tour, 2014! The Barclay garden will be on the tour again, and Mr. Barclay suggested that his neighbours’ garden also be included. Said neighbours invited tour organizer Nancy Allen to visit and I got to accompany her. We both agreed the garden and the visit were an 11 (or more) on a scale of 1-10.

halfway up the entry drive

The property is five acres. Stephen and John have been developing the garden for only a few years. The land is part of the former Clarke family properties which means there already was a collection of old rhododendrons in place. Stephen and John have gotten to know plantsman and rhodo expert Steve Clarke who can identify every shrub and tree. The new owners are well versed in shrubs and trees themselves, much more so than I am! Any mistakes in plant names here are mine alone.

When the entry road was being built, the men with heavy equipment wanted to remove a tree that was in its path. It was a favourite kind of tree of Stephen and John and instead they had the road curve around it.

Thujopsis dolabrata

first glimpse of the house

The house was designed by local architect Erik Fagerland, who has shared a slideshow of it here.

A courtyard between two wings collected runoff from the roofs. The architect believes gutters spoil the lines of the house, so the rocky swale is the solution.

courtyard and water collection swale

The owners told us that sometimes the swale is not enough to process all the water. It just occurs to me as I post this photo: I wonder if it were planted with some cool water absorbing grasses, would it handle heavy rains better and still retain this clean, open look?

courtyard

west end of courtyard garden

I loved the garage doors and rate them the most gorgeous garage doors I have ever seen. They are made of a special sort of glass.

I didn’t even know this was possible, but Googling showed me many images of doors like these.

In a bed to the west of the house are three beautifully displayed small rhododendrons with soft indumentum under the leaves.

indumentum

They perfectly echo the colour of the house and remind me of one of my favourite gardening quotations:

People go through five stages of gardening. They begin by liking flowers, progress to flowering shrubs, then autumn foliage and berries; next they go for leaves, and then the undersides of leaves. -The Duchess of Devonshire

The east side of the house has a bay view. The lawn sweeps smoothly between their house and the Barclay house and on garden tour day, tour goers will be able to stroll back and forth between the two.

Willapa Bay, looking northeast

looking southeast

We talked about how the tour day would be set up, which musician might play, and Nancy reminisced about the amazing food that Mr. Barclay served on tour day 2010!

envisioning

I missed tour day at the Barclay garden. I had pre-toured the gardens that year with then tour organizer Patti Jacobsen; on tour day itself I was taking photos of Doggie Olympic Games and only got back to a few of the gardens. I quite missed out on a feast of cheese and wine and more at the Barclay garden that day.

the musician might be on this bay view patio nook.

a sheltered spot in case of inclement weather

SE corner of the house

looking southeast: a meticulously tended native landscape

From inside the house, the tall windows bring the light and view into play from every angle.

imagine that patio with a musician…

Passing through the house, we began a detailed tour of the garden.

sculpture on west wall of house

northwest garden bed

a perfectly placed Hebe

I quite like hebes, especially mound-shaped ones.

another hebe-centric view

I fell in love with this perfectly mounded pale green plant:

They told me it is a Kohuhu, and I found it’s a Pittosporum, and on Monrovia there maybe be more information about this very one if it is indeed ‘Golf Ball’. I must have this.

On the north west side of the house, a bed is anchored by mounds of Hebe. Note on the left a big Limelight Hydrangea in the background. We will see it again!

a little further west with the hydrangea in the background

a little closer

garden beds and specimen trees

a young Gingko

a dwarf elm!

I think the Elm is Ulmus x hollandica‘ Jacqueline Hillier’. Here’s a nice article about it.

more of the northwest garden

a rhododendron with small leaves

They told us this rhodo is covered with flowers in spring, pale pink as I recall. What a perfect property for gardeners who already have a great love for rhododendrons.

If there ever was a tree that wanted a hug, it would be that one.

I love the shapes in this bed.

fluffy and pointy

near the house….a huge cotoneaster??

and a wee hopping frog

Hydrangea ‘Limelight’

They call this their “bridge rhododendron”.

I am pleased to report that the patch of salal, below, is the last big patch left to be cleared. John and Stephen have succeeded in removing masses of the difficult and thuggish plant and this area will be next.

goodbye salal

an old, shapely, tree-like cotoneaster

On the south side of the drive, John and Stephen have cleared, mostly by hand and chainsaw, alders and salal that were completely hiding the tree trunks.

They save every fern they find.

As you can see, they carefully clean up each fern of last year’s foliage.

licorice fern…

…on an artistically bent tree

One of the areas where big trees came down in the 2007 windstorm will be planted with hollies and another with hydrangeas.

a bright spot in the forest…to be developed into a holly bed, I think

At the northwest side of the entire acreage is the old irrigation pond for the nursery that used to be here. In the near future, Stephen and John are planning to begin landscaping the banks.

Beyond the pond is a meadow that provides a natural habitat for birds.

mown and unmown

After this wonderful tour round the garden, we all walked back up to the house.

south side of driveway…with a little Hebe ‘Quicksilver’

John and Stephen’s knowledge of trees and shrubs far surpassed mine. Of course, I told them that Back Alley Gardens in Gearhart is the go to place around here for cool plants from Xera. They already knew about and had been to Dancing Oaks in Oregon; I suggested Cistus, Joy Creek and Gossler Farms. For an area that used to be the nursery parking lot and is terribly compacted, I suggested the book Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden might have some ideas, and that for meadows any book by Piet Oudolf offers beautiful visions.

I look forward to having more plant talk with these well informed and talented gardeners and to seeing their garden next spring when all those rhodos are in bloom.

