Saturday, 6 February 2016
While I had begun a good book the night before, today’s mild weather called for an afternoon in the garden instead of reading.
Allan has been making some signs for the Ilwaco boatyard garden:
I planted a Hamamelis ‘Diane’ and 3 ‘Graham Blandy Boxwoods. Allan helped me to plant a fig tree in a whiskey barrel and to dismantle the collapsing plant table.
I was amazed to see my Eccremocarpus scaber from Annie’s Annuals (a gift last year from Garden Tour Nancy) has come through the winter so well.
In the late afternoon, Pam, the gardener for the town of Seaside, Oregon, came by for a visit; she’s been visiting Steve and John’s garden on the bay earlier in the day.
After a walk all round the garden, we were off to Salt Hotel Pub, just three blocks away at the Port of Ilwaco.
Ginger’s Garden Diaries, 1995, 1997, 1998
I am so pleased that when Allan was sorting out some papers, he found three of the garden journals that my mom kept when she lived near Olympia, Washington in the late 90s. I had thought they were lost forever, that she had thrown them out in the last years of her life.
Here are some of her entries for this week, 20 some years ago.
Ginger’s Garden Diary:
1995 (age 70):
Feb 1: Rain. Spent most of the afternoon on plants in Floralight. [African] violets have multiplied like rabbits. They’ll have to be cut down some way. And I know I can’t throw a plant away. AND I ordered more seeds. Tsk tsk.
Feb 2: cool/dry. Split wood for kindling and brought in quite a bit of wood—piled on porch.
Feb 3-4: Started organizing veggie and flower seeds, putting them in alphabetical order
1997 (age 72):
Feb 1: Bill [hired odd job man who helped out after my dad died] fixed water leak in shop. Repaired step on back porch plus other odd jobs. It’s too nasty a day for him to crawl under the deck to see what repairs are needed.
Feb 3: Don brought more $ [from the sale of my dad’s toy train collection]. It’s dry but cold. Too cold to work outside.
Feb 5: Rec’d Park (catalog) flower seeds and the berry plants from Raintree. Still too cold to work outside.
Feb 6: Marked new Park seeds (with year, size, height, and when to plant) and filed them with other seeds. I noticed that even with my 20 page inventory, I still ordered a few that I already have. I’ll plant older seed and if they grow, I’ll save the ’97 seed for next year.
1998 (age 73):
Feb 2: I worked in back about two hours. This seems to be my limit on hard jobs. Finished spreading the mulch pile over the garden beds.
My Park seed order arrived so I started organizing them. I got the year and the page # on them and arranged them in order by page #. I think the Pinetree order should be here soon.
Feb 3: Today is a beautiful sunny day and I accomplished nothing except making up my grocery list for tomorrow.
Feb 4: I decided to wait to go to the store tomorrow. I worked on the mulch pile again. I tossed in a lot of leaves over on the garden area and dumped the 6 or 8 bags that I filled when Skyler and Robert were here, putting it on the garden area. Then I filled 6 or 8 bags of clipped leaves for fall mulch. THE PILE IS GONE. Never again will I order a big pile of mulch. I had to come in at 1:30, I was so shaky. I ate 4 slices of toast and then went out again at 3:30.
Feb 6: Store today—over $95.00!
Beautiful spring flowers. Diaries-what a treasure!
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Thank you!
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I hope that passers by pay attention to Allan’s notices.
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Such a lovely glimpse into your mother’s garden and journals. February really IS a cold one farther north but how renovating and revitalizing it is to get out now and weed, prune, and plant a bit. Went to T and L Nursery today and got a couple aralias and a new scalloped edge variegated lavender. Thay had one left and lost the tag, but it’s supposed to be a Sunset recommended variety for our area. The foliage smells like licorice. Great day to garden. You inspire me.
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That sounds like a very appealing lavender.
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