26 July: Downtown Seaside Garden Tour

Sunday, 26 July 2015

Only for something like this would I get up at 6 AM!

Allan’s photo: Todd and I and  Melissa and Dave arrive for tour.  The North Beach Garden Gang!

Other members not shown: Steve and John and Garden Tour Nancy!

The four of us were early so we took ourselves on a tour around a block’s worth of Pam’s gardens.

I love the arbor benches.

lobelia laxiflora

lobelia laxiflora and variegated houttuynia

I wondered about the handsome but peskily invasive “hot tuna plant”; later, Pam said that she had inherited patches of it and that she worked with it; it looks excellent in the areas where it is allowed to appear.

Todd giving a garden a good look-over.

Now I want a few big rocks in my Long Beach tree gardens.

I’ve never thought of using a mass of variegated annual geranium at ground level. Looks handsome and striking.

a hebe skirting a hardy fuchsia

One thing I already noticed and deeply envied, and continued to envy throughout the tour:  Pam is allowed to have height.  All my Ilwaco curbside gardens have to be so darn short, which cuts down on their visual impact compared to these.  There is one big different: Broadway in Seaside doesn’t have numerous driveways coming out onto the street, and most of the traffic is one way.   The other thing I immediately envied was the lushness due to irrigation (which I have in the Long Beach parks but not in the tree gardens).  Todd said that my tree gardens are also smaller without as much root run space.  All true.  But enough about me and my envy…for now.

The river that runs through Seaside. We learned that businesses have added their own baskets, inspired by the ones Pam does for the city. These baskets are by the businesses on the river walkway.

the bridge over the river

helenium

luscious use of Stachys (lambs ears) for silver edges.

more lambs ears

irrigation = happy astilbe

ok…irrigation envy

low plants here where the sidewalk swoops out

looking south down the river

also tree envy….Pam gets to use a variety of interesting small trees, as you will see during the tour.

tree envy!!!  Long Beach and Ilwaco both have the same tree, columnar pear, over and oever and over.

Todd, Melissa, and Dave

By now it was 8 AM and we entered the Beach Books store.

Right behind us, Nancy (behind the shelves), Phil, and Steve and John. (Allan’s photo)

The lecture was in the loft of the bookstore.

I agree with this poster on the wall.

It was not until we had our breakfasts on our plates (yummy eggs and potatoes) and the small audience began introducing ourselves that it was realized that there were nine of us from the Long Beach Peninsula and we were asked if we were a garden club.  Well, why not?

Pam ready for her lecture

my lecture notes

Pam said that she thinks of all her Seaside gardens as “managing a big estate”.  There are over 100 garden beds and the 123 baskets for which she chooses the flowers.  She is renowned for choosing garden themes based on the adjacent businesses, which is complicated when businesses change, as there is an apothecary garden in front of the bookstore that used to be a pharmacy.  For the apothecery garden, she used Phygelius (which is said to be used in voodoo) and Chaste Tree and Salix (willow) whose bark was used for headaches.  She plants edible gardens in front of restaurants and has some other themes that we will learn about on the walking tour.

“I like to honor this town.  I love my town,” she says, as she shows us slides of the history of the gardens and of the town.  One especially striking photo shows townhouse lights reflected in the river at night.

She uses mass of color on the street side of the garden beds and more intricate detail on the sidewalk side, and she uses echoing colours because the beds are small.  The gardens are not at all plagued by deer.  (I envy that!)

One year, when the lighting was redone and all the gardens ripped out and replanted, she broke her foot and had to direct and point.

Regarding the baskets, she said that the baskets themselves are much larger than at home baskets, which is why the flower displays get so large.  Smaller home baskets run out of soil for the roots sooner.  She has a water truck with which she waters the baskets daily with a mild fertilizer solution.  The baskets become hydroponic after the roots have completely filled them.  Inspired by her baskets, more of the town stepped up to beautify with their own baskets like the walkway along the river.  The baskets are taken down in mid September after the last big tourist event.

One of the audience members said “I’ve admired your gardens for years and years and thought it must be a fairy princess who planted them.”

Of course she gets a lot of the same questions we do, including “What’s that plant?’, and she knows according to the time of year which plant people will be asking about.

Now…come on Pam’s guided walk through town.

We were joined by Teresa (right, with Dave and Melissa), owner of the Planter Box garden center, making 10 of us from the Long Beach Peninsula.

Teresa’s exceptionally cute shoes.

Pam talked about each garden bed from Beach Books all the way to the turn around.

Drinking fountains incorporated into the bench gardens.

Pam has had an excellent performance out of this particular eucomis.

Later in the day, I bought myself one at Seaside 7 Dees.

Nancy admires the lavender. Pam said she finds clumps of lavender flowers missing where people picked bouquets, and of course she notices.

Lavender and heucheras

an attentive audience

a mass of red nicotiana

silver lining

She thinks about colour coordination with the buildings.

You can bet I was experiencing envy about her wide selection of interesting small trees.

Cotinus (smoke bush), as I feel envy about her being able to use tall plants!!

Cotinus and rudbeckia

rock shapes, plant shapes, echoes

Pam and her plants

Seaside architecture at the main intersection

annual geranium used for foliar effect.

I am sold on the variegated annual geranium leaves.