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Sept 26–work

I saw such a lovely garden today!  It deserves its own entry and since we are supposed to have five (some say eight!) inches of rain in the next two or three days, and high wind on Sunday, I am sure I will plenty of time to give to that story.

Meanwhile:  Work!

At the Post Office, an odd work related encounter occurred.  Yesterday at Olde Towne (during a stop to change compost buckets), Allan told me a man wanted to talk to me about work. He’d asked Allan and Allan had pointed me out and said I set the schedule.   I was chatting with Luanne and glanced up and saw a man standing outside.  I did not think much of it except I knew I would say we did not want any more jobs.  When we left with the compost bucket, the man was gone.  Today he came up to Allan in the post office  (where we have to go each day for our mail) and said in, I gather, an irritated way, “I guess you don’t want the work!”   He got into his vehicle right in front of where we were parked and almost spun his wheels in an angry-looking departure.  I was mystified till Allan explained.  What good fortune to not having taken on a job (say, if he had lured us with a fabulous garden full of collectible plants) for someone that crabby!  Yesterday, he had perhaps expected me to stop my conversation at Olde Towne and hustle right out to talk to him.  If he had come up to me, I could have given him a couple of phone numbers of other gardeners to try.

Today we did that one-off job of cleaning up the 42nd Street Café garden.   In the front, the pea gravel had ruched around and the underwear (the worst thin landscape fabric) showed.  While I was weeding along the north side, and cutting back some lady’s mantle, Allan did an amazing job of digging out a severely chopped hydrangea and redistributing the gravel so it looks good again.  (He also cut the fabric that was sticking up; he called it “dorsal fins”.  The fabric is no loss; it is so thin that weeds came right through.)  I did some of the weeding, but the excellent gravel work is almost all Allan’s.

before and after

We took time to clean up the triangle of soil at the south side of the garden (above, after picture, left!) , even though originally I did not think we would get that far in the time I had allotted to the job (a little over two hours).

The restaurant had an event planned for Saturday that would require, due to liquor regulations, for guests to entry through that usually unused red door and walk through the restaurant and out the main door into the parking lot.  There they would enjoy an old fashioned Oktoberfest with an oompah band, mermaids courtesy Queen La De Da, beer, sausages, and so on.

before

after

Meanwhile, on the north side, I dealt with the messy lady’s mantle and some bindweed.

before and after

The sad thing is that due to the threatening storm, the Oktoberfest for which we were preparing has been cancelled because of the weather forecast.  I asked restaurateur Blaine Walker if they could just have the event inside the restaurant; he said that a brass oompah band would be overwhelming in the smallish dining room!

When we were done with the garden clean up, Nancy Allen picked me up to go see the garden on the bay while Allan went on to Andersen’s RV Park to work some more.  Here is just a sneak peak of the garden I saw:

and…..

More to come as soon as stormy weather allows!

Two hours later, I rejoined Allan at Andersen’s.  He had been weeding behind the office.

The oriental poppies are reblooming.

The Bad Aster actually looks lovely (since I never seem to succeed in eradicating it).

clouds of blue asters

Where once grew a thick meadow of annual poppies, the asters hid out all summer and have redeemed themselves.

west garden

Looking at the blue sky and feeling warm air, it was hard to believe tomorrow will bring a three day long storm.

With less than two hours till sunset, we left to fill the day in with some work in Long Beach.  Especially on my mind was the removal of some old woody Helichrysym italicum (curry plant).  I mainly like it because it smells so good and has silver foliage.  It does not come back as nicely when clipped as the silver Santolina.

The planter just north of Dennis Company had lost its bench to a curry plant and two lavenders.  Once the curry had been removed, the lavenders looked so misshapen that they had to go as well.

a sit spot reclaimed

Two more curry plants came out in the planter near the Long Beach Gazebo.

before and after

That planter is plagued with a blue geranium that is not much of a rebloomer (Johnson’s Blue, maybe).  Every year I dig a lot of it out but it is such a runner that I would have to replace all the soil to get rid of it.  I have found it does rebloom lightly if cut back hard.

I cut back lavender in another planter and wanted to clean up under a street tree but I happened to see a shirtless young man noisily hack a big spitball into it.  Then he sat on the bench by the tree and smoked.  The joys of public gardening…. That tree garden will have to wait till later (with medical exam gloves on, which I usually do wear while gardening).

While Allan pulled Croscosmia ‘Lucifer’ from another planter and a tree, I did some cutting back at city hall.

Lavatera ‘Barnsley’…city hall

The Lavatera in the west side garden has halfway died back.  I would cut it back even harder than this to help it through the winter, but did not have time today so took out some big dead branches toward the front.  Then, although the sun was ominously low, I decided I had to clip the Escallonia and especially two Miscanthus variegatus (a favourite grass!) that were hanging out over the sidewalk.

before and after

I must address the Escallonia situation severely, but not at dusk.  I see they have gotten way too big.

loading the trailer as the sun sets

As we drove out of the city works yard after dumping, the view down 6th street revealed we had worked for every last possible minute.  Or so I thought.

We had reason to celebrate today (about something outside of the blog story) so decided to go to The Hungry Harbor Grille for Mexican Fiesta night.  From our parking spot, I could see Veterans Field and realized we had not deadheaded the garden!  If the weather forecast was wrong and Columbia Pacific Farmers Market did not get rained out, we’d have to go back, or do it now.  So of course, I did it.  The flags show the complete calm….before the storm as with last Saturday night when we had a campfire in still, beautiful weather?  We’ll see.

warm and windless twilight

Hungry Harbor Grille, logo by Don Nisbett

the back room….In a little over two months, this area will be filled with the spectacular annual Christmas Village display.

