Tuesday, 18 April 2017
We were revived by our day off but were not ready to face the rest of the beach approach project. Today would be a day of smaller, easier jobs.
Next to the driveway as we left for work:

tulips

Narcissus ‘Chinita’
Port of Ilwaco
An event this Thursday at a port business inspired us to deadhead narcissi all along the Howerton Way gardens. We won’t be attending but we expect it to draw a crowd.
We want to make sure the gardens look nice for this business that watches out for flower jackers. (A few weeks ago, Allan got asked from the Freedom Market’s upstairs window what he was doing digging up plants in the garden. We appreciate that vigilance.)
We worked our way from east to west.

east end, looking west

The marina is across the east end parking lot.

nautical trash


The scrimmy little horsetails are not my mission today.

CoHo Charters lavascape

deadheads by the old Portside Café (Allan’s photo)

by the Fort George Brewery office

The old Shorebank building (now empty)

kinnikinnick looking really quite nice and making one big buzzing bee happy

Wax myrtle and arbutus that got the full windstorm blast from across the Shorebank parking lot…

Another storm blasted wax myrtle
Allan went on to deadhead the west end while I weeded between Shorebank and the Port Office, including the little garden on the south side of the port office building. The tide was low…

looking west

Little brown birds scavenging the muddy rocks
Looking east, with lots of interesting driftwood
In the wheelie bin enclosure, I found a salvage piece which will be great to add to our fence. Its little doors will provide a peekaboo effect.
This went home with us.
Interlude at home
As we parked in front of our fence, I thought about how interested I would be to see our garden as a passerby.
I’d be looking over the fence for a better view.
I remembered a few gardens in Seattle into which I used to peer through and over fences.
The cats had something to say about how we should stay home for the rest of the day.

Smokey

Skooter appears


Frosty

Calvin woken from his usual daylong nap

tulips and cardoon

Japanese maple (Allan’s photo)

golden bleeding heart

Tulip ‘Green Star’

Ribes speciosum still in full flower

Ribes speciosum and tulips

patio tulips

a lavishly fringed tulip (and Frosty saying, “Do stay!”)

tempting

Allan photographed this good old dog when we stopped at the bank to put a cheque in.

Beth and Mitzu (Allan’s photo)

They got it pushed back and well tied to the new trellis.

center courtyard; an array of pots is just to the right

some courtyard containers

purple fringed tulips

pink fringed tulip

window boxes with tiny species flowers

narcissi and unfurling sword fern
Next, we picked up from the city works yard as much Soil Energy Mulch as today’s buckets would carry.

our mulch stash, with plants that were removed from a defunct planter

Our first mission was to mulch the corner bed at Veterans Field. Some sort of Veterans walk is beginning there later this week so we want it to look fluffy.

Allan’s photos, before….

during; an annoying and constant wind made the day cold.

after

He found this big lily bulb…

a bright orange tulip

and some annoyingly persistent horsetail

Tulip ‘Flaming Spring Green’


foreground: parrot Tulip ‘Rococo’ in bud

Tulip bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’

bench sitter

horrible variegated ivy. I blame myself from many years ago.

exciting bud on Asphodeline

orange tulips

and a painted rock placed by California poppies that might be orange later on!

pink fringed tulip, and progress on defunct planter (the lamp post has now been removed)

some big tulips, windblown, chomped by deer, broken, or picked

In the same planter, Tulip bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’ have been blooming for weeks.

Tulip bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’
at home
At home, I took four buckets of deadheads out to the compost bins while Allan (almost always a man of boundless evening energy) set to mowing the lawn.
The compost bins inspired some compost turning. A day of varied jobs is much less exhausting than an all day, same place weeding project.
I had gotten all excited when seeing the bottom of bin B:

It looked like it might be siftable!

bins after today’s turning
While Allan also mowed the next door lawn for our next door neighbour, I checked the hydrangeas over at the J’s garden for signs of life. The twigs are green when snapped but still no leaves, not even at the base.

good looking sword ferns at the J’s
I got a bit of a start when I thought each leaf of my Davidia tree had a snail in it. No, those are flowers buds
Not like the horrible snails everywhere in my garden due to lack of time to properly police them.

Allan’s photo
Your cardoon is well ahead of ours.
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