23 June part two: the shortest workweek begins

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

We only have two and a bit days to get our work done this week, because of leaving for the Hardy Plant Society Study Weekend on Thursday afternoon.  This has been looming over my stick in the mud homebody head for weeks, months even, ever since we registered in February.  There will be gardens to tour and speakers to hear and slideshows to savor.  Dan Hinkley will be the keynote speaker.

On the way to work, we had a brief mission at Ilwaco City Hall.  Allan had spotted a plant that he thought might be a dandelion.  It turned out to be a dog daisy.  I could not pull it without disturbing a nasturtium so I just clipped it as a quick solution to the way it was messing with my symmetry.

It was just not right.

Next, as related in yesterday’s post, we toured Steve and John’s garden, and then we devoted ourselves to work till 8 PM.

Klipsan Beach Cottages

We did but an hour of weeding and grooming.

view over the birdbath in the fenced garden

lily

lily and new rose foliage

in the garden; cottages on the ridge

Mary and Denny picking raspberries.

Mary had learned that the reason her raspberries are not prolific this year is because we did not have a cold enough winter.

Mine look just like that, dried up and sad.

Allan’s photo: Bella in the basement, got hugs and kisses from me.

Golden Sands Assisted Living

During another brief stop, Allan strimmed the center lawn while I filled the birdbaths and did some light grooming of the four quadrants.

I’m still pleased with my rhododendron pruning from last week.

Note: I believe in letting rhododendrons get to, and stay at, their full size.  I knew, however, that if I did not prune these, eventually someone else would.  And I knew I could do a better job.

SE quadrant with lots of sweet williams

lilies; I have a lot of this one around, must be from a Costco bag.

NE quadrant, still not much pizzazz

One of my mom’s Joseph’s Coat roses

NW quadrant, with a nice cluster of alliums in the shadow

SW quadrant

I still hope for greater effect from this garden than I manage to create…

Andersen’s RV Park

looking west; Agyranthemum ‘Butterfly’ is beginning to bloom

looking east at the poppy field

Allan’s photos: west garden path in progress

after

west side of house and office, and poppies

red Papaver rhoaes and assorted colours of California poppies

Brodiaea ‘Queen Fabioloa’ in the Payson Hall planters

behind the office

Miscanthus variegatus and Stipa gigantea west of the office

office planter with Allium schubertii

picket fence garden

orange lilies peeking over the picket fence

lilies and Allium albopilosum

cottage with climbing rose

Anchorage Cottages

The first thing I noticed was something…wrong..with the window boxes.  I analyzed and realized that the lotus vines were no longer on the outside edges.  Someone had taken them out to paint the windowsills and put them back cattywampus!  Allan helped me rearrange them.

lotus vine not supposed to be in the middle!

fixed

I was not entirely content because the four short inserts In two adjacent boxes had gotten switched so much that some of the plants were no longer growing forward.  I could not wrap my brain around getting them back just right.

The lone Hymenocallis festalis (Peruvian daffodil)

Mitzu coming to greet me

my good friend

Allan’s photo

center courtyard

sweet peas in office courtyard

Agastache ‘Cotton Candy’ in office courtyard

These window boxes were all shipshape. All had responded well to last week’s fertilizing.

Escallonia iveyi by the sport court

Allan said to take a picture of the cryptomeria grove for Steve and John.

Port of Ilwaco

In the evening, we watered and weeded our way down Howerton Avenue at the port.

at the marina, a bird for Mr. Tootlepedal

reflection in the Bruce Peterson Gallery window

I began by watering the Peterson Gallery curbside garden. Bruce and Wendi Peterson are supporters of the watering effort (by providing a hose and water); their gallery is open Saturdays during market season, so please do go visit if you can: 223 Howerton Ave SE, Ilwaco, WA.  Tell ’em I sent you.

Allan bucket watered the one garden bed where the only solution is bucketing water or hooking up three hoses to the mayor’s RV park across the street and then having the hoses driven over by passing vehicles. For now, Allan bucket waters it.

round one: buckets lined up to dump

The garden was parched.

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

Allan thought this Eryngium looked so thirsty that he filled buckets while weeding and watering by the Ilwaco Pavilion and went back for a second round.

This is time consuming and back-challenging and we will only do it for places that do not have a hose nearby.

Port Office from Waterfront Way

Just to the east of the Port Office is the Don Nisbett gallery.  Don and Jenna have been known to go out and water for us, so do stop in and tell them thank you for making Ilwaco more beautiful!

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’ in Port Office curbside garden on Howerton.

I moved on west to water the Port Office and the Time Enough Books garden.  Karla of Time Enough  provides us with a hose and water, which we so appreciate, as the port office hose only reaches one end of her curbside garden…so do stop in and buy a book, greeting card, or just pet the sweet shop dog, Scout.

a hose from Salt Hotel

Julez and Laila, the civic minded owners of the soon-to-open Salt Hotel, are letting us use their water to care for not only the curbside garden in front of their building but also the one in front of the vacant building to their west.  We thank them from the bottom of our hearts and will do everything we can to promote their business venture.

They are already offering surfing lessons, having moved the surf shop down from its previous location in Seaview.  (Photo from last Saturday)

The garden was so dry from last week’s watering fiasco and much appreciated some moisture.

Regarding last week’s difficult day, reader William Duchie made this encouraging comment on the blog re-post on our Facebook page:  “A wonderful ministry for the soul of the lower peninsula and its people. Rejoice in it!”  I like that.  I thought at first that a ministry should be free, then remembered that church ministers get paid, so…yes.

Salt owner Julez’ dog had made an escape…

on the loose!

and was rounded up and brought home. (Allan’s photos)

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23 June, part one: Bayside Garden in late June

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

Ilwaco

before leaving home: the Eleagnus by our driveway

the Ilwaco Post Office garden…

…missing half its dark lilies…

The picture is not what I had in mind before an unfortunate soul fell into the garden last week; there were as many dark maroon lilies planted as yellow ones….Ah, well.

Today, we had a plan to deliver some plants to Steve and John before work.  On the way, we stopped at

The Basket Case Greenhouse

….where I had to rescue, by buying, one more ‘Chocolate Tip’ Sanguisorba, and one more variegated ‘Dali Marble’ sanguisorba.

Why aren’t people buying this stunner?

or this one, Dali Marble, with variegated leaves.

Sanguisorbas are so Piet Oudolfy!  Their only drawbacks are that deer nibble the flowers, and that they seem to need frequent watering to look their best.  I wonder how that works out in the meadow gardens that Mr. Oudolf creates.

Steve and John’s Bayside Garden

A couple of weeks ago, I had purchased a bright gold chameacyparis.  As soon as I got it home, I realized that I had no place for it (as I don’t want evergreens or evergolds to block my port view in winter, and am pretty much filled up along the sides).  I knew I had bought it to make my garden more Steve-and-John-y, so I decided that the tree should be part of their garden.  I don’t really have the room to plant the specimen trees that they do.

Thus, we visited them before work, we took time for a good tour of their great garden.