Hungry Harbor

inside Hungry Harbor: Reel Tasty

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would-be north end day

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Our north end day was slightly delayed by a stop at 42nd Street Café to find out what needed to be done for an emergency must-be-done-by-the-weekend weeding call I had gotten from the owner.  I have a thing for restaurants, so we will take on the project….tomorrow.

I like to get as many north end jobs done as possible on Wednesdays, and lately I like to go to Klipsan Beach Cottages first.  Owner Mary was getting sad when we would show up at the end of the day, while she and Denny were having dinner and wrapping up their own day, and there would be no time to visit.

I saw a striking sight from the road as we drove up and I walked out to photograph it.  I’m not sure whether to use it on their Facebook page or not.  It does sort of imply that it rains a lot here.

reflective pool

inside the fenced garden

Coreopsis ‘Flower Tower’ taller than the greenhouse!

Mary and I wish we knew the name of the rose that she got as a gift.

two of the eight cottages from just outside the fenced garden (looking west)

Next, we deadheaded Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ at the little Oman Builders Supply garden.

OBS garden

At the Wiegardt Gallery, we planted the three Ilex ‘Sky Pencil’ that last week just got a scenic tour of the Peninsula and went back home because weather was still too hot and dry.  It had definitely turned wet enough now.

Wiegardt Gallery, west wall, before

after, with three Ilex added

They will make a difference, especially when I get two more.  I just do not understand why they are so hard to come by, when they are such good doers and deer resistant.  This garden used to have two Escallonias, but Eric thought they were too big, so I hope the Ilex will give some tall structure without being annoying.

We also added an Echinacea ‘Green Jewel’ to a newly cleared bed on the south side.  It looks better than any I put in the ground earlier this year and I hope it has gotten big enough to survive any slugs and snails, as they seem to love this plant.

a green jewel

I was at a bit of a loss regarding where to go next.  Golden Sands?  Marilyn’s?  Marilyn’s won out, as we had not gone there last week.  It still bugs me that the alders were limbed so high…

 

But to get a sense of enclosure back, I am thinking the sterile Buddliea that is in the west garden might be just the right size.

Buddleia ‘Blueberry Cobbler’

I really don’t want to transplant that one, so I hope I can find another one.  Asian Moon, Purple Haze, or the orange Sweet Marmalade would be good if I can just get my hands on one.

Marilyn’s, looking north from by the back porch

Marilyn’s daughter, Nancy, has been posting some photos of the deer who live in this garden.

Nancy’s deer photos:

 

We still had time to check on Golden Sands Assisted Living garden, which we also skipped last week.  I got two more patches of wild beach strawberries pulled:

SE quadrant

Still need to get all the way around the back of the SE quadrant….

SW quadrant

But the southwest quadrant is done!

The strawberries were as thick as the ones on the outside of the landscape timbers.

Allan moved the bench, making even more solidly sittable than it was before.

in 2011. For a long time the bench has sat in front of the NW quadrant.

Now the garden can be seen! (such as it is)

The bench is much better here.

What a mess awaits us in the NW quadrant.  Strawberries, up in everyone’s business.

Gah!

The soil is tight and rubbly, but once we spend another partial day and get this weeded, we can bring in a load of cow fiber and turn this into a place of beauty.  I have a stash of plants donated by Sheila and Kathleen S. that have been waiting since July (for the sprinkler system to be fixed) to be added to this garden.

Golden Sands: happy rose because of working sprinklers (and rain)

While at Golden Sands, I got a call and a text from Nancy Allen asking if I could accompany her to a potential garden tour garden tomorrow.  She is already looking ahead to the July 2014 tour.  Can I resist a chance to look at a garden?  Never.  So on the way south, Allan and I added a check up on the Anchorage Cottages garden in order to make tomorrow easier.  (My promise to do that one off weeding job to 42nd Street Café,  and a predicted Friday storm have made the schedule tight for Thursday.)

At the Anchorage: Allan found this many pampas plumes broken by Sunday’s wind.

Manager Beth added this lovely birdbath.

Someone, not us, did a nice job of pruning the Escallonia iveyi so one of the Anchorage signs shows better.  When I was taking a photo of it and the cleaned up pampas grass, I noticed more pampas plumes bent over and we had to clip them before we left.

to the far left, bent pampas

pink pampas plumes at The Anchorage

I think all the many Pampas grasses at the Anchorage were planted by Dan Hinkley because he and Robert Jones designed the garden for Robert’s sister who used to own the place!

Ironically, our last mission of the day was to tag some large grasses, including one Pampas, and a couple of Phormiums that the port crew are going to remove from the Howerton gardens on Friday.  (If you want to go down there and hang around and try to snag the plants, maybe you could!)  In the curbside garden, these plants block the sightlines and have to go.

Allan tagging a grass by the Loading Dock Village

Two more tagged by the much missed old Port Bistro café

I want to see the last of this grass and Phormium by Pelicano Restaurant’s parking lot.

When pulling out of several parking lots along Howerton, too-tall plants can block the sight of oncoming traffic.  These plants were not chosen or installed by me, but of course we are the ones who have to chop the darn things down once a year…and that is not enough.  We will replace them with smaller grasses.

This phormium by Powell Gallery must go…it pokes into the sidewalk area.

It seems a shame to have to take out the big Pampas grass at its prettiest time, but when it is gone, one will be able to see the sign for Marie Powell’s studio.

Pampas

And I am sick of cutting it down.  It’s bad enough to deal with all the Pampas at the Anchorage!  And it also blocks the Pelicano restaurant sign.  Imagine, below, that my shadow is a driver of a car…who cannot see the Pelicano sign at all.

just a glimpse shows of the restaurant sign

I am curious whether this fine restaurant’s business will increase when that grass has been replaced with a smaller one.

