Tuesday, 22 Sept 2015
Still sleeping only six hours, and getting punchy. I’ve read that old folks have trouble sleeping. Uh oh.
After a productive but somber long weekend, I was glad to get back to work as it gives me a feeling of being worthwhile and making a positive difference in the world.
project one: at the Ilwaco boatyard
While I pulled some horsetail and bindweed, Allan dug up eight big rootballs of bronze fennel from along the fence. Two clumps of that miscanthus that we dug up from Time Enough books last week got planted along with a nice big shrubby hypericum, some sort of good one from my garden, not the annoying ground cover one. (The extra plant became available during the shuffling around of plants over the weekend.)
Some of the santolinas are flopping open and have good center growth. Once, when I pruned them in late autumn and a hard winter followed, I lost several. I should find time in the next couple of weeks to clip these while the weather is still mild, even though that will make the boatyard garden less showy.
pruning at The Anchorage Cottages
Because we were heading up to Peninsula Landscape Supply, where we can dump some debris, we did more pruning at The Anchorage today.
I pecked away at the shade border by cottage 8 in order to remove some plants that I dislike: sweet woodruff and lady’s mantle.
We learned later in day that pampas grass, Cortaderia selloana, has just been added to the Washington State noxious weed list.
The Planter Box
To continue with last week’s project of re-doing two Long Beach planters, we shopped at The Planter Box for some lavender, sea thrift, and creeping thyme for the planters we dug out last week.
I had been thinking of mail ordering Joseph’s Coat for the new front garden arbor, and here it was in a large pot and four feet tall. So I bought it. This was my mother’s favourite rose. She had three of them in her garden, two of which were transplanted to Golden Sands Assisted Living when she moved there in 2009. In her memory, I wanted one and now I have one.
Peninsula Landscape Supply
We talked about retirement. She and Mike would love to sell the supply yard and garden center and retire. Allan and I hope to further semi-retire when he turns 66 in 3.5 years. (To stay ahead of poverty, we will probably still do some work. Besides, should I live so long, I’ll need gardens to blog about. We won’t be able to afford garden touring if we try to live on social security alone.)
mulching at Time Enough Books
It took 2/3 of a yard of mulch for the curbside garden at Time Enough. The river rocks that are still in there got buried; they are sure to resurface over time as the garden gets weeded.
more mulching at home
Four buckets of mulch goes back to Long Beach (because I borrowed some last week to mulch where the grass came out) and the rest went into my garden, in some areas where I have been expanding beds. While I wheelbarrowed mulch, Allan kindly planted my new rose.
Here’s something exciting: The colchicum corm that Todd gave us is blooming; I really did not think it was going to take because I accidentally dug it up once during the course of the summer.
It is a great friend who gives us plants that we have never even heard of before! I had to read up on Chlorophytum bowkeri.
Later in the evening: The project list has been further shortened. I moved the cutting back of beach approach roses to very early spring 2016 (thus already beginning next year’s list).
The routine fall clean up list is much shorter than it used to be since Dave and Melissa have Casa Pacifica and the Boreas Inn and Flowering Hedge Design (Shelly and Terran) have Erin’s garden and Ann’s garden and Discovery Heights…all former jobs of ours that we are glad to have passed into good hands.Tomorrow: the north end rounds, AND we have been invited to see a garden I’ve wanted to see for a long time; I don’t know if I will be given permission to blog about it.
The Mitzu close up was very charming. You made good use of your yard of earth.
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Thanks, Mr T!
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Lovely post Skylar. Again, I’m unable to find the like button to like this post! Maybe I’m the one with a glitch.
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Thanks, Cathy!
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Nice to visit your place. I’ve visited the NW – on a driving holiday when we were living in Orange County. Loved the different plants in the national parks up there. And loved the deer of course. BTW re your comment that “I’ve read that old folks have trouble sleeping”, I must say I’ve heard that older people NEED less sleep! That might be why they have trouble sleeping?
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I’ve read that, too, and yet I still love sleep! Thanks for reading!
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Haha, I hate sleep, really, such a waste of my precious reducing time! BUT of course, I don’t like being tired.
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