Wednesday, 18 May 2016
I woke after five hours sleep with my first thought being the garden in jeopardy and immediately checked my email, to find this from the facility manager:
“I had meeting last night about this with my regional however I could not change their minds. I did instruct staff this morning that you may of course pick up the bird feeder/ birdbath whatever is yours.
I am truly sorry about this. I tried to argue many points but they will not budge.”
WHAT? I find it hard to believe that there was no way to budge them, that collecting signatures from family members of residents in the facility would not have helped, just for one example. Of course, I would like to see a march with canes and wheelchairs and protest signs. But I am tired of it, and not going to fight for a job that is clearly dependent on the whim of whoever might be the manager in the future. We had charged them such a low rate that, for all the hours we had worked there over six years, we would be ten thousand dollars richer if we had charged our normal rate. I did the math three times, astonished that giving them “Grandma rates” had made such a difference, and it came out the same every time. I don’t think the manager had sought enough ammunition to win her case, and ours.
I’d like to hear what Linda, the former manager who first authorized the job, might think about all this. And when I posted about it on Facebook (but of course), someone very much in the know commented that the facility was designed by the woman who is considered the mother of assisted living and who would be appalled at this news. Eventually, her dream facility was sold to a big group that operates many such facilities.
However…on to a regular work day, with the closing down of our six year garden project to come at the end of the day.
The Red Barn Arena
As we were adding some red diascias to the barrels at the Red Barn, a horsewoman said to us how much she loves our gardens in Long Beach. “Thanks for putting a smile on our face every day!” she said. That was just the kind of thing I wanted to hear on this sad and tired day.
looking back from Diane’s garden to the Red Barn.
Diane’s Garden
I had a few painted sage to add to Diane’s planters and I wanted to check on the watering. I had forgotten to get two little sedums or sempervivums for a teeny tiny planter. Next time!
The containers had been watered well.
Diane and Larry’s streetside garden with Agastache (Allan’s photo)
by the driveway (Allan’s photo)
Allium schubertii (center) and albopilosum (Allan’s photo)
Rain set in as we drove up Sandridge Road.
We picked up more sage at the Planter Box. I usually take photos for
their Facebook page; today I was feeling sort of numb and did not even think to do so.
Allan took this one of their colourful wooden pots for sale.
Marilyn’s Garden
My mission was to add some Cosmos ‘Double Click’ and ‘Seashells’ and some painted sage to Marilyn’s garden.
When I looked up from the planting, I saw a big blackberry situation that Allan took care of.
Allan’s photo; he cleared blackberry out of a big evergreen huckleberry.
view from the street
cosmos in
looking south
looking north
view from back porch
On the way to our next job, we made a bank deposit in Ocean Park and admired the garden bed that Todd cares for there.
Todd’s garden
Klipsan Beach Cottages
Again, my mission was to add Cosmos ‘Seashells’ and ‘Double Click’ and painted sage.
birdbath view
Rose ‘Jude the Obscure’ and Rhododendron ‘Cynthia’
left side of path: Thalictrum ‘Elin’
Allium albopilosum
Dianthus ‘Charles Musgrave’
clematis
Allan’s photo
Allan’s photo
Goodbye to a garden
“Assisted living… is a program that promotes resident self-direction and participation in decisions that emphasize choice, dignity, privacy, individuality, independence and homelike surroundings”, says this website about the history of assisted living. A friend of mine wrote an irate letter to the powers that be who had pulled the plug on our garden at a local facility, a garden we had created from nothing when my mother lived there in 2009. She quoted back to them some of the values on their website:
“We are empowered and encouraged to continually look for new and innovative ways to improve our services.
We strive toward…creating an environment that enhances the lives of our residents, their families, and our employees.
We recognize the importance of…building strong ties with the communities we serve.”
2009: These were what the quadrants looked like that we made into gardens. The quadrants were not even lawns, just weeds.
2010: another of the quadrants becoming a garden
We turned it into this on a budget of about $150 a month for labor and plants (therefore, we donated 99% of the plants):
Today, we made our last visit there to collect my mother’s birdbath and a few plants that she had donated that were her special favourites. A heavy windy rain began as we arrived. This would make for unpleasant working conditions but would be good for the plants.
the long hallway to the courtyard
Every resident has a shelf outside her door. I used to imagine what I would put on mine, when I lived there someday. Now I am filled with horror and fear at the thought because it would be so painful to end up there after this garden debacle.
a shelf belonging to a plant lover
Allan’s photo: down the hall to the garden
Behind where I am turning in that photo is a spur of the hallway, next to which is the room I used to think I would like best; it is a little set off from the others and would allow me to be a bit of a recluse.
was once my dream room
The second length of hallway. Allan is wrapping some gro-light bulbs just by where we turn again to the courtyard door.