I took mercy on one centrally located Phormium.  It is so small now…perhaps it is a dwarf cultivar, or just young.

It has escaped the ax for now.

I love ornamental grasses, and even though Randy Powell asked me to do so, I have been refusing to cut the one by his door because it is at its best right now.

not for the chop yet if I can help it!

We stopped ever so briefly at Larry and Robert’s garden to add a bucket of river rock to their back garden.  The setting sun was just catching a tree with autumn colour.

autumn

At home, I watered the tomato and pepper plants in the greenhouse.  A cat drama entertained me in the front garden.

The neighbours’ cat, hiding in Allan’s garden

I thought it was my Calvin at first till I realized this cat is much smaller.

encounter with Frosty

Onyx

further lurking in the front garden

Neighbour cats from all directions always seem to prefer our garden to their own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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working>rainbow

Monday, September 23, 2013

We drove off with some optimism to the post office and bank, and were met with such a rainfall that we were ready to give up on work.  A rainy day off is not nearly as nice if one does not sleep in and stay in (or go to Olde Towne Café) from the very beginning.  As we pulled back into our driveway, I saw sun behind clouds and rain.

a good sign? over the garage

looking west on Lake Street…blue sky calls us back to work.

We headed up to Andersen’s RV Park, one of our most weather exposed resort jobs.  I thought it might have been seriously wind battered as the wind had been reported as 51 mph in Ocean Park.  The only damage was one big cosmos down at Payson Hall!

Payson Hall planters

The planters tidied up well but are showing their end of the season age…

I am tired of deadheading Agyranthemum ‘Butterfly’!!

In the garden by the office back door, some Oriental Poppies want to do a second bloom.

Will they make it?

autumnal: Sedumn ‘Autumn Joy’ and Schizostylis.

My pale pink Schizostylis are either Mrs. Haggerty or Viscountess Byng, not sure which!

The sweet peas got a slow start but are still blooming.

picket fence garden at Andersen’s

The park was pretty full for a weekday in late September, so I was glad we had gone to tidy up the garden.

just over the dunes: the ocean

In the yearly lull between the end of tourist festivals and Bulb Hell, we have time to do all sorts of little jobs that we’ve put off.  For the rest of Monday, we worked on getting the damnable Geranium ‘A.T. Johnson’ out from under some of the Long Beach street trees.  Who was the dingbat who planted them?  Oh, that would be me, back when the budget was so small I was looking for free plants to fill in.

all cleaned up with hardy Fuchsias added

A quick walk around our own garden in the evening revealed a Lobelia tupa in bud!  But the poor thing is laying sideways, swamped by Geranium ‘Rozanne’.  I still love Rozanne because she does not reseed all over the place like A.T. does.

Lobelia tupa: I will transplant this one later.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

I slept through loud thunder and lightning, I’m told, but did wake up to hear truly torrential rain on the roof.  Blue skies with white clouds greeted our departure for work.  We stopped at Olde Towne specifically to deadhead one fallen gladiola in a planter out front.  I did not mean to plant silly tall glads in those planters;  years ago I thought I was planting Gladiolus nanus.  The tall ones still pop up here and there and I leave them because they amuse me.

I had realized the previous week when looking for an old photo on the Olde Towne Facebook page (which I set up), that the photos in this year’s album make it look like there is a clique of my friends Judy, Patt, and Donna!  That’s because no one else is adding photos and I am usually there for coffee with those three.  Today, Cat promised to take some photos of other people; she goes there often to use the wireless so should get a good selection of folks.

Cat herself; she’s an excellent photographer

We procrastinated a bit too long, then we were off to Casa Pacifica, our job that is off the Peninsula (to the east a few miles).

stunning maple and Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’

I got such a big bag of Acidanthera that I stuck them into many gardens, including the whiskey barrels at Casa Pacifica.

Acidanthera, late blooming and not very hardy

It took Dusty a little while to figure out I was there, but when he did he came out with a stogie.

My good friend.

The very shy Spook let me take a couple of photos….

Spook on the hot tub cover

Then, despite my usual attempts to woo her, she hid under the deck.  I won the other dogs over with treats, but not Spook.

As we weeded and deadheaded, the sky kept seeming to lower itself onto the surrounding trees.

a heavy sky

I got the barrels deadheaded and a Buddleia cut back and some weeding in the upper garden….

autumnal hydrangea and Stipa gigantea

As thunder rumbled and the sky got darker.

We almost had everything done…

but got caught in a downpour!

A lot of visitors to the household meant we had to back down the driveway to a turn around place, and then there was not enough room to turn so Allan had to take the trailer off in the deluge and then hook it up again.  We almost slipped off the road and I was screaming a bit.  Just a bit.  It seemed after that that a nice break at Oldie Townie was in order.  By the time we got there, the sun was re-emerging, but we stopped for lunch anyway.  Only at this lull between work seasons do we have the luxury of slacking off from work this often.

a lunch group at Olde Towne

We did stir ourselves back out again after a nice lunch of tortilla soup.  Mexican hot chocolate for Allan, Chai latte for me warmed us up.

We deadheaded at the Depot Restaurant…

Most of the cosmos flowers were limp and rain drenched.

I thought we might then go to Long Beach town and take some old, woody curry plants out of the planters.  Then I remembered that the Boreas Inn should be checked for storm damage to the garden.

