25 April: crisis in gardenland

Friday, 25 April 2014

The crisis is just that I’m almost 60 and cannot slam out twenty ten hour days in a row anymore like I could when I started writing this blog (2007). I am giving lots of deep, deep thought to the problem that, while we like all our jobs, we could financially afford to take two days a week off, even…gasp!..three sometimes, and maybe we won’t be the lucky ones who live and garden till 80. If I have 20 years or less left to garden, I want to spend more of it at home.

You may note there has been no whinging about the horrors of weeding the Long Beach beach approach garden. That’s because we have not even had time to start on it. Most other jobs have been started but not brought anywhere near perfection yet.

Smokey and Mary would love if I spent more time at home; they like to spend time with me whether I am reading or in the garden.

Despite finger blight, my favourite jobs are the public ones because I feel they give more joy to more people…the city jobs, the resorts, the B&Bs. Even though they are the most high pressure jobs because they have to look good all the time, they would be the hardest to let go.

Some of them are where we worked today.

We stopped at The Depot Restaurant just to put some Dr Earth all purpose fertilizer on the rosemary bed. I have tried all sorts of potions (not all at once) to get the rosemaries to stay green: Magnesium Sulfate, Iron Safe, lime…

pitiful rosemary

I’ve had such great results with Dr Earth on various plant problems that I don’t know why I have not applied it before. I was of the mind that herbs don’t like fertilizer.

In Long Beach town, we deadheaded and weeded Fifth Street Park.

squirting clam, orcas, frying pan

I was thrilled that the Phlomis fruticosa and the gunnera are both showing signs of life after having been almost given up for dead. However, there is not much action from the sweet pea seeds. I have so little faith in a seed. Do they know? Even though it is late, I planted some more.

Phlomis emerging after all….so slowly

Tulip ‘Artist’…and foliage of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ which I want OUT of that planter.

In a damp corner: Camassia. With one flower stem broken off, I hope by wind and not fingers.

The gold in the background is the lovely Thalictrum ‘Illuminator’.

And then we went to the Boreas Inn on the mission of planting some plants, including 9 Nicotiana langsdorfii (green flowering tobacc0, a chartreuse bell that is a great repeat accent spread throughout a garden).

at the Boreas

looking east to the hot tub gazebo

looking east…the new lawn patches filling in.

We pulled lots of horsetail sprouts from the beds and hope to find time to edge the beds soonish. The horsetail here is the big stemmed kind, much easier to pull (we should cut it off, but that takes too long) than the thready delicate kind that my garden suffers.

Next, we went over to the Red Barn Arena, mainly to deadhead at Diane’s garden next door. Allan did shift soil from an old whiskey barrel to a new plastic one. The first thing I thought when I saw the new planter was “I hope there are holes in that.” There were not and it was half full of water.

Lacking a drill, Allan put holes in it like this:

desperate measures

from old

to new

Part of Diane’s garden is an area I think of as public as it provides a pleasant garden view to folks driving down Sandridge Road.

It was quite the eyecatcher earlier when the narcissi were in bloom.

In the back driveway are containers, now featuring tulips.

Diane likes pastels. I think ‘Artist’ might be too bright here.

Tulip ‘Artist’, brighter than I expected

Tulip ‘Jackpot’

Jackpot is one of my favourites.

We made a shopping stop at The Basket Case Greenhouse a couple of miles north; the Blooming Nursery truck had come today with some new Agastaches, and a couple of flats of my favourite perennial:

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

How much is that kitty in the plant tray?

While we were there, Nancy brought out easter cupcakes for us! By the time I took the photo later on, one had tipped over in the package. I look forward to feasting on mine after dinner.

Thanks, Nancy!

Then we drove east on Cranberry Road, which may not have the Cranberry Museum (it’s on Pioneer Road instead) but does have bogs.

Cranwood bogs

I had been hoping for a whole day to spend at Andersen’s RV Park, had realized that would be impossible because of the other stops we needed to make, and was moderately pleased to get there a little after three. Allan tackled a very weedy spot behind the office.

couch grass…the horror.

Couch grass is one of the hardest weeds.

…and it is all through these beds.

I sorted out some plants to go in the ground, and this time I did the planting.

Nicotiona langsdorfii, an Agastache ‘Summer Glow’, Lavatera ‘Barnsley’, Carex ‘Cappucino’ and a few more

looking west. The narcissi in six whiskey barrels are all done blooming.

Those narcissi have gotten so thick I think we will dig them out, plant them somewhere in the garden, and start over next fall with new bulbs.

In the Payson Hall planters, the first California poppies of the season (volunteers)

I worked in the picket fence garden and did end up wishing I had all day.

Tulips ‘Artist’ and ‘Golden Artist’ are proving to be very good, long lasting doers.

tulips at a windy corner by the office

almost gone but too pretty to deadhead

I managed to get all the plants planted in the picket fence garden, while running into a problem that is new to me. The Phlox, a white one, has decided to be a runner of sorts and is up into everything.

phlox….acting thuggish

I dug some clumps of it out, and yes, discarded them. Allan commented later that we knew people who would have wanted them, but I don’t have time to share work plants unless the person is standing right there at the right moment.

I did not get nearly as far as I wanted with the weeding and clearing of phlox.

still in progress

At least there is some definition now, and some Nicotiana are in there.

Allan’s weeding project looked much better.

after, west side of office sidewalk

and east side

It’s deceptive though, because if one looks closely, one sees the background of that horrid grass where there was not enough time to finish.

next time!

It was only 6:30, but I had hit the wall and hour before, kept on plugging along anyway, and had been thinking frantically about our overbooked situation, as described at the beginning of this entry.

At home, while I composed emails to three of our most recently acquired private garden clients bemoaning the hard fact that I have no idea when I will get back to them, Allan somehow mustered up the energy to mow the lawn. He had commented that there was an hour of daylight left. I was too tired to enjoy it outside.

I heard back almost immediately from two clients, each of whom said they will wait as long as it takes (even though I had offered up two other gardeners’ names and phone numbers!). One signed his email with the names of his two cats and three dogs as well. Clever fellow; he knows I am especially fond of one of those dogs.

We are taking two days off, days I wish I could spend tackling my own horsetail mess and planting crisis, days that are forecast to be rainy and windy so they might be reading time instead. Once upon a time we would have worked straight through for twenty or more days till we got caught up. I am done with that. Life is too fragile and short and I need to be in my own garden, and I think Allan needs to paddle his boat around on a lake. We are nowhere near retiring, and I might do Long Beach till my dying breath if they let me. Just give me two days at home in some nice weather!