Monday, 8 February 2016
We accomplished a great deal today in the town of Long Beach with the help of Melissa and Dave of Sea Star Gardening.
Fifth Street Park
We all plunged into different areas and finished the spring clean up of Fifth Street Park in weather that felt like summer. (Pretty soon we were all complaining about being too hot as the temperature soared to 72 degrees.) It’s rare for a day to be not too cold and wet, not too hot and dry, but just right. This one did get to be just right in the hour before sunset.
Melissa continued the battle with wild alliums in the same quadrant.
In the southwest quadrant, I pruned the roses by the restroom entrance…
…and Melissa finished pruning and weeding along the south fence.
She pulled out a lot of schizostylis. It will come back…which is a good thing and a bad thing.
I was so happy to have help from someone who knows her plants, because she recognized and did not destroy the camassia that was hidden amongst the schizostylis (and that I had forgotten about).
Dave delved into the rectangular rooty awful bed in the southeast quadrant. I’ve discussed with parks manager Mike a complete re-do of this bed, but it won’t happen this year because the city crew is involved with a big new soccer field project.
I finished some planter tidying one block north where I got rained out last week, and then Allan and I pruned the hydrangea in the southeast corner of the park..
I uncovered the Gunnera by the pond and cut off its huge seedheads.
Allan had clipped and weeded under a tree I’d missed during last week’s rainstorm:
Allan hauled a full trailer load to city works, and we all rendezvoused at the parks on Third Street.
Third Street
Veterans Field, top right corner, has one more garden bed now than shows in this satellite view. The Columbia Pacific Farmers Market takes place on that lawn on summer Fridays.
The Aloha Charlie’s Fish building now houses the delicious Kabob Cottage Restaurant.
Dave and Melissa did the pocket park by the Kabob Cottage, behind the curved wall of Lewis and Clark Square, weeding and then raking out old rhododendron leaves. Allan pruned back the rugosa roses on the south wall of the police station so they’ll be easier to keep back from the sidewalk in summer.
After a quick clipping and weeding in the Veterans Field beds, I pruned the hydrangeas in the park north of Long Beach Tavern.
The hydrangea pruning was a rather hasty job as I was in a big rush to get the city hall garden done before dark, and I had a personal mission to accomplish as well.
I left Allan, Dave, and Melissa to their final sweeping up and went on by myself with my wheelie cart to do (I hoped) the last two blocks of planter clean up.
And I fulfilled my mission of taking some photos for the Facebook page of…
Owner/artist Heather Ramsay has constructed a new collection of her repurposed lamps made of tins.
After a quick spin around the shop with my camera, and I do mean quick, I had collected thirty or so more photos to keep the NIVA page updated. I got all but the two northernmost planters clipped and weeded and was so sore by then that I skipped the last two for now and went to rejoin everyone at
City Hall
I wasn’t there to take before photos of three large ornamental grasses that got clipped.
With city hall garden done, our friends departed for their home near Oysterville and Allan and I went to dump one more full load at city works.
Ginger’s Garden Diaries
This year, I am sharing day by day entries that my mom wrote in three garden diaries about 20 years ago. I will gather each month into one entry with more detail at the end of each month of this 2016 blog.
February 8, 1998 (age 73)
Skyler and Robert got here about 6:30. They had quite a hassle at the gate. Even though I called the gate ahead of time, I guess they didn’t keep the message, and because I didn’t hear the phone, the three armed security people wouldn’t let them in. They finally relented. I guess Skyler lit into them. [Ha! I certainly do recall firmly suggesting to the guards that if they would not let us through, they had better escort me to my mom’s house because her not answering the phone could mean she had a medical problem. I think that is what convinced them.]
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Now I’ve got to look up NIVA Green facebook page!
I chuckled reading your mother’s journal entry….
and am in awe of what you all accomplished in the beds. I really doubt that your efforts are adequately appreciated! 🙂
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You made some very good use of a fine day.
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