It still looked pretty good once we removed some broken cosmos stems.

looking west

Owner Susie was there and told me she is very much enjoying the newish garden off the back porch of the inn.  (Allan got it all nicely weeded and fluffy.)

between Boreas and Yett Cottage

We never made it to Long Beach, because Susie asked if we could prune a big rhodendron, just to lighten it up.  It was a job where it is helpful if one person goes inside the shrub and waves branches and the other one says what to cut.  We removed about four wheelbarrow loads full, and afterward the shrub still looked natural, which is the kind of pruning job we like.

before

after

before

after

I can’t bring it any lower because it provides some privacy from the neighboring house.

sit spot in the entry garden: Boreas Inn

I scored a nice windowbox that Susie, for some reason, no longer wants!

nice!

Just as we left, an hour before dusk, the rain returned.  Shortly after we pulled up to our garage, it became another torrential downpour.

from our front porch

I was waiting for a rainbow because the sky to the west had some sunshine.

Allan’s garden

looking north from the sunporch…behind the drying garlic

And here comes the rainbow…

over the crabapple tree

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

The rain was still heavy but we both walked out into it to try to get more rainbow photos.

rain pouring off the shed…

and off the house

Allan’s photo: over the hops vine

The rainbow got progressively brighter.

over the greenhouse

over the garden

back garden

front garden

over Lake Street

Nora’s barberry

over School Hill

over our neighbours’ house

fading away

The amazing thing was that I did not get water spots on the lens with all that dashing about in the rain!

And after that…the blogging about it.

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stormy day, puddle walk

Sunday, September 22, 2013

The storm arrived as predicted, I am told at about three or four AM.  I slept through that part.  By eight thirty the roaring wind had me awake and I got up after awhile to root for the danger tree to fall harmlessly.  It didn’t. After reaching 60 mph at Cape Disappointment (just to our southwest) and 50 mph in Ocean Park,the wind completely died down in the early afternoon.  I had been planning to spend the entire day inside but I just couldn’t when the weather got unexpectedly lovely.

A walk around the garden revealed the garden boat Cosmos had gone all sideways.

What a shame!

The Cosmos between me and Nora’s house also took a battering.

wind tunnel

The rest of the garden looked normal…   Allan took the opportunity to mow the lawn.

Allan mowing in the distance

Not one branch had come off the danger tree,  but some large pieces of bark had fallen.

shedding its bark

where the bark came from

Next door in Nora’s back yard more wood had come down than in ours, so I collected some for a future campfire.

Smokey helped, as usual.

I could not muster much interest in cutting back plants in the garden.  My excuse is that they make a good home for our tree frog populations.  The good weather did not allow me to have my day indoors so I decided to take a puddle walk.  Rain always creates good photo opportunities on our not quite level streets.

needles windswept into patterns in our neighbour’s driveway

house for sale across the street and two doors down.

in the middle of Lake Street

windfall at Lake and Advent

from this tree

I thought about walking to the beach below Yellow Bluff but had not checked the tide.  So I turned to the port on Advent Street.

in the port parking lot…a boat thing.

When I saw the marina, I knew it was a good thing I had not gone to Yellow Bluff.  High tide would have prevented walking along the river beach there.

high tide at Ilwaco marina, looking east

high tide sky, looking west

looking east

Since yesterday, Don Nisbett Art Gallery and the Port Office hanging baskets had been removed.  The office ones were stashed safely behind the building, while Don’s sat on the south side.

a sure sign of autumn

I wonder if the baskets will be re-hung?  The ones in Long Beach town are down for the year now.  I had brought my clippers with me and attended to a few broken stems in the port office garden.

As I walked toward Jessie’s, I kept hearing the strangest squawking.

Jessie’s high tide…

Finally I located the source on a boat by the last dock ramp.

This view would have been such a different picture two hours before, if I could have stood up to the wind:

after the storm

Below, all kinds of fish hauling carts are lined up on the entry to the docks.

looking east from Jessie’s

I walked around to the west side of Jessie’s to see if perhaps a boat was offloading…but of course, no one had been out fishing in the storm.

Jessie’s west wall

working boats at rest

I expected to find a lot of wind damage at the boatyard garden on First Avenue.  It looked surprisingly good.

boatyard garden, looking north

Some cosmos was a little sideways

Some was broken, but not as much as I expected.

The Cosmos in my garden boat at home had fared worse than most of the ones at the boatyard.

Aster ‘Harrington’s Pink’

I picked up some windblown trash and when I went back to the boatyard wheelie bin, I saw that the boat washing station looked like one of those infinity pools.

telephoto

not telephoto

Then, sighting north up First Avenue, I saw that the street planters still looked pretty good , so I turned to walk home through the interesting alley to the north of one of the Jessie’s Ilwaco Fish Co buildings.

looking east

interesting stuff!

crab pot reflecting pool

There’s a second boatyard to the east end of the alley where boats are stored while not being worked on.

storage yard

I kept on walking too noisily and a lot of little brown birds had flown off of the crab pots, but bathing crows were fearless.

one of the crows

Not THAT fearless; I did use the telephoto.  I will have to do better at not scaring the little brown birds so I can get some photos for the amusement of ace bird photographer Mr. Tootlepedal.

The storage yard is home, permanently as far as I can tell, to some very old boats whose stories I would like to hear.

Warrior of the Seas

on the north side of the alley

by the old Kola Brothers boathouses

gulls resting up in the port parking lot

I have absolutely no idea what THIS boat thing is:

mysterious thingie…some sort of trailer

Having done my duty by enjoying the garden and a walk, I retreated to my desk, glad to get back to some sorely postponed computer work that I’d been planning to spend the whole day on.

dusky view from my window

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a beautiful day

Saturday, September 21, 2013

A beautiful day was the last sort of day I expected.  The forecast had called for rain, some wind, thunderstorms, and small hail.  I expected to sleep and then get caught up on the computer.  Instead, I found myself walking down to the Saturday Market at ten fifteen!

evidence of yesterday’s rain

Just as I took the above photo two houses east of ours, I saw Devery and Tuffy coming toward me on their way to the market, so we walked down together.