When we arrived, they were in the garden, of course.

looking east up the driveway; the house is on the shore of Willapa Bay

This bold little fellow greeted at the garage.

up and down the garage door frame!

arc of gold

looking north

looking north

note the rhododendron still blooming….one of the originals to the site

This garden was once part of Clarke rhododendron nursery and even Steve Clarke can’t identify all the rhodos on it, some of which are, I believe, unnamed crosses propagated by his father.

the veg and dahlia patch, next to the pumphouse

dahlia appreciation

pump house roof

To my surprise, these plants needs lots of water to stay plump and happy.

At this point, most people would have had a look at the bay, just past a large camellia.  I was so engrossed in plants that I did not even notice if the tide was high or low.

looking up at that rhododendron

Right about at this point, maybe from having looked up into the sky, I managed to trip over virtually nothing and fall flat on my face with a screech.  On the way down, I got my iPhone and my camera out of the way, and the grass cushioned my fall like a fluffy mattress.  It was kind of embarrassing, which I am sure is how the guy who fell into the post office garden felt.  Perhaps it was a sign I should feel more sympathy and quit fretting over my lilies! It would have been extra ironic if I had fallen on some plants.  My next few photos were blurry, so I must have been more shaken than I wanted to let on.  You’ll miss out on a few choice plants…

but I did manage to get photos of the hostas.

more hostas, just a tad blurry

sunlight through rhododendron

the newest garden bed, with a pleasant sit spot

Let’s have a closer look at that island bed.

Knautia ‘Thunder and Lightning’

Berberis ‘Orange Rocket’

a slim, dark-stemmed hebe

John himself

This salvia? came back, and is running a bit. Is it a salvia? Do they do that?

We think it might be Salvia guaranitica.  Later in the season, we will all know for sure.  I wish mine had been that vigorous.

looking north across the pond…Look for the tall yellow Eremerus (foxtail lily) against a green backdrop

I was assured that my Eremerus might size up eventually, as this one did not do much till now, its second year.

across the road to the south of the pond

The plants are all thriving on water from the new sprinkler system, installed by Steve Clarke and our new friends Dave and Melissa.  The sprinklers are saving Steve and John hours of watering time.

Arneson Flame azalea

Steve and John guide us to a newly developed area.

They are winning new areas from the clutches of salal.  I know how much effort that takes The new area has already moved out of range of the new sprinklers, as always seems to happen when one expands. 

This goes right up to the deeply set tidal stream at the south edge of the estate.

I tried to make an iPhone note of all the rhododendron specimens that we admired, and yet I have come up short on some.  They are worth admiring, with or without names.  Any errors in naming are mine.

such glossy leaves

new growth

I believe this one is ‘Ever Red’.

Rhododendron macabeanum

Rhododendron quinquefolium

This mahonia is from the Dan Hinkley Monrovia collection.

more striking new foliage on R. ‘Starbright Champagne’

Rhododendron ‘Wine and Roses’

The one below is my favourite, and apparently I was so gaga over it that I did not note the name.  I must immediately email Steve because it is one I now especially want to find. (Later:  I remember now that he said he could not come up with the name immediately, and here’s why.  He emailed it to me:  Rhododendron degronianum ssp. yakushimanum x pachysanthum.)

Rhododendron degronianum ssp. yakushimanum x pachysanthum

At first, I feared to touch the leaves in case the indumentum would rub off.  Although it does come off the lower leaves, it was firmly affixed to the new leaves, which were soft like lambs ears.  It is the most beautiful rhodo I have ever seen.

Rhododendron degronianum ssp. yakushimanum x pachysanthum

On the way back to the house, we admired a large old Kalmia (mountain laurel).

Kalmia

Kalmia flowers

Hydrangea quercifolia

AKA oakleaf hydrangea, just coming into flower

Pittosporum

a dark red kalmia

close up Kalmia

heuchera and coleus and euphorbia

mahonia (Oregon grape)

hosta nestled into mahonia

mahonia berries

Rhododendron ‘Ring of Fire’

(I just learned last night while watching Walk the Line that June Carter, not Johnny Cash, wrote Ring of Fire.)

such well defined plants, each with its own place…

south side of driveway, hebe and lonicera

I presented the gold chamaecyparis and three small Panicum ‘Northwind’, and Steven and John gave us a Rhododendron ‘Capistrano’ — “yellow blooms on an eventual three-footer”.  I am most pleased as one of my mother’s favourite rhododendrons was a smallish yellow one (which is now at Golden Sands, where we went later on—next post—and which was, surprisingly, still in bloom there.  (Sorry, I forgot to photograph it.)  We did have to get on to work, so we made our departure.

Escallonias line the east side of the lower driveway.

Escallonia in bloom

Next: one of the shortest work weeks ever, because we are leaving on the 24th for the Hardy Plant Society Study Weekend.  By the time you read this, we should have returned with lots of garden tour photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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21-22 June: two rather lazy days

Sunday, 21 June 2015

at home

Smokey

I find it so sweet that Smokey now sits on the chair closest to my new table while I have breakfast; he sat next to the other table when I would dine there.

I could not get going outside today despite big plans. I had so little energy for gardening that I wrote two blog posts instead, feeling a nagging guilt the whole time because the weather was warm and not terribly windy.  I attribute some of the lack of energy to having heard this morning that Long Beach won’t hire an intern to weed the beach approach. I don’t get it as they have to pay someone to do it, right? So it seems like the remaining ten sections are again hanging over my head like the axe of doom. Or…it just won’t get done. Other than that, I suppose we all need a rest sometimes and I had to take one.  Fortunately, it was the longest day of the year and so even though I did not begin to garden till 4:30, I still had time to put in a good four plus hours.

I ate the Pink Poppy Bakery Swedish Traveling Cake, which I’d forgotten about yesterday, for energy.

Allan had already helped me enormously by setting up a sprinkler to water the front garden.

front garden lilies

pale yellow lilies in bud

Scrophularia variegata (figwort) and a variegated Hellebore

Lily ‘Landini’

Lily ‘Landini’

I had been excited after a rain shower late last week to find the new water bin full…until Allan pointed out it also collected roof water from when we run the oscillating sprinkler.  (Our house is short).

I should have dipped water out before today’s sprinkler session.

In the back garden, I found two frogs, not Pacific tree frogs but a larger kind (leopard frogs?) hanging out under a piece of driftwood in one of the water boxes.

I could also see some small tadpoles swimming around, the ones Allan had rescued last weekend.  They are elusive and dive down when observed.

Allan had mowed the lawn earlier in the day.  I watered with the four back garden sprinklers, weeded the former Danger Tree bed and added whatever mulch I had around (not enough!), and then I partially trimmed out the sides of the salmonberry tunnel back in the bogsy woods…

before…forgot to take an after. And the results were just middling because of lack of energy.

Japanese iris by the woodpile at the tunnel entrance

I had company in the garden.

Allan went to water the Ilwaco Community Building.  I observed that he does not mind going to work for a bit on a day off, whereas to me, having to work even a bit makes it completely not count as a day off.

Allan’s photo: flooding the sad horsetail-y soil at the community building.

Allan’s photo: Brodiaea at the community building.

When he returned, he built a campfire.

Allan’s photo

Later in the evening, I got the impulse to completely get rid of that old tricycle piece at the lower right, above; it has slowly disintegrated, and makes it impossible to expand the garden into that area.  It’s gone now.

Near the fire circle: two beloved plants, Sambucus laciniata from Joy Creek Nursery and Rose ‘Radway Sunrise’ from Cistus.

