29 May: Ilwaco to Andersen’s

Friday, 29 May 2015

Ilwaco

The day began with the new routine of bucket watering half of the Ilwaco city planters.

As you can see, it can be a long walk with a bucket between planters.

Eventually, I suppose we will return to Allan watering with the water trailer, but for now when we are so busy we just don’t have time for that; bucket watering saves over half an hour.

I do like this banner at city hall.

bucket watering the city hall planters

City Hall; as you can see, the weather remained grey and chilly.

The Depot Restaurant

There’s not much excitement in the Depot flower garden yet.  We went after the ever present bindweed.

today

strong foliage of Rodgersia coming up…over bindweed and the ajuga that has fallen out of my favour.

the new expansion

added a Sanguisorba ‘Dali Marble’, realized had put it too close to the Agastache ‘Golden Jubilee’.

Oh dear, well, it’s ok to have plants close together if you want a quick impact at a place of business.  I can shift them in the fall….

I bought flea medication for the cats at the Oceanside Animal Clinic next door and admired the cute motel across the street.

Seaview Motel has cute cottages and pretty little garden beds.

Long Beach

I had meant for us to get to the Long Beach welcome sign yesterday to pull the maddening scrim of horsetail.  Today, we did, knowing it will come back by next week.

back side, before: The feathery cosmos foliage might help camouflage the horsetail to the unknowing eye

after

front, before

after

Next, while Allan weeded at Veterans Field, I checked to see if the “dry” block of planters had been watered by the city crew.  They had, and very well indeed.

Thank you! Nice and damp soil.

We try not to plant anything tall right next to the hose connection because we have to twist our quick connect faucet and hose to get the water on.

I peeked down Sandpiper Mall at the exterior display of Home at the Beach, a charming shop that recently moved from 7th Street to this location.  I had no time to go inside today…much to do.

Home at the Beach

Todd called and then came by Veterans Field after picking up the tree peony I’d left for him in my driveway.  While he helped pull bindweed out of the Lewis and Clark Square garden, he regaled me with an excellent prank he had played at an Ilwaco cafe.  He had asked the proprietor and her helper if she knew anything about the boatyard garden because, he said, he had picked a huge armload of flowers there and a crazy lady had appeared and yelled at him that it was her garden and he should not be picking flowers!  The café ladies looked appropriately shocked when he said “I have the flowers in my car, do you want them?”  Then he broke down and confessed that he actually knows us and had helped us weed the boatyard garden a couple of times and was then informed that now they recognized him from Skyler’s blog.  Hmm.  I said “Kathleen will love this story!” (and I was right) and that he had provided some of the café patrons with a good dose of gossip.  We all got a great deal of enjoyment out of the story (and he had also brought us not just a funny tale but also two sweet treats).

I invited him to follow us to our next job so he could have a tour of….

Jo’s garden

I wondered if this rose by the entryway is Pink Grootendorst.  I think it might be because of the carnation-like fringed flowers.

Rosa ‘Pink Grootendorst’?

Allan just happened to have pulled out a rooted side piece that I do hope came from this rose and not the more aggressive rugosa rose.  (Although this is a rugosa, so far it does not seem to run like mad.)  If it takes, I will have one in my own garden to examine.

Allan’s project was to fix this…

Without necessary parts, he capped a hole in the ‘octopus’ that was leaking and will connect that sprinkler later.

Allan’s photo: touring Jo’s garden

While Allan worked on his project, fixing a broken sprinkler, I also took Todd to see the Boreas Inn garden.  Then Allan and I left Jo’s and went onward to….

The Planter Box

….Where we found Todd just finishing a shopping errand, so we had a look at the cosmos in the back greenhouse.  To his apparent amusement, I bought two more flats…after all my rejoicing that annuals planting time was over.  I could not resist, as there were some new varieties, ‘Antiquity’ and ‘Happy Ring’, both of which I very much liked last year, and ‘Rubenza’, which I think might be a shorter one.  (Just Googled…three feet tall, so shorter than ‘Sensation’, with deep red flowers.  Now I want more!)

Cosmos ‘Antiquity’ last year

The Planter Box is the place to get a wide assortment of vegetable starts.

The Planter Box has all sorts of veg starts for sale now.

Andersen’s RV Park

We put in some weeding time at Andersen’s.  I weeding the picket fence garden and then helped Allan with the garden behind the office.  He took some before and after photos:

across from the back office door (before)

after

the garden right behind the office, before

after

before

after: This bed is challenging, always, as it is infested with couch grass.

I started weeding further along the bed behind the house, an area where mostly the staff walks, not guests, so it is always the last to get done.

Allan’s photos: still much to do.

We were not going to get done today.

At the far end of the above garden, one of my favourites is coming into bloom:

Baptisia australis (Allan’s photo); the rugosa rose will swallow it if we do not do some editing soon.

the buds of Baptisia australis (false indigo), Allan’s photo

The poppy field is beginning to bloom.  (Allan’s photo)

foxglove (Allan’s photo)

The foxgloves around the park always remind Lorna of her mother; her parents started the park in the late 1960s and she took over in 1988 and has run it since then.

Lorna also loves the old bearded iris.

Because real estate is “hot” on the Peninsula right now, I had many poignant thoughts about possibly leaving this garden if it sells.  I know I keep saying I want fewer gardens in order to actually get caught up.  And yet…the sweet peas are coming on  at Andersen’s…and I do adore some of the plantings.

office back door garden

This is the only garden where I have Halmiocistus wintonensis.

Halmiocistus wintonensis…a handsome once-a-year-bloomer

The picket fence garden, with sweet peas a couple of inches tall…sigh…

Penttilas Chapel by the Sea

On the way home, we spent a couple of hours at the difficult end of the funeral home garden in Long Beach, getting velvet grass out of the groundcover of kinnickkinnick.  Many of the grass roots remain.  I am thinking the groundcover should come out for easier weeding.  Along the sidewalk, a bed of lavender infested with thick white grass roots in tight soil was a challenge to weed.  Allan’s before and after photos:

before

after

after: no time before dark to finish the most obscure corner

before

after (with some creeping buttercup left behind due to lack of time

This is not even the sort of job I would take on, were it not that the larger driveway garden is so very much more to my taste.

driveway garden has interesting plants (last week)

Even though there were some weeds left, I was able to cross Penttila off the “projects” list and now consider it a regular maintenance job.  Now there is just one big project left: the thirteen sections of the beach approach garden, and fertilizing my own back garden at home….which I have a feeling might not happen this year except for individual needy plants.

I suppose I need to add “plant cosmos!” again.

We are taking a three day weekend.  Or rather I am, as Allan would like to get the community building garden weeded, after a boating adventure on Saturday.