Wednesday, 9 May 2018
The day began with so much rain that, when Dark Sky said the rain would go on for a half hour, I took the opportunity to watch an episode of Gardeners’ World before work.
I want this pond:
It reminds me of the dream ponds that my Grandma put in her scrap book, and never realized in real life. You can see her dreams, here.
I would like to make that dream come true in my own garden.
When the rain stopped, I would rather have stayed home with Skooter.
But off to work we did go. We had had this much rain since late yesterday afternoon:
When Allan went to fetch the wheelbarrow and retrieve tools I had left out, he discovered the mess I had left behind yesterday:
And also, what I had accomplished:
As always, we stopped at the post office for our mail.
We deposited some checks at Bank of the Pacific, where Allan noticed this plant life in the front entry:
Long Beach
We began the planting of agastaches, reddish ones (‘Sangria’ and ‘Mexican Giant’) in the Veterans Field gardens.
I was quite annoyed that during the parade events last weekend, a path had been made through the garden, flattening one area of plants. This was after Allan fluffed it up:
Allan found an apropos rock as I grumped about quitting public gardening.
Also we planted three Helenium ‘Mardi Gras’ in the corner garden.
It was tremendously, uncomfortably windy.
We began planting assorted agastaches as the centerpiece in the planters.
Amazingly, we got every planter agastached except for the L&C Square planter.
We also got six Nicotianas planted in the NE bed of Fifth Street Park.
On the way home, we stopped by
The Shelburne Hotel
just to look over the fence and see what weeds awaited us there tomorrow.
A guest or diner emerging from the front door walked by and said to her companion, “Oh, I just love this, it’s like an English garden.”
Success.
At home, I realized that the flowers of my Davidia involucrata ‘Sonoma’ ARE white this year. They started out small and greenish, and have elongated and turned very white, but are mostly hidden by the leaves.
So far, since I uncaged it, the deer have not nibbled it at all even though they have browsed plants around it. (It is outside the deer fence.)
I only got one more episode of Gardeners’ World at the end of the day.
Some recent notes from watching GW:
The famous Sissinghurst garden had changed over the years to accommodate the many visitors, with roses no longer overhanging the paths. It is now being revamped to be more like its original, wilder vision.
A guest presenter, in talking of the many gardening projects that can be done in autumn, said “Some think that autumn is time to cut the plants down, get inside by the fire and put the crumpets on.”
Must have plant: Althaea cannabina.
In 2016, Monty Don said “This is the first time I’ve needed glasses to prune my raspberries.” He was 62 at the time.
I was relieved in the late evening to hear rain; I had been fretting that maybe we had not watered the new agastaches well enough.
Skooter sure knows how to relax! Your public gardens are still looking nice with spring blossoms. I love agastaches, too! They are a magnet for hummingbirds. I would love to visit Sissinghurst some day. Maybe the roses will be overhanging the path.
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Thanks! I love the way agastaches don’t need much deadheading.
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Skooter looks like . . . I don’t know . . . either too relaxed, or too dead.
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Relaxed! He’s too young for the other.
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It was good for the rain to come at a useful time and not just make things soggier.
I am sorry about the damage to your planting. Most frustrating.
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Thanks, Mr T!
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Catching up was impossible this time, so I am diving in again, Skyler. You and Allan do an incredible amount of work!
I love that rock you found. “It will all be OK”. 🙂
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I know what you mean. I am behind on the Tootlepedal blog, which I adore, always at this time of year.
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I’ve pretty much just been writing a long fan letter about Gardeners’ World and Monty Don and his dog, Nigel. 😉
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