Walking to and from the house to collect campfire food and drink, I noticed that the vine that Nancy gave me, from Annie’s Annuals, is blooming.  I have completely forgotten its name even though it is a vine I have wanted to grow, so I hope someone can help me ID it.

exciting!  Sorry did not get a long shot of the plant.

Paul’s Himalayan Musk rose is still blooming over the big west arbour.

Then, we settled in for our campfire.

view of the Danger Tree bed I had weeded earlier today. I want to build the bed up higher now that the tree is just a snag.

to my left: the bed that I expanded recently. Quite satisfying to see those ladies in waiting planted.

At last, a fire, and no wind.  We had hoped for this last night when Kathleen was available to join us.  It has been a couple of windy weeks waiting for a campfire evening.  Tonight was summer solstice, and even though I knew it was the longest light evening of the year, I totally forgot that we should howl and …recite poetry… and other solstice rituals.  We just quietly sat and toasted sausages and had a hard apple cider with lime each.

lots of wood waiting for future campfires

above: trees with no roaring wind; what a delight

Monday, 22 June 2015

My plan was to title this post “A lazy day and a busy one” or something like that, as I had expected to do a lot of weeding and pruning at home on Monday (while waiting for the plumber).  And then….because the next six days will be tremendously busy…I completely skived off and read the brand new book in a series that I love: The Seaside Knitters.  How could I resist?  It had come from the library, and if I did not read it today I would only have time for small bits of reading later in the week.  That is no way to read a mystery.

ahhhhh…..

Mary immediately saw that it was going to be a good day for her, as well.

She made a good book rest.

I love this series so much that I wrote a special blog post about it, and when I have time I have some new descriptive details about the fictional town of Sea Harbor to add to that post.  Despite an unusual number of murders, the town is idyllic, and even more so is the friendship among the women who comprise the core characters.  It is possible to find friends like that, and rare, and they should be treasured.  (I can guarantee that none of them would tolerate mean girl shenanigans any more than they tolerate unsolved murders.)

During that time, the plumber came and Allan dealt with the whole interlude so that I got to just keep reading.  He was being much more productive than me and had painted some posts and an old door for an upcoming project.

Allan’s photo: He also scraped and repainted an old door that is one of the deer fence gates.

I did not rush through my book despite my usual feelings of garden guilt, so I was not outside until after five.  (A sunny but not too hot day reading indoors is not as purely pleasurable as a winter day….)  In the following three hours, I managed to accomplish some weeding, some watering (including watering can applications from the full rain barrel), picked some strawberries and blueberries, and tied about twenty more tall bamboo stakes to the fence wherever I thought the deer might be jumping over.

bamboo stakes ready to go

evening light

under the rose arbor

deep blue nigella (love in a mist) reseeded from last year

looking south over the water boxes

a pretty yellow annual given to me by Teresa from The Planter Box

more tall bamboo stakes in place

looking south

looking southwest

Cosmos ‘Antiquity’

This daylily is a keeper.

This evening I pulled a lot of bindweed off the backside of this area: East side of bogsy woods.

Salvia ‘Hot Lips’ came back from last year.

Cyperus ‘King Tut’ in the water boxes

While I had a couple of productive hours in the garden, Allan went out to water the Ilwaco planters and street trees, so again it was not a true day off for him.  I find that a shame.  I think it bothers me more than it bothers him to see him have to go to work instead of having a real two day weekend.

We finished the day with the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line.  In one scene, June Carter uses the phrase “a hitch in your giddyup”, which is sort of cosmic because I just heard and adopted “hitch in your getalong” last week.

Tomorrow:  the north end jobs come early this week.  I am hoping, oh so fervently hoping, that the Long Beach planters will hold out till Wednesday and will not need watering tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

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20 June: some delayed work gets done

Saturday, 20 June 2015

I would have liked to stay home.  I have spoiled myself with Saturdays off lately, However, we had to work today so that we can be home Monday for the plumber, and we have fallen behind enough so that we cannot have a three day weekend this time.

I was leaving good company behind.

As we got ready for work, Jessika from next door, co owner of Starvation Alley Farms (purveyors of the finest organic cranberry juice) came over to pick a big bowl of strawberries.  We had offered them to her as well as Devery, because we simply do not have time to keep up.

Jessika

She suggested we come out with a bowl to pick berries for our breakfast, not realizing that both Allan and I are pretty non-functional during the first hour of our mornings.

Ilwaco Saturday Market

Before work, I fulfilled my self-imposed obligation of taking some Saturday Market photos for the Discover Ilwaco page.  Pink Poppy Bakery was also a draw.

I continue to be thrilled to see the progress of the soon-to-open Salt Hotel.

It’s already offering surfing lessons, having moved the surf shop down from its previous location in Seaview.

We strongly advise taking Surfing Lessons from Salt Surfing owner Julez Orr, as the ocean is dangerous around here and he knows how to navigate it for safety and fun.

Eventually, the view bar and restaurant will reopen on the second level.

As I walked past OleBob’s Café, I thought “What in the world is that man doing?” and then realized it was Allan trying to get a photo of the crab steamer flame.

on the north side of OleBob’s

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

At the market, vendors were battening down their hatches because of a strong north wind.

As you can guess, I was not pleased that we were facing another windy day of work.

Allan’s photo

I briefly popped into my favourite bookshop to check up on its owner, Karla, who had recently had minor surgery.  She was fine and had her niece’s new puppy to show off!

south side of Time Enough Books

Kelli and Karla with Gimli

Allan’s photo

I got puppy kisses from Gimli.

market reflection in OleBob’s south window

As always, lots of cute dogs

a doggie pile up

Pink Poppy produce

Jacob and Pink Poppy baked goods

Allan’s photo: He noticed this guy’s t shirt.

This reminds me of a friend recently telling me that Ilwaco will be a hipster mecca when purple monkeys fly out of his butt. We are expecting purple monkeys soon.

We got ourselves some Swedish traveling cake for work, and some German chocolate brownies for dinner later with Our Kathleen.  We were going to her place in the evening.  We’d wanted to have a campfire here, but would not be able to because of the accursed wind.

well tended flowers at Purly Shell Fiber Arts

Long Beach

Now, for work.  Our first project was to get the horsetail weeded off the pond garden by the stoplight.  On this busy Saturday, we parked a block away and walked with the wheelbarrow, buckets and tools south to the pond…

…past NIVA green, my favourite shop.

The pond, before

I weeded all around the edges.

Allan’s photo. It was like a wind tunnel there.

Allan went out onto the slippery waterfall area.

The heroncam watches this pond and is watched by people who wish they were in Long Beach.  So far, no one has ever gotten to see Allan fall in.

The horse wagon went by. (Allan’s photo)

I crossed the street to the south to check on the dampness of the nearest planter.  I am hoping they will hold till Wednesday, because of the watering schedule changes due to needing to take Monday off.

Fortunately, the city crew waters the baskets (from Basket Case Greenhouse) every day.

As we were driving north to Long Beach an hour or so earlier, I had gotten a message from MaryBeth asking if Allan might be interested in a small kayak that she wanted to divest herself of.  It is a little too wide for her to easily paddle.  He was very interested, as it would make it possible for him to take another friend along on a boating excursion, so she brought it to us.  As you can see, it is so compact that it actually fit inside our van!