It was a social occasion for Tuffy.

Mr. TuffMan

Devery bought some delicious produce from De Asis.  The sight of okra took her back to her childhood on Saint Kitt’s Island.

at De Asis Produce

Then we parted ways as I went on through the length of the market to take more photos for the Discover Ilwaco page.

More produce from De Asis Farm:

peppers hot

and sweet

The market had about half as many booths as usual.  I bought a hoodie from Blue Crab Graphics…a purple zippered one with Kelly’s design one of our lighthouses on it.  Kelly told me that she had set up in the rain and many vendors had not come.  They would be missing a beautiful day.

new hoodie!

Further on, the English Nursery booth

“reflective pool” by the Shoalwater Cove booth

The pedestrian road called Waterfront Way, which is the market promenade on Saturdays, has a slope toward the middle which provides good reflections after rain.

another booth reflected

The basket from The Basket Case Greenhouse still looks wonderful in front of the Don Nisbett Art Gallery.  Don waters it frequently and lavishly.

Don’s basket

The ones by the Port Office are good, too, although not as lavishly trailing without Don’s extra watering.

Port Office

It’s just as well they don’t trail more or they would hide our garden underneath.  (Some of the garden plants also came from The Basket Case:  Eryngiums, Agastaches, Santolinas, Lavenders, Nepeta, and Cosmos and Salvia Viridis from The Planter Box.)

At the Pink Poppy Bakery booth, Madeline was selling some treats to Jim and Jet Neva.  Jim, great friend of port landscaping, may have retired but is still doing a lot for the port.  He was there to put up the second warning flag for tomorrow’s weather (two red triangle flags equal a gale with winds of 39-54 mph).

Jim and Jet at Pink Poppy Bakery

flowers from Pink Poppy Farm

I got two Guinness chocolate cupcakes and some shortbread to share with Allan later, then  checked out the westernmost curbside garden on Howerton.

The business for sale is the Imperial Schooner Restaurant.

And walked past the boatyard…

And on up First Avenue, checking the city planters along the way.

the colourful Portside Café

My destination was a late breakfast at Olde Towne.  Their window display foretells the imminent arrival of autumn.

at Olde Towne

In the way of small towns, I ended up having my meal with our client Ann and local masseuse and baker Diane.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Allan had woken up an hour later than me (lucky to get good sleep!) and gone to the market himself, where he met our friend Donna, her new puppy, Blue, and…some pirates.

Little Blue!

Donna and the pirates.

This one looks familiar.

I am sure Queen La De Da had something to do with all this because it was some sort of significant pirate day.  (Talk Like a Pirate Day, I’ll bet.)

While sitting at Olde Towne,  I got a text from Donna that she had Blue over at Judy and Tom’s house.  I had finished my breakfast panini, gulped my coffee, and excused myself in haste so I could hustle home and meet the little pup.

Donna, Blue, and Tom

Tiny little Blue looked lost in the lawn, which Tom had been unable to mow as often as usual due to weather.

Baby Blue

After a long visit, during which Allan ambled down to join us (having just returned from the market), I harvested a few things from the garden.  I knew the pole of purple beans in the garden boat would most likely tip over in the wind.

long purple beans

Inspired by the meal yesterday at Himani Indian Cuisine, Allan wanted to make raita.  Maybe because I had found and emailed him a recipe.  So cilantro and mint and a cucumber were harvested for that.  And tomatoes for me and Judy.

The garden looked unkempt but I took most of the afternoon trying to muster the energy to weed three small sections.

sunflowers by the east fence

Allan pointed out that when I had sent him out to retrieve Sheila’s hanging vase from  the shed wall after dark the previous evening,  I had neglected to tell him that the photo that reminded me of the vase also showed a big spider.  He noticed the spider when reading the blog later that night!

vase from New Leaf Pottery…with spider

In the dark, he had gotten tangled up in the web.  Today, the spider was rebuilding.

determination

I miss the vase but it cannot be up there during autumn winds.

A walk around the garden was in order just in case the predicted wind was terribly bad.

Aconitum in back garden

Verbena bonariensis

a very nice daylily

profusely flowering Fuchsias everywhere

From the south end of the garden, I could see the two flags now flying over the port..

gale warning

But we had only the slightest breeze and the evening was warm.

late afternoon light, looking north from the bogsy wood

My usual garden companions had followed me all around.

Smokey

(You can see how the back lawn is mostly creeping buttercup.)

Mary

She’s Smokey’s mom.

Suddenly it seemed essential to have the first and possibly last campfire of the season!  I had checked last month with two VIFs (very important local firefighters) and learned that despite a county burn ban it was ok to have a small campfire in one’s own town garden.  Work, and blogging in the evening, had seemed to get in the way of having a fire until now.

At first the wood was steamy from yesterday’s rain.

steamy

But then it caught very nicely and we had hot dogs and smores for dinner.

a real campfire

Gunnera by the bogsy wood

Smokey thought the fire was a great idea.

my shoulder cat

During our fire time, not a breath of wind stirred the danger tree almost right overhead.  By next year’s campfire season, we will have dealt with this tree, if the storms don’t do it for us.  Then we won’t have to wait for completely windless nights, as they are rare here.

a quiet danger tree

I collected some kindling from the bogsy wood.

And we shared one tall beer featuring Deadliest Catch’s Sig Hansen on the bottle.

I had sent last minute messages to Kelly and to Jenna before our spontaneous campfire.  Jenna did not get the message til the next day, and Kelly had to do something else.  We knew Judy and Tom were in for the evening, so it was just me and Allan and the cats…for most of the evening.

no company!

