29 June: the longest day

Thursday, 29 June 2017

Our plan to finish the port on Friday suddenly got changed when I saw an ad in the paper last night that Ilwaco Freedom Market was holding a BBQ in their parking lot on Friday.  Their strip of bark/would-be garden would have to be done Thursday, along with the curbside garden in front of their store.  I wondered if this would change up our schedule so much that we’d have to work on Saturday…

Port of Ilwaco

In this infrequently watered garden, the recent hot day and the wind had crisped up some of the dog daisies.

before

after

Some daisies were good enough to stay through the holiday weekend.

The curbside garden got a good watering, as did the garden next door at Salt.

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

Allan had the terribly boring part of the job (his photos follow): Running the string trimmer along the sidewalk to the marina:

and the tedium of weeds in a barkscape with tatty landscape fabric (which we are slowly removing; obviously it does not prevent weeds).

I hope that we can create more joy in this bed by next year.

On the way out of town, even though we were feeling time pressure, we circled round the block to deal with this in a tree garden (Allan’s photos):

Fortunately, the sign-putter did not get mad about being told it just could not be in the tree bed, no matter how gently placed.

It’s not even a great patch of garden….However, the sign sets a bad precedent for future damage.

Long Beach

We checked on and did not feel the need for any work at the welcome sign.

The Fun Rides have now moved into a parking lot area near the center parking lot berm.  We felt the need to at least string trim said berm.  Allan dropped me off at Veterans Field to weed and took time for a bit of strimming there.

Before: a rough edge had been left.

after

meadowy look around the anchor

flag pavilion garden: am thrilled Salvia patens came back

Salvia ‘Hot Lips’ and Salvia patens

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

I think Sapphire Blue reseeded itself into plain old eryngium, left  ??maybe

Meanwhile, Allan faced the tedium of the boring and never watered center berm:

a string trimmer job, with some dandelion pulling

He found a dirty diaper as well as weeds. Unfortunately, used diapers are not an unusual find in the parking lot area.

I started the watering round earlier than Allan did so was able to do four blocks of planters to his two.  My walkaround:

I realized that the theme of most of my planters IS the meadow look.

cosmos and California poppies

Today, I had the hard task of carrying bucket water to the four Fish Alley planters…a long walk to the back end. I sometimes think this is the hill I will die on.

It was windy…again.

Basket Case basket

I am very disappointed in the Salvia viridis, painted sage, this year.  They are supposed to look like this:

pink dahlia, pink painted sage

But this year and last year they have been disappointing.  Everywhere I’ve planted them this year, they are just putting out one small disappointing bract on the top:

The bract (colored leaf) is the showy part and should be all down the stem! Why is this happening?

 

If these plants don’t shape up, I am going to go off them and not use them next year.  For so many years they have been the most asked about plant (many times per each summer watering session) in the planters.  Last year, when they were also dull, no one asked about them at all.

Allan’s watering walk around:

????? What have we here?

nice round lavender

a crab shell deposited in a planter

Cosmos and California poppies

So he saw this woman with a hat clearly decorated with planter flowers (Cosmos and Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and California poppy).  She told him her two year old had picked them, and she was perfectly happy to have her photo taken.

In other unrelated news, a local realtor told Allan that she had seen a woman picking a bouquet from under the trees.  When the realtor suggested the woman not do that, the woman (not the woman in the hat) kept picking, saying she “had permission”, which the realtor doubted.  Allan assured her that permission had not been given by us.

In better news, he saw someone taking photos of the flowers, as it should be.

We finished Long Beach by weeding in Fifth Street Park.  It is taking a long time to get interesting.

slow to be colorful; we are not allowed to let much of the garden be taller than the fence.

I cut off the spent stalks of Camassias.

Eryngium ‘Jade Frost’ and cerinthe (Allan’s photo)

Port of Ilwaco again

More watering of the Howerton curbside gardens was essential.  Allan started east of the Pavilion while I watered and weeded by the Nisbett Gallery, port office, Time Enough Books…

Coast Guard helicopter overhead (Allan’s photo)

Someone had braided a grass by Loading Dock Village. Allan thought a clever student from the driving school did it while waiting.  (Allan’s photo)

Eryngium and santolina (Allan’s photo)

Eryngium and yarrow (Allan’s photo)

Port office south side…which the office staff waters.

the marina

In the curbside gardens, I have found eremerus (foxtail lily) to be a big disappointment.  They just mostly dry up like this one:

in the center, all dried up and no flower

And only one looks like it should, so I may have to give up on planting them:

beautiful tall spikes of the one happy Eremurus

port office curbside

Artist Don Nisbett told me he’d given this little bed 11 gallons of water on the recent 90 degree day.  Thank you, friend!

I spent a lot of time grooming the dead flowers off of the sea thrift.

example: before

after

Allan caught up to me and dropped off the trailer at the boatyard, went home and hooked up the water trailer, and came back to help me finish watering at Time Enough.

veronica at Time Enough

Time Enough garden boat

Purly Shell yarn shop shares the Time Enough building.

I felt a strong desire to have a nice dinner at Salt Pub.  Not tonight.

Allan still had to water the Ilwaco trees and planters.  At 7:30, he dropped me off at the boatyard to weed.

I walked down to the north end to begin.  There, the weeds were the worst with lots of tall velvet grass.

taken while Allan watered planters at the boatyard intersection

a trio on a walk (Allan’s photo shows two out of three dogs)

8:15 PM

I was thrilled to find some sweet peas, planted from seed, prevailing against the horsetail.

tree garden watering where the sign had been (Allan’s photo). I do not like that wild sweet pea in there. He does.

 

boatyard: I had got this far by 8:50 PM.

I was getting close to the stretch that had been partly weeded earlier this week.

I have planted a few lilies in the boatyard to test if deer will eat them. I think a human picked some of the flowers off this one.

I love heleniums.

8:55 PM

I started to wonder when Allan would show up, as the song lyrics “Gettin’ dark, too dark to see…” ran through my mind.  I pictured slowly pushing my wheelbarrow home in the dark.  The odd thing was I still had loads of energy and could have weeded for another two hours (by headlamp?), thanks in part to my Unloader knee brace.

At last Allan drove up to the trailer at the other end of the boatyard.

what I got done

The whole stretch has to be weeded reasonably well by Saturday.

It was 9:30 at home before the trailer was unhitched and parked.  Allan saw this disturbing sight on the roof next door:

Not good news. Raccoons severely damaged the shake roof on my old house…

They are bold and unafraid.

I didn’t know I still had it in me to do a ten hour day and was well chuffed.