Allan and MaryBeth loading the kayak

Allan’s photo

We finished up the pond and it looks beautiful again.

after

after

Above is an example of how salal takes over a garden.  I tried planting other stuff because Mike wanted more colour.  The darn salal comes up in everything all along the back side of the pond.  Its roots are like iron.

This pond, built years ago by a pond builder, has a bad case of the underwear showing in spots.

If the pond were mine, I would be trying to cover all the fabric with driftwood, rocks, or…something.

It shows in the middle, too, and that would be hard to conceal, although the right piece of driftwood would do it.

a fish handing out fish ‘n’ chips samples (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

We needed some coffee, not fish, to keep going through the next project.

Great Escape Epsresso drive-through

Allan thought these pampas grass demonstrated the strong cold wind that plagued us all day.

Our next project: Allan weeded the north side at the back of Coulter Park, while I went after bindweed sneaking up through various shrubs.

the south fence garden bed in Coulter Park

The south garden bed is easy to maintain, as the other side of the fence is mowed lawn.  The north side is a nightmare, as the neighbouring property line is made of salmonberry, blackberry, and bindweed, all of which run fiercely into the park’s garden bed and intermingle with the roots of the roses.  This disheartening situation had discouraged me from scheduling this weeding job till now.

south bed

The trees at the southwest corner of the park have an habit of being ugly inside:

I spend a bit of time cutting dead wood out of them; they’ve been pruned to allow access at the back entry to the park so the dead interiors show.

I could spend hours at this….but did not.

made it just a little better

Allan’s project:

before

after

I don’t think many citizens know that there is such a peaceful park area behind the Long Beach depot building in Coulter Park.

looking east

looking west; It used to have picnic tables.

We were hoping to strim the long grass from the center parking lot berm.  When we found that there were too many cars parked close to it (as we sort of expected on a Saturday), we cancelled that mission and just weeded the pocket garden by Culbertson Field. (Allan remembered it!) 

it’s three blocks east of the Long Beach arch.

 

Allan’s photos: before

after

all tidied up

Minnie Culbertson

In the little garden, I found a prize: a little tin box (photographed later at home):

I expected to find a treasure, or a stash, but it was empty.

nearby: a day out at Culbertson Field

Dumping our load of debris at City Works ended the Long Beach part of our day.

one of the City Works killdeer family

Ilwaco Boatyard Garden

Back in our town, we tackled the north stretch of the boatyard garden, weeding out the horsetail.  It is determined to take over; we are determined to prevail against it.

boatyard garden with Stipa gigantea

boatyard Ceanothus

I also diagnosed, easily, a problem with the city planter at the corner of the boatyard.  Instead of being dry, it is not draining, and the Erysimum is rotting.

soupy! This one will need very little watering till autumn when we can dig it all out.

At last, work was done, we dumped our debris, went home, and changed clothes, picked a bouquet and dropped off the trailer and headed out for the evening.

by the Ilwaco stoplight, heading north

evening out

On the way to Kathleen’s cottage, we picked up delicious tacos at the truck by North Jetty Brewing in Seaview.

Chef Jason Lancaster from the Cove Restaurant only works there in person on Sundays.  However, we learned Thursday evening that his Korean and Hawaiian tacos are featured there every day now.  We are thrilled.

I liked the look of this vignette across the street.

We arrived at Kathleen’s with Waikiki tacos for her and spicy Korean and Bahn Mi tacos for me and Allan.

Our Kathleen

at Kathleen’s cottage

Our Kathleen

Kathleen had been to the Garlic Festival today and had met Debbie, who recognized her from the blog.  Kathleen invited Debbie to join us for Ilwaco Halloween at our house.  I hope she does!

a simple bouquet

Now for two days off, except for watering the Ilwaco planters…I do hope I muster up enough energy to get some gardening projects done at home.  And I hope our slightly leaky pipe does not blow, as my garden needs a thorough watering so I simply must have water.

 

 

 

 

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19 June: watering Long Beach and Ilwaco

Friday, 19 June 2015

First thing in the morning, I heard an ominous hissing sound under the bathroom floor.  Allan crawled under the house to check and indeed, we had a small leak.  We called the plumber, but of course it was midmorning by then, so we were told they would call back if they could get to us.  With the house water and water heater turned off, we went to work but had to be aware of a possible phone call all day; we would have had to quickly stop our Long Beach watering mission and get back to Ilwaco.  I was so hoping for the call as I did not want to go into the weekend with a house leak.

We’d had a blessed rain shower the night before.  It had been enough to fill one third of the water bins under the gutters (plastic garbage cans), not enough to water the planters thoroughly.

On the way, I checked out my post office garden.  One allium that got fallen on last week by an unfortunate passerby is somewhat reviving.

It might get round after all…

But this one is thoroughly smashed.

Long Beach

I began by grooming the gardens in Long Beach’s Veterans Field, as the Columbia Pacific Farmers Market would be in session from mid afternoon till 7 PM.  The weather: blue sky, not too windy, not too hot.  Just about perfect!

Some vendors began setting up by noon-ish.

our flag pavilion garden

The corner garden, new this year, still looks young.

Half a block away is a streetside cottage garden that I always admire.  It was pinker a month ago when the sea thrift was freshly in bloom.  Today, I remembered to take a photo of this gift to the street.  Lucy Hardiman would call this a “garden advance instead of a garden retreat”.

an admirable garden with roses, sea thrift, rose campion, daisies

I began my watering rounds of most of the main street Long Beach planters.  Allan watered the 18 street tree pocket gardens, the eight planters in the two northernmost blocks, and the Fish Alley barrels.

Lady’s mantle redeeming itself in the Lewis and Clark Square planter.

A section of lady’s mantle, a perennial that I have mostly gone off, looks lovely right now and reminds me with its frothy charteuse flowers why I planted it in the first place.  (Its short period of bloom is why I have gone off it over the years.) I have not been able to remove it from here because it is too entwined with the sprinkler system.

As I watered the planter across from Fifth Street Park, I saw two women clearly admiring the flowers.  I read in their body language that they needed a plant ID, and went across to talk to them.  To my surprise, the ID was for Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’.  I pulled up a small side plant and gave to the woman who had fallen in love with it.  The plant in her garden will always remind her of the fun town of Long Beach. The man who was with them lay down on a bench while we talked plants for a bit.  I went back across the street to get my hose and move it to a planter on the west side of the street.  The man came up to me and insisted on giving me $5.  I demurred but he was determined, so I took it as a donation for the Ilwaco Post Office garden!

I noticed in the southwest quadrant of the park that the Super Dorothy climbing rose is looking simply splended, heavily budded without a hint of mildew.

Rose ‘Super Dorothy’

Meanwhile, in the northwest quadrant, plain old Dorothy Perkins rose is, as always, covered with powdery mildew.  Years ago, when parks manager Mike Kitzman and I went to Heirloom Roses and some other inland nurseries to buy plants for the parks, we were advised that Super Dorothy was a vast improvement.  (The landscape architect had already gotten the Dorothy Perkins roses into the ground on the one side.)  The rose experts were so right.

I took a break when I got to my northernmost planter at the pharmacy to go to NIVA green, my favourite shop, to get a now belated birthday present for Seattle Carol.  (Her birthday is the 19th.) On the way, I took a photo of the horsetail over-run pond garden as a reminder that we (meaning Allan) must clamber out to the waterfall soon and clean it up.

