Tuesday, 17 April 2018
I got very little sleep because of worrying that we were both going to get sick. With the clam festival coming up, we had much to do in Long Beach town. There is no back up plan if we can’t do it; all of our other working gardener friends are even busier than we are.
Little dramas loom large when one is self employed.
Allan felt poorly in the morning with sniffles and a cough, and yet with the good weather, we did go to work. It is maddening; we were so good about disinfecting our hands every time we went somewhere public, and yet…the germs got him.
If only we could have followed Skooter’s example:
(Skooter has a chin condition, a problem common with orange cats, says the vet. My orange cat of years ago, Valene, had the same thing.)
On the way, we dropped off a book at the library (housed in the Ilwaco Community Building).
The community building garden needs a bit of weeding…(not shown in the photos above).
In case I end up having to go to work on the bus later this week, we went to the two least-accessible-by-bus jobs first.
The Red Barn
Because I am thinking of using a different plant for the centerpiece of the Ilwaco planters, Allan pointed out how good the Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ looks at the Red Barn. They get less wind here.
Diane’s garden
My very good old friend Misty greeted us next door at Diane’s garden.
The septic box bulb display pleased me; we had missed some of it, of course. After deadheading:
I was pleased to find sweet peas just emerging along the picket fence.
The corner driveway garden needs mulching; soon, I hope. I asked Allan to take this photo, and did not get what I wanted, which is the fact that the Stipa gigantea grass is already showing flower spikes. Oops, I should have specified.
Long Beach
Long Beach had been on the schedule for all day this coming Thursday, to get the parks and planters perfect for the Razor Clam Festival. I was fretting about what would happen if we both got sick and could not work then. So we did a lot of it today, which led to more fretting on my part that I was going to make Allan sicker by having him work. I brooded about how I recently delayed one day taking Calvin to the vet, prioritizing work instead because he seemed not especially sick, and then…we know how that turned out.
We went down the six downtown blocks of street trees and planters, deadheading. I felt reassured each time I saw Allan taking a photo, figuring it must mean he did not feel too terrible. (He said, “It’s easier than working!”)
Allan’s planter and tree garden photos:
Van Engelen catalog says: A magical sport of Jewel of Spring, fragrant Silverstream ranges from creamy-yellow to deep yellow with red feathering, to red with every combination in between. But the surprise garden party doesn’t stop there: it has showy, attractive foliage with silver-white margins. (Did you know that the phenomena of marginated foliage occurs due to a lack of or insufficient pigmentation and chlorophyll in the plant cells on the outer petal edges?)
I did not think to smell the tulips nor did I notice white margins on the foliage.
My planter and tree garden photos:
As you can tell by now, I planted a big run of Silverstream through town. I think they are too tall to choose again. And the color variation is nice but it does not thrill me.
We also weeded in Fifth Street Park because…Razor Clam Festival! Fifth Street Park needs so much more attention, and I hope we can do more later this week. So much horsetail, so much wild garlic. (No photos there.)
We went on to Veterans Field, which will be the central place for the clam festival. It is not ideal to deadhead and weed four days before the festival, but needs must.
The last time we were in Long Beach, Allan asked where the blue was in that arc garden. I said the grape hyacinth along the edge. Well, now look at what a string trimmer did:
And right before the festival, when we were trying to make it perfect despite feeling poorly. I wanted to lie down on the lawn and blub, but it would be too hard to get back up again. Some white narcissi were also casualties along the edge. Then I thought…Ok, maybe this is a sign that I do not have to struggle so hard and fret so darn much about making it perfect. Maybe I can stop worrying about whether we will be able to get back to deadhead on Thursday.
Still….dang blang it!
On the way south, we deadheaded the welcome sign.
And finally, we paused at the
Shelburne Hotel
where I planted 9 more violas and two Agastache ‘Apricot Sunrise’. I would like to have weeded more, but we had already worked four hours longer than I had originally planned and Allan was not feeling any better. The question is, was it wiser to work today so that we can take a day off? Or did it make everything worse? It would have been so bad if we had stayed home today and then both got sick and couldn’t do a thing before the weekend. It would be even worse if we got even sicker. Such woes of self employment have plagued me for the last 42 years.
If the gardens in Long Beach are not perfect when you attend clam festival, you now know why. We forgot to stop at First Place Mall on the way south and deadhead the one dead narcissus that I noticed in the planter there. I will try not to lose sleep over it.
Wishing Allan a speedy recovery. You both deserve some time to rest. The gardens and planters do look beautiful, though! Sorry about the string trimmed grape hyacinths. Surely they could have trimmed around the flowers!
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One certainly wishes they would be more careful. Thank you!
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From the photos, I’d say folks attending the clam festival will notice only the profusion of blossoms, not the ones that are wilting or not there at all. I am feasting my eyes on these photos — lovely! May you both feel well soon!
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Thank you, makes me feel better.
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Your spring gardens are lovely! Few will notice the odd faded bloom in all that glory, and the ones that do are probably gardeners who will understand.
Hope you are both feeling better. I have never figured out if it is better to work through the onset of a cold, thus through the power of positive thought denying it a chance to take a firmer hold, or apply immediate tlc and rest.
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Thank you, it is mystifying to know what to do when self employed. Years ago, I worked with fevers, migraines aches, flu, etc, because i had to, unless I was literally felled into bed.
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I hope you feel better soon, or that the cold is not a really bad one. I have Muscari near the edge of one of my beds and I always worry that my own lawn maintenance guys are going to take the flowers off when they string trim the lawn. The tulips you’ve spread all over your clients all look so pretty. I love Princess Irene, it’s my favorite.
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Thank you, I love Princess Irene, too.
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Hope you are feeling better! Beautiful tulips, Thanks for naming them as I am taking notes on the ones that I will order this fall!
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Well done for working against the odds. I agree with Allan about taking photographs being better than working. I take it to a much more extreme level than he does though.
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Made me laugh, Mr T!
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