Light fades behind the alder grove.

I had left two of the gates open in case Jenna and Don or Kelly showed up.  When it was good and dark and we were letting the fire die down, I looked over Allan’s shoulder and within three feet behind him stood a deer.  I just said “Oh my god!” while I considered whether or not a photo would capture the event and decided that the flash would make everything look too harsh.  “What, WHAT?” Allan exclaimed; “Don’t just say “Oh my GOD! What is it!?”  He later asked me if I had seen any horror movies lately.  I finally told him what was RIGHT behind him and stood up, and the deer scurried away down one of the paths.  A keystone cops in the dark chase ensued with two humans, two flashlights, two open gates and a deer that kept going round and round the dark paths.  We finally got it herded out the side gate to Nora’s driveway, and Allan made a circuit of the yard to make sure the deer had not brought a buddy.

The whole experience, including the deer’s visit, was so enjoyable I wish that we had done it more often.  Now we can only hope for a nice October evening with no wind (because of Danger Tree) to have one more campfire with company.

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rainy day visits

Friday, September 20, 2013, part two

On our way home from a shopping trip to Astoria, we stopped at Inspirations Stained Glass to finally pick up the two little fish and a bowl that we had made on cash mob day back in June.  That shows how busy our summer has been; any Saturday trip taking us through Chinook town has been rushes to get across the river for one garden tour or another!

Who did we find at the stained glass workshop but Rob from Andersen’s RV Park!  He’s making a stained glass window for his RV and knew what he was doing.

Rob making stained glass window

Inspirations: a good place to find glass “jewels” for garden decoration

I do love this fish on a stream of glass jewels.

And then, after an interlude at home, we went to pick up the Long Beach check.  A sure sign of fall is the fact that all the baskets have been removed from downtown and from city hall.

a sad sight to see the baskets gone…

another autumnal sign: Colchicum in the city hall entry garden

We then checked out a new (old) job.  We’ve worked for Erin on and off at her Long Beach house and cottage.  This year, we didn’t have time in the summer to do the cottage garden but she had another able gardening friend who took care of it.  Now time is freeing up and we can consider doing some sort of gardening at the big house.

We were greeting first by a cute and friendly cat.

Felix

And then by Erin, who gave me a huge hug because she was so happy we had finally found time to talk about her garden.  We looked briefly at the cottage garden and offered to give it a good fall clean up (although it looks good).  Our attention turned to the big house.

In 1974 or 75, when I visited the beach with my old friend Mary, we took a walk and got lost in the dunes.   We ended up getting back to the road by coming onto private property and passing an old house that I photographed in awe.  It has a widow’s walk and is one of the grandest houses in Long Beach.

Glenn house

I had a copy of this photo tacked to my wall for the next 20 years to remind myself that I had formed a dream of living on the “North Beach Peninsula” as it was then known. The cosmic thing would have been if I had ended up owning this house, but it was still pretty cosmic that I met Erin and ended up making a garden around the big house in 2001.  Back then, we started by making a boat garden.

boat planted up with cosmos, 2001

Today we saw the boat has been reclaimed by nature.

former garden boat, Sept 2013

We also enhanced an area by the south side porch in 2001 with lots of flowers.

entry garden

I was amused to see that that arc shaped garden is now the playground for Erin’s son.

a big sandbox!

I think that is ideal, and what a great way to be able to start with a blank slate someday when he and his friends have outgrown the sandbox.

Along the porch, Erin and her mom have planted lavender and grasses, an excellent choice.

porch garden

Back then, the cottage to the east of the big house was lived in by Erin’s friend Paul.

Paul’s cottage gate

Later we took care of the cottage garden while Erin lived there and while it was a rental, but it never made it onto our roster of weekly or biweekly jobs.  The big house was empty for awhile, but now that it is occupied again the question is:  What to do with the garden?

The arc garden is a sandbox, and the porch gardens are just fine the way they are.  The wonderful old garden boat is no more.  So what to do?

looking northeast to porch and sandbox

Looking southwest from the stone steps next to the sandbox, we contemplated the vast stretch of lawn.

lawn, then dunes, then beach

We are not looking for big new jobs, but I have a long interest in this house so I said to Erin that we could maybe do a couple of big flower beds like we have in our back garden.  They would be different from mine in that deer frequent this garden and it would be on sand rather than the dirt with a high water table that keeps our back garden so lush.  The slope of the lawn would allow the view over the dune grass to be still visible even with fairly tall plants.

I suggested Erin look for another garden boat that we could plant up for her.  She is already on that quest.  As for her desire for a wonderful fire circle, I suggested she call Bill Clearman who is a genius at carpentry, stonework, concrete, and hardscaping, none of which are our forté.

the simple fire circle now

I may be mad, but I could imagine taking on some sort of big project here…especially since Erin has the gardening friend who could do a lot of the maintenance.  It will be interesting to think about this and perhaps, just perhaps, make a new garden bed for Erin this winter.

Meanwhile, we’ll tidy up the cottage garden and keep thinking.

After visiting Erin, we finally had time to stop by Nancy and Phil Allen’s to see how her new garden is doing.  Just like Erin’s garden might be a late fall project for 2013, helping Nancy with her new flowerbed was our 2012 fall project.

The mixed flower border is still not as good as I would like.

pretty enough but I want more!

I haven’t checked on it enough or encouraged the adding of enough plants.  I’ll remedy this by bringing more plant starts this fall.