It is a mess!

inside NIVA green

cute little planter

I knew exactly what I wanted: an embroidered tea towel.  I snagged a series of photos to slowly feed onto the NIVA green Facebook page and got back to work.

the tea towel, embroidered by local artisan Shellie Thomas

Allan and I had crossed paths while watering and I’d asked him to address the powdery mildew problem on the Dorothy Perkins rose.  By the time I got back to the park, he had the worst of the greyed, ugly canes trimmed off.  The park looked so much better.

You might still be able to see that the flower buds have a haze of powdery mildew.

The four quadrants of Fifth Street Park

Fifth Street Park, southwest quadrant, with Captain Bob’s Chowder to the left

Close up: Sanguisorba ‘Pink Elephant’ entiwined with Baptisia australis

daylily and Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’

While we were almost done with weeding and grooming the park, we ordered crab rolls to go from Captain Bob’s Chowder.

They get good reviews on Trip Advisor…

and have recently acquired this comfortable new seating. I do love a restaurant booth.

The plumbing company had not called and would now not be available till Monday.  Rats.  We would have to work on Saturday instead of Monday, then, in order to be home, and this would sort of throw off the watering schedule for next week, along with my plans to have a Saturday lunch with Our Kathleen at the Portside Café.

Ilwaco

Our evening project: Watering the Ilwaco street trees and planters (Allan) and weeding and watering the Ilwaco boatyard (me).  I weeded the garden south of the gate this time.

Ilwaco boatyard garden

three year old lavender

pink California poppy (Eschscholzia californica ‘Rosa Romantica’)

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’ and green santolina

From the gate to the north only got water, no weeding, this evening.

I have a pleasant view of the boats while dragging the hose around and watering from behind the fence.

The Northern Star

Allan crawled under the house and managed to tape up the leaky pipe so it has but a tiny drip.  If we are lucky and it does not “blow”, we can have water this weekend during the hours we are at home and awake.  He had plumbing problems on his mind all day and took no photos.

While fretting around outside while he was enduring the unpleasantness of lying in a puddle in the crawl space, I did see a beautiful sunset.

from the front yard

from the back yard over the Paul’s Himalayan Musk rose arbor

old pink rose by the house

Hymenocallis festalis still blooming

south view in the dusk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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18 June: catching up

Thursday, 18 June 2015

Mike’s garden

We began a few blocks east in Mayor Mike’s garden.

weeded the path, did some watering

Mike’s oriental poppy

lots of pizzazz

boxwood and pulmonaria

Mike wondered if we had cut back the middle of the Echinops (blue globe thistle) below:

floppy globe thistle

I told him that, like a lot of plants this year in my garden, it seems to have reached for the light during our many grey, unusually dark midspring days and then flopped open.

We did not have time today, but soon we must cut back this climbing rose so it does not smother the tree…soon enough so it will put out new growth for next year.

The Depot Restaurant

I still feel that the Depot garden is starting off slowly this year.

At last is has something besides green to offer: an Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’ in bloom.

The main reason that the Depot is a slow starter is because almost all the feature plants are tall ones so that they show up behind the big log that marks the edge of the carpark.

Long Beach

We pulled the scrimmy horsetail out of the Long Beach welcome sign garden.  The cosmos are beginning to bloom.

yellow bidens along the front edge

white bacopa along the back edge

both sides now (with blue bacopa along the sidewalk)

Andersen’s RV Park

First, we weeded the road box.

We had not managed to get to Andersen’s at the end of the day yesterday.  That was a good thing, as we had more energy for it today.  Allan weeded on the west side, and fertilized the barrels, and I groomed the picket fence garden and Payson Hall planters.

today’s garden areas

Payson Hall clubhouse

barrels and RVs

the west bed

The poppy field has popped.

looking east toward the house and office

looking west toward the ocean

some pink California poppies mixed in (with a big silvery verbascum)

one of Allan’s projects, before

after

before

after

He extended the strimmed area so that the staff will know how far they can go without hurting the garden.

The picket fence garden

(Above) Raymond from The Planter Box has made the weed-killer burnt patch of lawn all nice and green again.

The sweet peas are looking happy and full of potential.

Asiatic lilies: Landini or Blackout

On the way out, we did a bit of weeding by the garden shed.

the garden shed garden (with fig tree, and with Allan weeding)

The Anchorage Cottages

Anchorage, near the Cove Restaurant at the Golf Course

Our garden areas are the courtyards within the array of cottages.

We made our usual rounds of the garden beds at the Anchorage, and I got the windowboxes and containers all fertilized…some with the blue stuff and some with nice organic Fox Farms Tiger Bloom; I can afford to use the latter at smaller jobs than Long Beach town.

shade garden on a north wall with astilbe, Fuchsia ‘Sharpitor Aurea’ and Geranium macrorrhizum

The golden fuchsia is small in the photo above, and is the plant that inspired my first ever contact  with Our Kathleen.  She used to stay at The Anchorage before and had asked at the Planter Box what that fuchsia’s name might be, and Teresa called me up to ask the name.  I may even have talked to Kathleen on the phone; her sharp memory would supply the details.  Later, I met her in person in the Anchorage gardens.  Facebook made communication easier so that we could become real life friends.

Calla lilies on the north wall

The pink hydrangeas in the “Zen courtyard” are enjoying the new mulch and Beth’s weeding job, and look much better than last year.

center courtyard

happy, fertilized plants in the center courtyard containers

Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’ (blue potato vine)

I hope the fertilizer inspires the window box plants.

office courtyard

Allan took on the project of weeding under the grapevines down by Ocean Beach Boulevard.

before

This involved bending and crawling.

after

Boreas Inn

I was well chuffed that we found time to spend an hour at the Boreas Inn garden, just weeding.

Boreas Inn and its trail to the beach.

island beds on the west lawn look so small!; round roof at mid photo is hot tub hut

looking west to beach trail

I was shocked to find the deer have been eating Gaura ‘Whirling Butterflies’

and Eryngium ‘Jade Frost’

but not all the Eryngiums, thank goodness.

Deer have never bothered my Gauras before.  Two days later, I found Gaura at the Ilwaco boatyard garden also severely browsed.  Darn it.

Verbascum ‘Jackie in Yellow’, back for a third year (albeit rather small)

The Cove Restaurant

Thursday night means Fish Taco night at the Cove Restaurant.  We were joined by Dave and Melissa from Sea Star Landscape Maintenance, who had been to Portland and back today.

Allan’s photo

I just realized that Thai soup with prawns is Tom kha goong, and with chicken is tom kha gai.  I think I am showing off a little by saying that.  I used to go out for Thai food probably once a week in Seattle. Never mind; Jason’s soup is spectacularly delicious.  He sent us out a scallop amuse bouche that had us all exclaiming with pleasure.

Jason’s scallops

with tiny, sweet Peruvian peppers

tom kha soup

Patti J and Lisa and Buzz were there.  I had to name drop and tell Melissa that Buzz is the one who wrote the recent interview article with Caitlin Jenner that has been all the media rage.  A woman came over and said she reads my blog every day (hi! and thank you!) and I said “Even the whining?” and she said “That’s the best part!”.  That is reassuring, as I’ve been doing a lot of whining lately.