The handsome benches are not for a bus stop, just for a good sit spot.

a sweet windowbox at a restaurant

astilbes, made happy by irrigation

by the river bridge

one of the tinier gardens

looking east from the bridge

variegation echo

The Bridge Tender Tavern

Once someone repeatedly threw a bicycle onto the garden by the Bridge Tender, and then picked the bike up and threw it in the river.

She likes to plant nicotiana, smoke bush, and thyme as plant puns by the tavern, along with an African daisy with a dizzying whirligig pattern (which she was unable to acquire this year).

 

Pam and one of the gardens by the Bridge Tender

In one of the beds, there is a barberry for plant self-defense.

Steve admiring the leaves of Ballota dictamnus

bench envy!!

We are all fascinated with each and every garden bed.

edible plants in the restaurant garden include herbs, edible flowers

fennel and oregano

Nancy taking photos

This girl, daughter of an adjacent business owner, has been swinging on this tree since she was little.

It’s her climbing tree.

Monarda, one that doesn’t get mildew, under a limbed up rhododendron (pretty sure)

another good rock

The Pig and Pancake garden must be partly edible.

borage and herbs

narrow one way street going toward the turn around

Pam embraces her gardens.

cute fire hydrant

Verbena bonariensis towering over a garden bed (good see through plant)

Hydrangea and rudbeckia

Acer griseum

Paperbark maple gives me deep deep tree envy.

sigh…

Allan’s photo

In Seaside, the business owners don’t seem to squawk about tall plants.

Pam and a golden Leycesteria

Sambucus (elderberry) as a small tree.  I love the variety.

appreciating trees

I never realized before how delightfully TALL Pam’s gardens are allowed to be, because usually we only have time to look at them in early spring before they are fully leafed out and grown.

clipped box next to a business that evoked a formal feeling (can’t recall why)

hot colours by a hot coloured  store

closer

sanguisorba looking happy from enough moisture

echoing the blue building

columnar barberry to defend this garden

chocolate colours for a candy store

with chocolate cosmos

chocolate garden with a lovely small tree

view east to the hills

We took a detour down a wide pedestrian side street.

a pedestrian walkway with gardens

Hebe and lobelia laxiflora

lace cap hydrangea

Allan’s photo

garden plaza

Pam told us that there was a dance hall here and back in the day, people would dance outside here.

Pam, Steve, and some gooseneck loosestrife

Hmm, I used to have gooseneck loosestrife and this reminds me of how charming it is.  I happen to know that Steve and John have some, so when their patch of it sizes up, as it will, I will hope for a small division for my garden.

Lysimachia clethroides in a contained pocket

Asclepias incarnata: I want!

Nancy’s spouse, Phil, admires a hardy fuchsia.

If Nancy wants some of these fuchsias for her garden, I have some to share.

Pam with a golden lonicera (boxleaf honeysuckle)

Joe Pye weed

We return to the gardens on Broadway.

Hydrangea Cityline Mars…Wow!

Pam says it will likely be blue next year.  (I believe I espy an Agastache behind it.)

Also Monarda, and an Ibiris named ‘Masterpiece’ which is a great doer in Pam’s gardens.

another gorgeous combination

Pam describes using fun colours…

for Funland.

that zingy geranium again

Basket Case Fred will be thrilled and amazed when I all of a sudden buy a bunch of those geraniums next year!

Osteospermum (African Daisy); this annual’s only flaw is that it needs a lot of deadheading.

hostas

As we walk west, Broadway widens into a two way street.

Hydrangea ‘Pistachio’

Allan’s photo

fuchsias

Pam desribes how she uses bagged Gardner and Bloome Soil Building Compost nowadays, as it is quick and easy to apply and more nurturing than bulk mulch.

also known as Gardner and Bloome Soil Building Conditioner

getting closer to the beach: more wind, water runoff, and erosion

tough grasses where nothing else worked

high wall of the Worldmark Resort as we are almost to the turnaround

Out here the hydrangeas get so beat up they have to be pruned so low they might not bloom.

the turnaround

The toughest of plants go out here.

view to the south

in full beach weather

The silver heather is ‘Velvet Fascination’

oh my gosh…what the beach approach garden could be with irrigation

Armeria, Artemisia

looking east

gathering for a photo

For good luck, people rub the nose of Seamam, Lewis and Clark’s Newfoundland dog.

His nose is shiny.

Allan’s photo

I am envious that this garden does not get thoroughly trampled like my beach approach garden was before I turned it over to Rugosa roses.  I wonder why?  Maybe it is because of all the eyes of the building upon it…or that is is lusher because of the irrigation.  When a tour bus drove into it, someone from one of the adjacent buildings photographed it and got the license number!

We walk east along Broadway, admiring the gardens some more along the way, as I am sure you will want to, as well.

garden with a lovely irrigation spout

the clipped boxwood garden

crossing the river bridge

Pam by a store with a Chinese lucky cat in the window

an an Asian style garden next to it.

mosaics and window boxes

Allan’s photo

another look at the Eucomis

I am completely gobsmacked by how good all these gardens look in summer, and despite waves of irrigation envy and tree envy, I enjoyed the tour thoroughly.

Next: an apres-tour lunch, some plant shopping, and a visit to Pam’s own garden.