28 April: digging deep

Monday, 28 April 2014

more photo stream of consciousness (which may be all I have time for in the near future)

First on the agenda: Get a birthday present for a friend at Time Enough Books. Here’s Scout.

Scout in a characteristic pose!

I identify with that sign “I don’t remember planting this.”

view from the van:  dropped something off at home, looks awfully nice, wish could stay there!

planted two gallardia in the first Bolstadt beach approach planter. Still have not had time to weed out here. Rugosa roses are hiding weeds, though.

and we planted along west side of city hall to replace some hebes and lavenders that had died…not with the same plants, though, as that particularly hebe was nowhere to be found.

Next: The Basket Case Greenhouse.

Last week THIS kitty knocked over and broke one of those garden boot planters.

my Basket Case buddy Walter

and Shadow who always wants to get in our van because it used to be the Basket Case van.

next, Peninsula Landscape Supply to dump some debris from home, and a dead cistus we chopped at the Pelicano Restaurant garden earlier today.  This is what happens to all the debris.

We got a yard of Soil Energy to offload at home at the end of the day.

Next, Golden Sands Assisted Living. The courtyard shows so well on Google earth.  A truly deer proof garden but it is hard to get supplies in there.

We were there with the weedeater for the center lawn. A lawnmower would be faster but harder to get through the hallways into the courtyard.

These are the rhodos that were pruned too hard…till I arrived last fall and stopped it.

These are the ones that I stopped from being pruned too hard.

A resident wanted to see out of her window. Very reasonable, but if that it the case the rhodos just have to go away altogether.

I was walking down the hallway brooding about the rhodos when I encountered a friend who mows lawns for a living.  He told me how a client wanted him to weed, and that he can make $150 a day weeding but $500 a day mowing.  This is true.  I know, because I used to mow.  It kind of boggled my mind though, as I pondered it on our way to our next job.  Knowing what to weed and plant is more skilled, and yet it pays so much less than slamming through a bunch of “mow and blow” jobs.  It was kind of upsetting to think about that!

Next, Andersen’s RV Park. No one was edging this bed, so we had brought the strimmer for that purpose, too.

Strimmer = string trimmer = weedeater.  That’s what they call it in the UK.  Much nicer.

Allan’s weedeating method saves me from having to cut an edge with the half moon edger.

flip the strimmer sideways…like this

nicely edged now, although I did not have time to weed in the picket fence garden.

Tulips ‘Artist’ and ‘Golden Artist’ still blooming.

I weeded and planted in the garden shed garden.  No time to edge, which WILL require the half moon edger.

ran out of time to weed back edge by wall

need more time for this bed, too, although it is much better as had gone to couch grass AGAIN

Look, Salvia patens came back in the Payson Hall planter despite the cold winter! Painted sage reseeded some as well, and moved some seedling down to edge of garden shed garden.

Allan finished weeding behind the office where we left off last time.

Oriental poppies heavily budded.

Also Allan got lots of goldenrod out of the garden by the restrooms and clam cleaning shed. A little that comes back will be just enough this fall.

The narcissi are done here, and the path needs weeding but….no time, the constant refrain. This job could take two days a week to be perfect.

We did have it perfect, all of it, every last bed and plant, last year for the Sisters on the Fly weekend, one of my most popular blog entries ever because of some photos I pinned to a trailer (caravan) board on Pinterest.

We left for home at 6:00 and by 6:18 we were about to start the project for which we got the soil.

planning to make this debris pile look more like a garden

Allan emptied this composter; we got it for free and it is good to put compost in, but it sure does not spin.

inside the composter, wet and heavy muck…We have four assorted composters, because we collect kitchen scraps from Olde Towne Café as well as our own kitchen.

I am going to show you something repulsive now, so brace yourself if slugs make you queasy.  Slaughter followed, which made me queasy.  I tire of the carnage in the ongoing battle against slugs and snails.

THIS is why my transplanted potatoes are not doing well in the debris pile.

a blanket of soil energy…and some Sluggo got sprinkled on this bed.

If Allan had not helped me with this, it would have taken me far longer than till 8:00 o clock.  And from 6:18 was a ridiculously long time to offload one yard, even with compost spreading involved as well.  I would not have been able to charge a client for my end of day painful slowness.  I had to dig deep, so very deep, to finish this little task.

the back garden at almost dusk does not look too awfully weedy

Persicaria bistorta superba and ornamental rhubarb

I have GOT to get this plant staked!

front garden just before hobbling indoors

and a stunning and long blooming wallflower