As we departed, Parking Lot Cat came to greet us, leading to this amusing set of photos by Allan as all the “cat people” fawned over him.

PLC is a star!

 

 

 

 

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17 June: jobs and a sneak peek

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

Before leaving Ilwaco, we planted two tiny lavender starts in the Time Enough Books garden, where we think they will enjoy the scree-like environment.  The weather was ideal: comfortable, not too hot, very little wind.

The Time Enough Books garden

Then we were off toward some north end jobs, beginning with a check up on the planters at

The Red Barn Arena

I finally managed to get two photos of the baby, born earlier this spring.

one of the barrels

We couldn’t cut across a pasture to the garden next door as a horse grazed in that pasture today, so we walked along the highway.

Diane’s garden

This Stipa gigantea puts on a good show for those driving by.

Stipa gigantea

back garden planters

On the road again, I remembered that Garden Tour Nancy had asked me if we would check out a potential tour garden for her.  Located in Tides West, it was on our way to our next job.

a garden tour sneak peek

I do believe this one will be on the tour, so I can’t show too much.  I was so impressed; the owner has built all these features herself in just one year.

I was immediately impressed.

I wish I had such skills!

Just one year old

one of two cute dogs

I was inspired to turn two photos into Waterlogues:

The gardener told us that Ed Strange had recommended that she contact Garden Tour Nancy, and that he calls her garden “Neverland”.  She thought he meant it was like a magical fairyland until she learned he actually meant he thought she would never be finished with projects.  It is just around the corner from our friend J9’s and I am surprised I had not noticed it before, until I realized that  I first visited J9’s new abode and walked around that block over a year ago, and this garden had not even begun then.

Back to the world of work…

Golden Sands Assisted Living

Next, Golden Sands, where Allan strimmed the center lawn (because its easier to bring a string trimmer than a lawn mower down the hallways to the central courtyard).

outside the dining room (NW quadrant)

SE quadrant

I had had a plan for quite some time that I finally got around to.  I wanted to prune the rhododendrons behind the SW quadrant to be closer to the height of the ones in the upper right above, that were severely pruned two years ago (not by me).

SW quadrant: Behind the maple tree are the rhodies I have had my eye on.

The best time to prune them is shortly after they bloom, so last month would have been better.

before: the view out the back hallway window

Here they are pruned… and not looking all bare and stubby.

Well done, if I do say so…and now someone in the corner has a view of the garden.

And there is a garden view from the back hallways window.

It might seem like a bad plan to have large shrubs blocking the view.  However, before we got our hands on them, the four quadrants were just scrubby sections of lawn.

Allan hauled four wheelbarrowloads of branches down the halls and out to the debris pile.

With a great sense of accomplishment, we went about ten blocks up the road to

Klipsan Beach Cottages

looking in the east deer fence gate

a little frog in a nest of ivy (not planted by us, and a more delicate choice than the dreaded English ivy)

the birdbath view

sit spot in the fenced garden, with Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Steroidal Giant’

Alliums and roses

bright orange lilies, bright sunshine

River of Geranium ‘Rozanne’ in the shade along the road to the cottages

Allan’s photo

in the A Frame garden: I’m pleased that some Fuchsia magellanica that I brought from my garden are sizing up.

A Frame garden: hydrangea and Allium albopilosum (Allan’s photo)

On the way further north, we stopped at Jack’s for some snacks and a hose fitting.

Jack’s Country Store, Ocean Park

I noticed someone working on a nice curbside garden at Anita’s Coastal Café.

Marilyn’s garden

At our northernmost garden, I had at long last remembered to bring 13 little painted sage plants, and when they were in the ground, Annuals Planting Time was finally truly done!

Eryngium ‘Jade Frost’ at Marilyn’s

one of the cosmos that reseeded from last year

Just as I thought we were done with our weeding session, I saw an Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ that needed deadheading.

before

after

path, looking south; we did a fair amount of gravel weeding today

the buds of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’

more Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ buds

Cosmos

the back porch

looking north from the back porch

I had pulled out a big clump of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’, behind the montbretia to the right, because I felt it blocked Marilyn’s view of the garden.  Her assistant told me a mother deer and two baby fawns are frequenting the garden and Marilyn loves to observe them.  There is still plenty of ‘Lucifer’ on the other side of the path.

  I wish there were not so much orange montbretia.  It was the only plant in the landscape when we began, just a bit here and there.  That clump got huge before I realized it.

Tall Miscanthus now blocks the view of the garage to the west.

north view with catmint sprawling on the path

Allium albopilosum

Agastaches and poppies by the driveway

I had hoped we would be done in time to do Andersen’s RV Park today.  It was not to be, so that will have to wait for tomorrow.

We finished with a tiny pruning job at the south side of the port office, where once again we were in the cold north wind.  A volunteer elderberry needed some branches trimmed.  The wind discouraged photos of the process.

Allan’s photo: the port wind warning flag was up, as it has been often this month.

 

 

 

 

 

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16 June: hitches in my getalong

Tuesday, 16 June 2015

Ilwaco

The day started badly when I saw a swathe of smashed plants down the middle of the post office garden.  Just as I was staring at it in shock and saying “What happened here? Did a big dog run through?”, a man emerged from the post office and said “It was me, and I’m sorry.”  “But…..how?” I asked.  He explained he had tripped over the curb getting out of his car, and it seems he staggered across the sidewalk and fell headlong into the garden.  I made sincerely sympathetic noises about the fall, while at the same time holding clumps of broken off lilies and then trying to prop up half broken Allium albopilosum and a laid flat blooming stem of Eryngium ‘Jade Frost’.  The sight was so painful that I realized later I had not even taken a photo of anything but the broken off stems of Lily ‘Landini.’  This is a garden I spend my own money on for plants, mulch, and fertilizer, and I am all….planted out and don’t feel like buying new ones to fix it.  I staked the Eryngium with a bamboo tripod and as we left, started to worry someone ELSE would fall into the garden and poke themselves in the eye on a stake!  Being a skilled catastrophizer makes me good at making public gardens safer.  I resolved to return later with a rounded top hoop stake from home.

broken off plants

The Basket Case Greenhouse

It was not the postmistress’s day to be there, and I did not think the postmaster would be happy to have to find a vase, so I took the lilies to Basket Case Nancy.  (On the way, we checked the transplanted plants in the Fish Alley barrels in Long Beach.  They had survived well and would not need replacing.) We needed to go to The Basket Case to pick up the latest Long Beach plant bill anyway.  Nancy greeted the lily bouquet with much admiration and I felt the poor broken off flowers had been redeemed.

At the Basket Case: gunnera seedlings

The perennial greenhouse with African basil (which is not really a perennial here, but never mind)

Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’

Long Beach

As I hobbled up the ramp to drop off the bill at City Hall, one of the staff members said “Looks like you have a hitch in your getalong!”  Oh, how I loved that.  It cheered me right up to have such a charming new saying.

Long Beach City Hall, west side

Allan’s photo: he found a sizeable dwarf fireweed and dandelion at the south end.

City Hall

As we had come round a corner to get to City Hall, I’d observed that the traffic sightline was somewhat blocked by two mugo pines planted years ago and supposedly “dwarf”.  Some pruning was in order

before

after

(I do look for problems like that and try to fix them whenever I see them.  That’s why the Port of Ilwaco gardens have gone from tall shrubs, pampas grass, and tall New Zealand flax to short, see-over perennials and subshrubs in most of the curbside gardens.)

