15 May: Annuals Planting Time continues

Friday, 15 May 2015

Eleagnus ‘Quicksilver’ by our driveway

This may be the first year it has bloomed with tiny, intoxicatingly fragrant flowers.

on the way out of Ilwaco, some deadheading of Narcissus ‘Baby Moon’ at city hall; the two dead flowers had been bugging me for two days.

Long Beach

We began with adding a lot of cosmos to the back side of the Long Beach welcome sign.

Cosmos ‘Sonata’ set to go in (Allan’s photo)

all in  (Allan’s photo)

front side, with cosmos added (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Taking up where we left off yesterday, we continued the planting of Cosmos ‘Sonata’ on the two northernmost blocks of planters.  As we worked, blog reader and Facebook friend Merry presented us with two delicious cookies that gave us a boost of energy.

Thank you, Merry!

Allan’s photo

the very last of the tulips (and a variegated Euonymous left over from volunteer planter days)

Some of the planters were planted up, back in the day, by volunteers, with full sized shrubs that require lots of shearing and that allow little room for annuals.  They certainly are beautiful (most of them) and those planters are the easiest to take care of.  I would like to redo one further south that is just red azaleas and is quite dull all summer long.

the newly redone planter by Dennis Co; I can manage to redo just two or three a year.

Diane’s garden and The Red Barn

After the last planter had its cosmos, we headed north for more plants, stopping to count up how many we will need to plant Diane’s containers.

the roadside garden at Diane’s, with Stipa gigantea (ornamental grass)

Allan strimming at The Red Barn Arena

Our quiet rechargeable weedeater doesn’t scare the horses.

The Basket Case Greenhouse

I now had a list of exactly what I needed to finish the annuals planting in Long Beach.

the gatekeeper of the “employees only” greenhouse where we get to shop

Allan’s photo

Kitty accompanies us all around the nursery. (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

After collecting our plants, Fred and Nancy and I perused the new availability list for cool plants to order.

Basket Case Nancy and Fred (not to be confused with Garden Tour Nancy)

What to buy….Some Sanguisorbas and Agastaches!

Andersen’s RV Park

Next stop, Andersen’s.  Rose ‘Climbing Cecile Brunner’ is in bloom over the picket fence arbour.

Climbing Cecile Brunner

Allan cleared all the old bulb foliage from Leucojum (Summer Snowflake) from the white brick planter by the house and planted begonias.

Two wheelbarrow loads of foliage came out.

after planting some begonias and New Guinea impatiens

Allan’s photo

We added some assorted Calibrachoa to the Payson Hall planters at Andersen’s.

Payson Hall

All the time, I feel weird about planting them as my feelings tell me it is about to sell.  After all this worrying about my newly planted babies, it will be funny and kind of a relief if we end up working there all summer after all, even though I so very much want one less big job.

planting Payson Hall

Long Beach again

Finally, we added some godetia and blue bacopa to the sidewalk end of the Long Beach welcome sign.

Allan’s photo

We had worked till dusk, and the spotlights were on at the welcome sign.  The last thing I wanted to do was more planter work.  However, on the way home through Ilwaco I saw an annoying sight: a plant pulled up and just left sitting on top of one of the planters.

“Stop the car!” I yelled at this sight.

“Whyyyyyyyy?!?!?!”

The plant was one I had mentally slated for replacing, and we had a fresh new non-leggy Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ to go in its place. I noticed something else really weird at the same corner but in the gathering dusk I did not have the time or energy to do more than take a picture and wonder what had happened, and then put it out of my mind till later; the plants under one of the street trees were just…flat…What the heck???

It would be a couple of  days before I had time to take a closer look at this tree garden. Something is wrong.  Why is it flat?  Too tired to think about it.

At home, the work board got just a bit more erasing.

All the Andersen’s annuals are in and the cosmos are planting in all the Long Beach planters.

I forgot to add this photo from yesterday:  I thought the colours in Nellie’s garden, seen on the way home, with the yellow house to the south as backdrop, looked stunning.

Look how the top of the hedge, all aglow, is almost the same colour as the yellow house,