I won’t miss the difficulty of getting plants and supplies into this garden.
view of the garden through the south window
I had been cultivating flowers in the lawn: Scabiosa, Knautia, Johnny Jump Ups, at the request of a resident who had suggested a mossy wildflower meadow. She spoke of how she had felt terribly sad before we came when the lawn had been treated with moss killer and herbicides. It was already thick with beach strawberries. No one ever mowed it, so we had started neatly string trimming it around the flowers. Now they had all been mowed, of course, by someone who has not had to worry about mowing this area for six years.
I had donated and planted a river of Geranium ‘Rozanne’ down the middle of the concave lawn. Two of them had been mowed flat. I dug them to take with us as I knew all the rest would eventually meet a similar fate.
partially mowed Rozanne river
mowed Rozanne
As you can see, because it was not much of a lawn anyway, and was a concave drainage swale, it might as well have been a flower meadow.
I dug up sand to fill in the holes.
my mom’s birdbath, in a tiny corner garden bed that was planted by volunteers once upon a time.
After two weeks of not being touched, the four quadrants were already weedy. I wish they had been in a burst of bloom for great goodbye photos. They were almost ready for their mid spring peak. This move was ill timed for taking any of the many, many lilies my mother donated, so I left them all behind in full bud.
For the last time:
SW quadrant, soon to be a riot of color, just like my mom liked.
SE quadrant…a difficult one because it is full of horsetail that will take over quickly.
My mother’s lilies will be blooming soon.
NE quadrant, outside my mom’s old room. The salal will quickly move in to this garden if no one controls it. Allan is digging out her rhodie.
My mother’s yellow rhodo had, at her request, been planted outside her window in an area that the sprinklers did not hit. (For the first few years, we did not even have working sprinklers and had to hand water everything.) She had instructed me back then to take it home if we ever did not do the garden anymore. I think it was quite possibly her most treasured plant.
my mom’s rhodo, infested with salal
ready to go home…I hope with no salal attached!
the salal, ready to take over the whole corner and the adjacent flower bed
NW quadrant, with plenty of room for cosmos
I had enough cosmos waiting at home to fill in the spaces in the garden and provide flowers well into fall. All the dahlias, including a new bag of about 20 that I had donated this spring, were just coming up. They were one of my mom’s top favourite flowers. Will anyone think to put out Sluggo to protect them from the snails? I will not get to see the dahlias, and that irks me.
I had been very concerned about digging out my mother’s two beloved rose bushes, the ones she called “my red velvet rose” and my “copper rose”. I left the two Joseph’s Coat roses because I knew their ID so had been able to buy myself one in memory of my mom. Her two other favourites were impossible for me to ID so I could not replace them. I had posted photos to a rose group, to no avail, and had tried and failed to make cuttings last winter.
I cut them back hard before digging. They came out with a pretty good set of roots.
mom’s “copper rose”, with soil on the flower
her “red velvet” rose
Her Joseph’s Coat roses remain on each pillar. They need supplemental water because they are under the eaves.
a Joseph’s Coat on each pillar outside the dining room
Every week, I’d do a little clipping to try to keep the badly placed euonymus from covering the windows.
Will someone clip by the windows? Will anyone hose water the five roses that were planted by family members outside of the sprinkler system area?
Will anyone weed eat the areas outside the garden beds? We had no time to weed the outer areas on $150 a month. Or…will the whole garden get removed…we wonder…
Here is the last look….just before going out the door. Who will hose water the hydrangeas on each side that are out of the sprinkler range?
Goodbye, dear garden. I loved making you and I know the residents loved you. So many times we were told how much it reminded someone of her own garden left behind or of her mom’s garden or a garden of her childhood.
Goodbye, plants. Wish I could rescue more of the ones my mother donated.
I won’t miss the horsetail, the salal, the patches of my least favourite pink hardy geranium or the old woody Siberian iris (all of which were there when we began).
During the two hours that we were there today, during regular business hours, not one resident or staff member came to us with any word of appreciation or sorrow.
One more thing we had to take: the three tiered Floralight plant table that I had loaned to a resident. I did not see her, and although I had asked the staff for explain to her why we had to take it away (because it would cost over $600 to replace it and I did not have faith that I would be able to retrieve it later), I am not sure she knows why. This plant table often figured in my mother’s own garden diaries.
disassembled and stored in our garage until I retire and have time to grow seeds (Allan’s photo)
When we got home, the sun came out so the transplanting, which had to be done immediately, was not a miserable cold task. I was tired, and that made it hard.
mom’s rhodo with a bag of Gardner and Bloom Acid Planting Mix for luck.
Mom loved its pale yellow flowers. It has handsome new foliage.
In the background, the tiny rhodo that I won as a door prize at an Astoria garden tour is all of a sudden putting out excitingly white new leaves:
I’d like to move it to where it would show better. It feels too firmly rooted.
I’m so glad I got this area cleared on Monday for the rhodie’s new home.
still have not had time to look up what this is.
I think red velvet rose will like the much better soil here. So small now, having been cut back for transplant. Had to move my precious new Angelica gigas to fit the rose in here.
Copper rose in the front garden, also cut back hard