We then began the watering of the Pacific Way planters in Long Beach, splitting up to each take half the town.

We parked near Veterans Field.

While the day was grey, the wind had finally somewhat died down, and the flags were not creating flapping chain-clanking sounds as they have been on recent Long Beach work days.

A comparitively gentle breeze was a welcome change.

I bucket watered the four Fish Alley barrels and found that one already had its “hens and chickens” disrupted.

finger blight, perhaps interrupted as the plant is still there.

The rest of the watering went smoothly with no hung-up hoses and very little finger blight.

Planter by Campiche Gallery (and near Scoopers Ice Cream)

The only disconcerting event was that while I was waiting to cross at the Stoplight of Mystery (a long one), a man said to me I should have a trash picker upper stick because I needed to pick up more trash.  I have a hard time reading people and could not tell if he was serious or just someone with a “needler” sense of humour.  He seemed pretty serious when he told me that he had picked up two bags of trash today.  I asked where, in town or out by the beach?  He said he walked a circuit of town and the beach.  I commended him for trash picking and said the city crew do a great job of picking up trash in town.  (I also pick it up if I see a stray bit blowing around, but that is rare because of the good work of the crew.)  He said he was going to report me for not doing my job.  I think that was supposed to be funny, but as usual with that kind of humour, I was flummoxed.  Well…onward.  The light finally changed and I made my escape.

I love our fresh new planting by Dennis Company.

Love the flowers on this hebe in Coulter Park. I planted it because I love its foliage.

Dianthus ‘Charles Musgrave’ in a planter

the wonderful fragrant daphne by the Elks building

Allan’s photo, a bit of finger blight

Allan’s photo: 3rd Street Park, with city crew member staining the statues.

Allan’s photo: careful work with no spillage

Allan’s photo: planter by the Hungry Harbor Grille

Allan’s photo: Fifth Street Park

Outside the Mostly Hats shop, Allan found tomatoes stashed under the tree! (They belonged to a Mostly Hats employee, who was keeping them out of her hot car.)

Ilwaco again

With Long Beach done, we returned to Ilwaco to do some watering of planters and port gardens.  First, I did get a hooped stake from home (and Allan got the heavy battery for the water trailer), and I staked the Eryngium safely at the post office.

Perhaps you can tell that someone fell right through the middle of the garden.  Wah.

Allan and I parted ways so he could water planters and street trees.

Allan’s photo: seen while he was filling the water trailer tank at the boatyard

Allan found a lovely bag of dog poo in one of the planters. Kudos to the person who bagged the poo, and yet…

Meanwhile, at the Port,  I worked my way down the port gardens, watering with hoses.

I met an old blind cat named Pitstop.

The marina: The weather had at last turned to blue skies.

My favourite garden bed at the port

The air was not too warm, the wind was not too strong, and I was getting much weeding and watering done.  I walked by the one place that won’t allow use of their hose anymore and moved one of the plants, purchased by the port, to a happier location in a garden that where I can access water, and thought “I will deal with this water problem some other time.”  Other than that moment of annoyance, the work was happy work…..

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

All was well till I encountered a merchant (the second one this month) protesting the use of five minutes of hose water from zer building.  (I am deliberately using “ze/zer” pronouns to avoid pointing a specific finger.)  I said to zer that surely the garden enhances the business, that the plants were drought tolerant and did not need much water but in this dry weather they do need water once a week.  I was informed that, in zer opinion, the plantings do nothing to enhance zer business.  I gently (really!) informed the protestor that I was a regular promotor of local businesses on the official Facebook voice of town and port, Discover Ilwaco.  Zer had no interest whatsoever in hearing about that.  I understood the problem, especially that I had dared to splash some water on some dying plants on the garden NEXT DOOR to that business, one with no water, and why should one business owner pay to water another’s plants, and why indeed should someone who does not like a garden pay for a garden to be watered? And is it fair that some businesses don’t have curbside gardens at all?  No, it is not fair.  And yet the gardens must have water, and we don’t have time to haul water from elsewhere (and I could have added I can’t water it with my tears!)   I understood that Discover Ilwaco perhaps does not make an iota of difference in the success of a business and has possibly been a huge waste of my volunteer time for the last five years.  (It does have over 2,700 followers.) As a last resort, I tried jollying the complaining person along with a smiling “Hey, I’m 60, I’m too old to haul 40 pound buckets of water.”  The response was a hostile “So the port pays you, and now you want me to subsidize you for being old?” Um, wow.  Now I felt like my work was worth nothing, my volunteering for the Discover Ilwaco page was worth nothing, and I was old and worth nothing because I can’t haul buckets of water.   By now, Allan was with me at the garden.  He had no more success than I did in conversation with the water withholder. My moment of revelation was strong:  I will no longer be a water beggar: I’m a gardener, not a diplomat, and someone else is going to have to sort out this mess. I resolved to turn to the Powers that Be and went home and wrote a long email to them explaining the situation and to say that I will no longer be in the front line of dealing with the rare situation of someone having no fondness for the gardens.  With 98% support, I can’t see letting 2% of the gardens dry up because of water stinginess.  It is no longer my problem, however, as I did turn the problem over to the PTB, whom I hold in high esteem (and I believe the opposite is also true) and am awaiting results (which should come soon).

Mightily depressed at home, I finally realized the main problem in working for a stretch of public gardens:  Merchants come and go (unfortunately for the ones who go out of business) and we can have one who LOVES the garden, followed by one who holds it in disdain, but the plants are still thirsty, and everyone has to be on board so that the whole port looks beautiful,…especially with the exciting new Salt Hotel about to open (and by the way they do let us water). Years ago, some merchants paid us to do the curbside gardens and some didn’t.  So the gardens of the ones that did not pay were dried up weeds.  I thought it was huge progress when the port took over that paycheck and let us make the whole stretch beautiful; I never thought this watering situation would arise (and in fact, both places we are having trouble let us water last year, so the change of heart mystifies me and is not related to some huge hike in water prices.)  Even during the always fascinating Deadliest Catch telly show, which usually puts any gardening difficulties into perspective when compared to hard, dangerous crab fishing in freezing cold weather, my sadness persisted. In the wee hours, I finally fell asleep to get a miserable stressed out nightmarish six hours.

I’ll add a PS here, I hope, before this publishes, that the situation has been resolved.

Three days later:  The second merchant is now letting us water.  Turns out the main issue was a lot of people use zer hose illicitly.  The wonderful Salt Hotel is going to let us use their water to keep the garden of an empty (waterless) building alive.  I intend to reward them with bouquets.  We are down to just one merchant who won’t let us use the hose, and it will be a shame if the plants die.  However, our backs and our already long hours will not let us add the time and physical effort to haul water from elsewhere, so….poor plants.  It will bother me.  The merchant’s attitude toward the garden (and us) deeply hurts my feelings.

 It is tremendously important to me to have my town look beautiful, going way back to the mid 90s when I created the boatyard garden as what was then a volunteer project.  I want all citizens to be civic minded and work together to make the town a jewel.

