Thursday, 23 November 2017
I woke up to find that Allan had made a workday breakfast (more nutritious than cold cereal). The weather showed signs of unexpectedly clearing, belying a forecast of constant rain. So off we went to work. I was willing to work in drizzle to get a couple more tasks erased from the work board.
First, even though we had no mail to pick up on this holiday, we did some clipping at the Ilwaco post office garden.
in the post office window (Allan’s photo)
Before: The Gaura ‘Whirling Butterflies’ had been blown about by wind.
after
rain on the post office wall
big raindrops falling
Long Beach
I am weak on just pulling the annuals out once and for all. At the welcome sign, we stopped to pull the yellow bidens. We ended up leaving most of them, after all.
On the edge, bidens still showing a bit of yellow. (And some bulb foliage has emerged.)
In Long Beach, I had noticed when driving through on an errand that wind had battered the Geranium ‘Rozanne’ in the police station planter. I steeled myself to cut it back so that I wouldn’t have to wonder every day at home whether or not it still looked good.
I find it hard to cut when the flowers are still so blue.
Allan’s photo
But we did it!
It looks like the wind took away the “orman” part of the Stormin’ Norman’s sign.
I also made a special stop to cut this knautia back hard:
another plant I am tired of thinking about
With very little wind and increasingly clear weather, we drove out to the Bolstad beach approach to tidy the planters and to pull the stands of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’.
Bolstad Avenue, also known as the beach approach, is named after a young Washington State patrolman who died trying to save two young swimmers in 1957. I often think about his valor when I type the name of the avenue. You can read about him here.
The weather turned fine and almost summerlike as we began tidying the westernmost planters.
The crocosmia in the long garden bed has beauty still to offer.
We pull it now anyway because soon it will be all brown and tattered, and we’d rather not be out pulling it on a stormy winter day.
I tidy for the passersby who would not understand the beauty of a fall and winter garden with perennials left standing. In my own garden, I leave plants up for the birds. I wish I could assign a couple of books to anyone who doesn’t understand the splendor of a wilder garden.
And pretty much any book by Piet Oudolf shows fall and winter landscapes with plants left standing.
I’m sad to see how weedy the long garden has gotten with the autumn rains. There will be much to do when work starts up again in February. The city budget doesn’t run to a late fall/early winter seven day long weeding of this narrow but enormous garden.
looking west
It will be a carpet of grass by late winter.
looking east
crocosmia intertwined with thorny rugosa roses (Allan’s photo)
before
after (Allan’s photo)
The weather could not have been better for this job.
a glorious day
tourists taking the classic Long Beach arch photo
one last rose hip
I swear someone has been picking the rose hips to produce tea. It is too suspicious that someone asked to pick them several weeks ago, and we said no, and yet a week afterwards there were very few rose hips left. Perhaps I am being paranoid and suspicious. Usually they would still be clinging to the roses all the way along the approach, although most would be brown by now.
shiny new buds
In the easternmost section, I decided that the roses had to be clipped from along the sidewalk.
before
after
In next year’s spring or late winter clean up, we must dig out the roses from along this inner edge. Some members of the Peninsula Gardeners Facebook group want starts, so the diggings won’t go to waste. I have warned them of the vigor of this rose.
As I tidied the easternmost planter, I suddenly felt like a hot wind was on my face. I looked up, and it was the reflection of the sun in the hotel across the road.
reflecting on me like a heat lamp!
a coppery golden willow in the hotel landscape
At city hall, we’d had a request for the Lavatera outside the west office window to be trimmed back for a good view. I had decided that we should remove the whole shrub. When it came to doing so, I changed my mind…for now. We just clipped it hard, and will think about it over the winter. It probably should be replaced with something that will stay below the windowsill.
We did not plant it. We used to have Lavatera ‘Barnsley’ in the city gardens, until one year they seemed to lose their vigor, and even newly planted ones seemed to get diseased and peter out all around town. This one, in a place where it has to have its flowering stems trimmed, is vigorous and happy…of course.
before
after (Allan’s photos)
My nice variegated hellebore on the north side, that had gotten all lanky, had its stems broken off.
Phooey.
We clipped and weeded in the big pop out a block south of city hall.
after weeding a sheet of little grasses
dwarf pampas grass and rugosa rose
We pulled some tatty evening primrose (the tall scraggly yellow one) from the little popouts a block north of city hall. When I walked up, a flock of little birds burst into the air.
before
Zooming in on my before photo, I can see the little birds were there, by the pole.
Allan said we took their dinner, and we sort of did.
We left a big stand of evening primrose on the other side of the sidewalk for them.
As soon as we were done, they returned to feasting.
We should have/could have weeded the grass better out of those two little beds. But we did not.
We took our substantial load of debris to City Works.
eating what I thought might be our last workday sandwich of 2017 at City Works
We then finished Long Beach by trimming a few planters out on the Sid Snyder beach approach.
still amazing weather at the west end of Sid Snyder Drive
the westernmost planter (Allan’s photo)
I was thrilled that we were going to reach my goal and have time to do the last thing on the pre-frost clean up work list:
Norwood garden
I’ve had on the list for weeks the moving some shade plants to the north side of Mary N’s garden, where earlier this year we replaced mean and thorny barberries with hydrangeas. Allan started weeding the north garden bed while I dug up some plants at home.
I think Allan had reset my red rain gauge and that this is last night’s rain:
Out of this bed, I got some Geranium macrorrhizum and some epimidium.
I looked for some of my best silvery foliaged pulmonarias in Allan’s garden area and could not find them. I hope they are there, and just dormant. I managed to find a not so silvery one in another part of the garden, and some hellebore seedlings.
at Mary N’s, a wheelbarrow of some plant starts.
Oh dear, the north bed had gotten so weedy. I did not mean to neglect it so!
Allan’s before photos, mostly creeping sorrel weed
Yikes.
I took over the weeding while Allan trimmed lavenders in the side garden.
Allan gets credit for weeding the bricks.
lavender, before…
after
before
after
My after picture of the north bed was at dusk.
I am going to have to keep a closer eye on this to keep the sorrel from coming back.
At home, the work list is down to the post-frost clean up and my winter projects at home.
I had planned to declare the beginning pre-frost staycation. Instead, I consulted with Depot Restaurant co owner Nancy Gorshe and decided that tomorrow, we will pull the old annuals out of the window boxes there, combined with a check up on the Anchorage Cottages garden, which has been on my mind and probably should not be left unattended till frost. I hope we can accomplish this rain or shine, perhaps with the reward of a late lunch out.
The following morning, Allan got a daytime “after” shot at the Norwood garden.
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