Monday, 21 May 2018
I had fantasized about taking today off. That was impossible because of lack of rain in the forecast; we had too much watering to do. Allan began by watering the Norwood garden….
and he watered the J’s across the street:
Meanwhile, I did some necessary watering at home of the ladies in waiting and the cosmos I had planted on Sunday. In the back garden, I found one more agastache catastrophe, a Acapulco Yellow with really weird looking mottled leaves. I pulled it and added it to the big bag of lost plants in the garbage can. As I was closing the bag over its brave yellow flowers that wanted so much to keep blooming in my garden, I burst into tears and went blubbing to the driveway where Allan was hooking up the work trailer. I could hardly bear the thought of all the plants expiring in the big garbage bag. I still find it almost unbearable to think about, as if they have a fear of death. In fact, I am all teared up while typing this five days later. So that and this time were the only times I have wept over this very expensive and time consuming catastrophe. I miss each and every one of those agastaches and the pictures I was trying to paint with them and the beauty that I had hoped for with such happy anticipation just a week ago.
At the post office, the Stipa gigantea was at its prettiest time, when the flowers are spangled with gold.
Long Beach
We then went to Long Beach to fill in some empty areas in planters, where agastaches had succumbed and where a lovely little diascia had been stolen.
And then, in midafternoon, back to
Port of Ilwaco
where we worked for the rest of the day. I helped Allan get started on a big pruning job for Coho Charters and Motel by candling their curbside mugo pine.
I got bored and so tried to get into the spirit of author Leslie Buck and her great memoir about pruning, Cutting Back.
Allan sheared the pine by the building with the hedge shears instead of painstakingly hand clipping it (my suggestion).
Coho Charters owner Butch likes his shrubs squared off, not only the escallonias but the little variegated box in the curbside garden, which he likes flat topped like his grandfather’s haircut.
As you can tell, this curbside garden is not my design. I have convinced Butch to let me add a few things (Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ so far, and a heather, white, to match some other white heathers he has. I feel that any other colour would look wrong with the lava rock.)
I will say lava rock is easier to walk on than the river rock that three of the curbside beds have.
On the south side, the escallonia outside one of the guest rooms:
While Allan worked on that job, I started, at 5 PM, dragging hoses westward along the port to water as far as I could get till he was done. I did not even try to do the easternmost bed; it requires hooking up a series of hoses from down by the docks. It can wait till Thursday.
I skipped what used to the the Port Bistro restaurant (and is going to be a bakery/coffee shop one of these days) because their water is probably not on, nor have I met the new owners. My first watering was of the curbside garden north of David Jensen’s architecture office, newly moved from Long Beach to the port. No longer do I have to rely on the good nature of the Tuna Club to provide water for the garden that is next door to them; I can now hook up to what is now the Jensen building. (All last year, it was empty with the water turned off.) The hose that used to be attached to the faucet and that made it easy was gone so I had to walk around the building three times to get our hose dragged under a locked gate and back to the faucet. I think we have a ratty old hose we can leave there to make it easier next time.
Next, I dragged hose down to the Ilwaco pavilion, where I can reach half of the old Shorebank building (which is going to be a boutique hotel soon). I skipped the most wind protected area; I think it will be fine till next week.
The California wax myrtle that I asked the port crew to cut to the ground but not pull is finally leafing out.
I will be able to keep it pruned to a low, non-traffic-sightline-blocking mound. The missing shrubs were would-be full sized arbutus. I had finally rebelled at having to shear them so that they never flowered. Ridiculous plant choice for the spot.
I took a bucket of mixed trash and weeds to dump in one of the big port wheelie bins.
Because I was weeding (for the first time in awhile) while watering, I dragged my hoses for quite some distance past the one garden whose adjacent building owner won’t let me use their water. Which begs the question, how exactly did the powers that be think, when these gardens were installed in the late 90s, that they were going to be watered? WHYYYY was no faucet hook up installed in each one, like the Long Beach planters have? Why does the gardener have to be at the mercy of changes of mind or changes of ownership of adjacent businesses?) If I cannot water a garden, I find it soul crushing to weed among the thirsty plants…and I do not have time or strength to fill and haul buckets from another source. But I digress (inspired by annoyance).
Next, I hooked up to water at the port office.
That is as far as I got, with the east end, Salt Hotel, Skywater Gallery, and Freedom Market gardens still to water later this week. Allan came to get me at eight after finishing his big CoHo pruning job.
This was the first of a week of nine hour days.
Skooter greeting us at home:
Late last night, I was considerably perked up to see that Scott Weber of Rhone Street Gardens had posted this on Facebook.
Just what I needed to give me back some confidence after my agastache depression.
Cool! It’s always encouraging to see some public appreciation! Why is that called a “drive-over garden”?
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It’s between two driveways of charter fishing outfits and is tiny, so it sometimes gets driven over by big pick up trucks.
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Those cubed shrubs look like they are just in the way, as if someone just left their recycle bins out at the curb. The landscape would look better without anything at all. It is not compatible with the rest of the landscaping in the neighborhood.
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I do agree. Our is not to reason why. 😉
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Just accidentally run them down with the car. No one will mind.
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It’s good to get a well deserved pat on the back.
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