July 27-29: sailing and working

Sunday, 27 July 2014

I sat all day and worked on the blog about the Music in the Gardens tour. My knee had taken a discouraging turn for the worse when I got on the shuttle bus to go to the Pink Poppy wedding…even though it was just a tall van, not a real bus. That is how decrepit I have become of late! That was my excuse for just sitting on a Sunday off…and a 20 plus mph cold north wind made another good excuse. I was anxious to get all the tour gardens written up, and then to rave about the Pink Poppy Wedding and all its glories just the day before, and then get back to the work daybook. Even publishing twice a day had set this blog back by two weeks because of the 55 plus delightful gardens we had toured; each deserved its own set of photos and praise. (Well…a few, and a very very few, did not get many words of praise. On the rare occasion that a garden does nothing for me, I have photos to share but not many and fewer words.)

Allan went sailing on Black Lake…

The Black Lake Yacht Club

He says the 20 mph made the sail more frantic than fun. He had to furl the sail and row back to the Yacht Club.

rough seas out on the lake!

safely back

passersby

After his exciting sail/row, Allan watered the Ilwaco planters with the water truck, and the usual tribulation:

The hose burst. Again.

the usual repair

The watering job already takes forty five minutes longer with the trailer than before (when he used to do the back breaking bucket watering)…and would take even longer with a stiff hose to coil up on each short drive between planters. However, the soft hose, while easy to maneuver, is terribly delicate.

Monday, 28 July 2014

We began our work day with some weeding at the Ilwaco Post Office garden; it looks ok even though we have not kept up with it as well as usual.

good lilies!; I had had a vision of better sunflowers but…not enough watering.

Looking west down Lake Street, we could see a bank of fog just waiting to roll in.

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Jo’s Garden

We had promised Jo a garden clean up. She had done a charming remodel of the former dank, dark rhododendron area on the north side of the center patio.

just before the arbor to the center patio

This photo from last year shows big rhodos on the left.

and now…

… an open and light sitting area.

The rhodos are still there…it would have been so hard to remove them with their roots perhaps going under the house. They will be kept clipped, I assume.

I love the gutter drainage with river rocks.

Good job, Jo! (and whichever family members helped)

looking west from the center patio

While I weeded the west end, Allan worked on the north east garden.

He got the path to show again.

and he dug out a big fern that was out of scale…

after fern removal

another view, before

and after

Digging out the fern…

…made the Japanese maple show up as one enters the garden.

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Long Beach town

A good companion job to Jo’s was the watering the the Long Beach planters and light weeding of the parks.

I’m liking the new strip we planted on the north side of the World’s Largest Frying Pan park. (The blue star juniper was there before.)

It is kind of a mishmash of some plants that were blooming in mid April for the clam re-dedication; fortunately, I had room to add more for summer colour.

On the south side of Fifth Street Park…The gunnera, while small, did survive. For the first time, the Darmera peltata is bigger than the gunnera!

The planter in front of the Herb ‘N Legend Smoke Shop is one of my favourites this year.

When one of the smoke shop employees told me, during planting time, that they defend the planter from vandals, I was inspired to give them some extra special plants like the white and pink coreopsis. The good yellow dahlias come back every year.

got it from the Basket Case, can’t recall the name

the smoke shop planter from across the street

At the end of the workday, we tried the new Streetside Tacos restaurant (take out or sit at a few seats indoors).

absolutely delicious

Every evening, I looked forward to getting home and returning to garden tour blogging.

Tuesday, 29 July 2014

Casa Pacifica

When Dan and Leanne moved here from Texas, they acquired a beautiful garden and we acquired our only job off the peninsula (ten minutes or less to the east).

Due to my torn calf muscle and knee pain, and our garden tour trips, private gardens that we care for had been neglected in favour of public ones. We had not been to Dan’s for a few weeks and I was so glad that the whiskey barrel planters looked fine.

We fertilized; Leanne had done a good job keeping them watered.

There are seven by the guest house/garage.

and five along the driveway up by the house.

When we got up to the house, my good friend Dusty was happy to see me as always.

Dusty, a very good dog.

rose by bay window

looking north at the gorgeous maple

looking south at maple by the front deck (Allan’s photo)

by the house, an always damp area, level and easy for me to weed; Darmera peltate does well there.

I did all around the house and lawn island while Allan climbed up the raised bed to the east of the house.

the bed atop the wall, south side

part of the north side

I was hobbling way too much to get up there.

looking west to the house from behind the raised garden (Allan’s photo)

a healthy golden barberry (Allan’s photo)

Erin’s Garden

After Dan and Leanne’s we went to check up on Erin’s garden just north of Long Beach. I could not face going up the stairs to the boat garden, so Allan took photos for me to peruse later.

the garden boat has not had enough water!! I don’t know why that one cosmos is green.

so dry…and I thought it would be hard to find replacement plants at this time of year.

This happened because the sprinkler, set for the rest of the garden area, was not getting water high enough to reach into the boat.

Looking east….The rest of the garden…not too bad.

At least some of the California poppies germinated and bloomed. The garden looks lopsided. Why? Maybe from the sprinkler hitting one side better? I don’t know as I did not get up there to poke at the soil.

looking west…

Sprinkler theory must be wrong (except for the boat being dry) as that is the side that would be getting water first. Deer tracks all over the garden might explain the bare spots..

happy to see some good cosmos at ground level

I had been very worried as we had not been to this garden for too long.

While Allan checked up on the west side lawn bed and boat, I weeded in the cottage garden and in the garden along the street.

in the cottage garden with my dear friend Felix.

mu buddy

A friend of Erin’s has mulched and tidied the patio behind the house and the old chain link fence was removed. Fabulous!

And then, home to work on the garden tour blog.