 

 

 

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15 June: Allan’s windy day sailing the Willapa River

It had been sunny and warm with a 15 to 20 mph wind from the north for the second weekend in a row. Last weekend a friend and I had planned using that wind and an incoming tide to blow down the Willapa Bay from Oysterville to their house about 9 miles south in a kayak and a sailboat. A writing deadline came up for her, we had to cancel.

Today the wind was still blowing, too cold for gardening, branches might fall, things like that but, it was just right to sail. Willapa River runs mostly east to west and a north wind should be ideal.  Last October when I went to South Bend to sail I left the sail at home so I paddled to Raymond instead.

South Bend’s small boat dock. (Near the liquor store and / or the public rest room.)

This is how 16 foot sailboat gets small and light enough for one person to stuff onto a mini-van.

The gardens on the dock were in bloom…

Beautiful gardens on the dock

…and there were blackberry bushes in bloom upriver.

Blackberries will be here soon.

There was a house in this logged off spot and a quarry to the left.

A clearing with a view…

…and an isolated view of the valley.

There were big houses…

…and cozy houses.

I liked this one for its location.

An affordable (maybe) single wide on the shore…

…and a chair to watch the river.

I saw people running…

…and I saw people fishing.

One of Raymond’s many public art pieces.

There were birds.

shy babies

I paddled up to this inlet last visit. Now it is a moorage.

There were boats at the Port of Willapa…

…and I saw the Weyerhaeuser mill in Raymond.

More logs arriving

Going beyond Raymond I furled up and went slowly under the 101 bridge. I wouldn’t want to risk damaging  the concrete.

Keeping right I went up Ellis Slough past Raymond High School where someone was running up and down the bleachers. Thought how I don’t do that any more and continued up to a modest house at the end.

A boat from Australia or Africa could cruise right up to this back yard.

From the South Bend dock using a car I could have traveled 6 miles in just 11 minutes to get here. Instead it was eleven crooked miles in two and a half hours to reach the end of the slough.

adding extra distance by zig zagging through pilings

The wind picked up to 15 or 20 mph, gusting to 26 and white caps developed. The lens, the sail, everything got wet on the trip back. I didn’t take out the camera . Fortunately the water was warm.

Tacking upwind back to South Bend

Water dripping off the sail above the water spot on the lens

Nearing South Bend, I remembered the camera can take short movies so, for a 78 second video of a tack through the pilings, click here.

My favorite video of this boat is seven minutes long. It shows someone leaving a dock, paddling through a marina and out onto a windy harbor while he narrates. It shows the boat as safe, stable, forgiving as he turns, not too technical and splashy quick.

Back to the South Bend dock with a +3.0 foot out going tide

The squiggly route around South Bend and the overall route

I got a reading of 6.9 mph on the way up before the battery went dead so, my imagination can only speculate on the great speed later when the wind was stronger.

Finally a scene seen often by local drivers, the Willapa Bay from the Bruceport historical sign south of South Bend.

View of Willapa Bay from Bruceport with a +2.1 tide

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14-15 June: two more days off

Sunday, 14 June 2015

More intense wind than yesterday meant I could not weed back by the bogsy wood, so I focused on the front garden.  But first, I had woken up with a brainstorm that I shared with Allan, hoping he would implement it, and he did.  We have an old plastic pond form passed on to us (thanks, Betsy!), that I had not figured out where to put till this morning.  It could be a tadpole haven, I thought, and would fit perfectly in an empty spot in the raspberry patch.  The pond did fit, and the only sad thing was learning that the last tadpole puddle has dried up along the meander line ditch.  At least I was able to shift a few tadpoles from a crowded water box into this new home.

Allan’s photo: the dry ditch, not a puddle left

the good news: lots of tiny tree frogs had managed to grow legs in time.

Allan took a sequence of photos of filling the plastic pond.  Such things are deeply fascinating to us.

before

during

siphoning water from a rain barrel

all the way around the corner

One of 8 barrels that collect water from gutters on shed and house

A couple of them even have proper faucets (inset by Allan)

after

The pond form is actually made to sink into the ground.  I like it raised up high where I can see it better.  We used up all the barrel water on the not quite full new pond and some watering of planters and the burbling yesterday of all the ladies in waiting.

During my first rest break, I was about to share a local cross-post to Discover Ilwaco to help promote an Ilwaco business, and I saw a little motion on the corner of my iPhone.

checking out a selection of the pages I administrate or help administrate

I do think snails are cute.

I think snails are so cute that I can’t kill them.  My latest solution is I put them in a pot, and gently insert another pot to hold them in, and at the end of the day I take them to the other side of the meander line and dump them in the long grass and hope they find something to eat there and that they do not breed and march all the way back into my garden again.  I do put out Sluggo, which counts as killing, except that snails don’t seem to consume it.  Slugs do, although not voraciously enough.  I do not thinks slugs are cute at all because they don’t have little houses by which I can pick them up.

my little friend

Back outdoors, I realized that a hardy fuchsia had gotten so big it was swamping other choice plants.  It’s the pale pink magellanica and it is now back (planted at risk of the wind, but it had to be done) under one of the alder trees.  I cut it back hard and hoped for the best.  It is not the only pale pink magellanica I have so it was worth the risk.

before

after: Now I really need a deer fence here! (We stuck in a temporary fence section for now.)

Allan’s garden looked lovely; he had just weeded and watered.

arch to the back garden: Clematis ‘Etoile Violette’ is not as prolific as last year.

In 2013: She was magnifique from every angle.

Paul’s Himalayan Musk rose on the west arbor

Allan went to work for a bit watering the Ilwaco Community Building Garden.

He brought back this proof that a few of the California poppy seeds I sowed have come up.

We rewarded ourselves for a productive weekend with dinner at the Depot for their once yearly Paella special.

We sat at the counter at 8 PM.

some wine: Pinot Noir for me…

Chef Michael’s delicious paella

When we got back home, I noticed in the long evening light that the volunteer poppy in a garage planter looked especially fine.

a self sown volunteer

Allan had clipped it to make it stand up.

Monday, 15 June 2015

The cold 20 plus mile an hour north wind was horrid for me gardening at home; Allan took off on a boating trip to South Bend where the wind was an advantage and the temperature not as cold.  (Next post!)

looking south to the bogsy woods

Imagine the roar of wintry-feeling wind in the trees!  I forced myself to stay outside and do a few projects closer to the house.

before, between the greenhouse and the shed, untouched so far this year

after….

I had big plans for putting some driftwood in front of the pond form…and did not get far.

found one little thing to help camouflage the front of the plastic pond

After weeding by the garden boat and cutting some willow limbs that were leaning over the west edge of the garden, I had had enough of the horrid weather.  I’m surprised I lasted the several hours that I did.  I forced myself to pick some strawberries; I’ve been letting our friend Devery have them all so far.

40 strawberries with many more ripening

During the weeding sessions, I have been noticing more deer damage inside the deer fence.  Is it from when they got in last week, or is it new damage, implying they are jumping the fence???!  Although the wind prevented me from making a circuit of the whole fence, and our workweek begins tomorrow, next weekend might find me tying tall bamboo poles all along the fence to turn it into a taller stockade.  Seven feet is supposedly not tall enough.

just a lovely sanguisorba

and no more ladies in waiting except for four plants that are for Steve and John

Well before dark, I took refuge in the house and finished my book, which is what I had been longing to do all along.

 

 

 

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