Nancy’s vegetable garden continues to impress with its productivity and attractiveness.

bean tower and spuds

purple bush beans

Why can’t I get a nice veg garden going like Nancy’s?  I just cannot seem to spare the room to make a tidy area like this:

a beautiful vegetable and herb area

We sat inside because the rain had returned; Phil’s remodeling of their historic old home has come along to the wonderful moment of the kitchen having a gorgeous oak floor and the lighting and painting being almost done.

kitchen window

a charming old kitchen cabinet

a perfect detail by the stairs

Nancy’s harvest bowl

We had to hightail it home before dark so that Allan could install a headlight to replace a burnt out one.  And I found our day off had been so eventful that it took me not one, but two evenings to blog about it.

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a rainy day

Friday, September 20, 2013, part one

I was disappointed to be woken at the usual time because I had expected a rainy day off.  And then I heard the gurgling of water in the rain barrel outside my window and looked out to an increasing drizzle.   So at last, it turned out to be the day to go get new shoes.  We were off “overseas” to Astoria.

As often seems to be true, the sky over Astoria and points east was lighter and we were out of the rain as soon as we got through the Chinook tunnel.

bright sky over Astoria; Columbia River to our right

Because a 55 mph wind is predicted for Sunday, the workers on the bridge were folding up the enormous tarps that cover the highest part.  Last year, they got caught out by the first storm and had to close the bridge because of the dangerous flapping!

Screen shot of news story, in case it eventually goes away as old news:

last year!

A shoe shopping expedition is not a treat for me.  I find it very hard, and always have done, to acquire comfy shoes.  Last year, in the local Reach Out Thrift Store, I happened upon a pair for $2 that felt soft as butter.  (I had been looking for a work shirt, not shoes, but checked the shoes in a desperate attempt to avoid actual shoe shopping!)  It turned out that they were SAS, an expensive brand, but one that would be worth any amount of money to me.  Since the ones I bought that day were already worn and now have holes by the little toe, today we went across the river to the store that carries them: Gimre’s.  I had the most pleasant shoe shopping experience of my life there and bought two pair, and that is enough about shoes!

Ok, for my friends who do love shoes, here they are:

left: new slip ons, middlle: new laceups, right: thrift store pair

I commend SAS for making such great shoes.  I will even try to keep the slip on pair out of the dirt…(We’ll see how long that lasts.)

Back to (mostly) garden theme, with this digression for one of the best hotel advertising slogans ever:

hotel elliot

I continue to be an ardent admirer of the Astoria planters on Commercial Street and some side streets:

chocolate cosmos on Commercial

planter with Fuchsia

Periscaria

Euphorbia and Verbena

(I hesitate to use Euphorbia in planters because if someone broke off a piece, hurting their eye with the toxic sap would be a high price to pay for finger blight.)

I adore the planters with wire sides and plants spilling out all the way to the ground:

planter

closer

The rain caught up with us in Astoria, so we went to lunch, passing this cute storefront on the way.

We also passed a curbside garden on Marine Drive with a name I recognized:

Jessica’s garden

I met Jessica some years ago and loved the slogan that she used for her gardening business, which I think was called Wyndlesham Gardening:  “Hand Tool Gardening”, and am pleased to have found this interview with her on that subject.

Chocolate cosmos in Jessica’s garden

Jessica’s garden

We dined on the lunch buffet at the wonderful Himani Indian Cuisine.  Guess which plate is mine and which is Allan’s.

messy vs. tidy

I went back for a bowl of raita.  I could eat a mixing bowl of the stuff!  (Yogurt with cucumber.)

On the way back to the van, we peeked into the interior of a building that I remembered from when a tea shop used to be in its basement.

as I remembered: cool architecture indoors

Our parking spot was very close to the wide Columbia River.

the great Columbia

and the scent of water and pilings

Crossing the bridge again, we found the big tarps completely bundled off to the sides and decided we had better take the coming storm seriously.

Just a few hatches truly needed battening at home.  Allan took the blue bottle hanger (from Back Alley Gardens) out of the danger tree.

rainy day garden

blue bottles coming down

and time to take down the great wall of china…

and the beautiful hanger made by Sheila (New Leaf Plants and Pottery)

Poor spider had to move so we could get Sheila’s pottery down.

The space between the house and shed is a fierce wind tunnel in a storm from the south.

cats underfoot, as often happens in the garden

It seems awfully early for a storm to come and batter the garden.  Before the storm:

Dicentra scandens climbing into a hanging basket

a perfect clump of Dianthus

boat (The Anne Lovejoy) with cosmos

The Solidago ‘Fireworks’ has fizzled out:

browned off now

But Lemon Queen is going strong.

Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’

dahlia

I took a walk around because the flowers might be bowed and battered soon.

for Ann who wants more photos of garden signs

Nicotiana langsdorfii

some Fuchsias for Mr. Tootlepedal

fuchsias against a darmera peltata leaf

Fuchsias fronted with Persicaria ‘Firetail’

I checked out the bogsy wood because in a high wind it will be too dangerous to go back here.  I tucked the Bogsy Wood sign more safely against a tree.

bogsy wood

autumn leaves in a salmonberry tunnel

When all the salmonberry leaves fall, we will have our winter view of the port buildings.

The swale under the bridge will fill with water…

Under the danger tree (a big dead alder, died last year) is a shade bed that will disrupted if the tree falls before we have it cut.

shade bed in danger

Allan wheeled a blue pot from the base of the tree to a safe spot.

heavy!

We left the lady to fend for herself, and may regret it.

she lost her feet so was inexpensive….but heavy!

blue pot safely tucked by the boat

Mary and Frosty take cover from the rain.

Mary is not a bird hunter so does not have to wear a BirdsBeSafe collar.

Throughout the garden we could hear frogs.  We had an appointment to keep, so I only found this one.

Pacific tree frog

The frog sees me!

For a non working day, this has gone on for much too long and we still had two garden visits to make before dark…

to be continued…

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