Monday, 23 July 2018
Long Beach
We watered, deadheaded, and otherwise tidied the street trees gardens and planters. The wind was annoying but not terribly cold…yet.
For those familiar with Long Beach, you will know where I mean when I say the two garden beds just south of Funland are not ours to care for. Funland just mulched them with these pine needles; both Allan and I found that interesting when we walked by it at different times.
Allan got done before me and pulled horsetail from the corner bed at Veterans Field, where he found a sign of the Friday Farmers Market:
I recently read that Brodiaea likes dry conditions and so am going to try it out at the port curbside gardens.
I wonder if after we finally retire from LB someday, will someone put in a more traditional red, white and blue garden?
I took photos of 17 of the 18 street tree gardens and am going to publish a reference post (just once, not every month) tomorrow morning. (There is a long, non-bloggable story of why just 17.)
Shelburne Hotel
We watered, including Allan checking on the upstairs balcony and deck pots.
The rose that got moved to the room 4 deck is going to flower. I hope it is a good one and not some old root stock. It is happy here.
I love working at the Shelburne. The garden makes me happy. Today was an intense session of thinning and editing, including pulling a sheaf of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ had appeared to have gladiolus rust and needed to depart the garden post haste, bagged. There is way too much Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ spread all around anyway, although I did not feel as much that way when it was in full bloom.

I debated in early spring about whether to prune or remove that ‘Helmond Pillar’ Barberry. Glad I pruned the pitiful branches and let it revive itself.
The garden got some breathing room by the pulling of running aster, mostly.
I keep cutting back the Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ so it won’t block the pub sign from the street view.
Ilwaco
When we left the sheltered Shelburne garden, we realized that a strong cold wind of at least 20 mph had kicked up. It was blasting fiercely along the boatyard garden, where I had to water. I felt tremendously sorry for myself, wearing a winter scarf in late July and so very cold.
I had no will to weed in the icy gale.
After watering and deadheading a few sweet peas, I just walked by the garden and on home.
Someone had picked more blue globe thistle right under one of the signs…
…and had pulled some out by the roots and just left it there.
Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ is looking brown instead of silver.
My walk home:
Behind the museum is the Discovery Garden, which is now maintained by the Pacific County Master Gardeners.
Our friend Bill Clearman helped to construct this memorial wall. I feel that these big planters distract from viewing its beauty.
As for the plans that the MGs have for this garden, you can read about their project here. I am not a Master Gardener so am not involved in this volunteer project. I admit to a prejudice against “native plant gardens”. It is a rare artificially created native landscape that doesn’t look just scruffy, in my opinion. It can be done, by the brilliant Leslie Buck, for one.
I hoped to see some of the feral cat colony (featuring many orange cats with quizzical faces) further down the block. They were all sheltered somewhere out of the wind.
Meanwhile, Allan had watered the Ilwaco street trees and planters with the water trailer, also not enjoyable I am sure (but at least it is a little bit in and out of the van and thus with breaks from the wind).
We did not plant gladiolas in any of the planters. Someone persists in planting them in the planters, and someone (else, I am sure) persists in picking them pretty much every year when they are at their best.
I told Allan later to just pull out the foliage and corm when that happens.
I texted him when I got home; he had just started hose watering our volunteer gardens at the fire station and the post office. A nine hour day for me and longer for him.
Who put the industrial-size planters by that lovely wall?? Ugh. Even I can see there are better ways to put plants in that area.
At least we blog readers can scroll back to look at the stunning garden at the Shelburne to ease the pain.
btw birds do feel cold and thus have more feathers during winter. They stand on one leg to keep themselves even warmer, so the little guy you show seems to be OK.
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There are some pretty interesting conversations out there about what constitutes a native plant. Garden Rant has a recent one, for anyone interested.
There is a certain subset that seems to believe, that only tatty looking plants can be chosen for a native plant garden. And of course, in an ironic twist, many of the chosen ” natives” don’t seem to thrive in their re-created native plantings under native conditions. Go figure.
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Horses outside of a market known as ‘Scoopers’ looks funny.
Your phlox looks pretty sweet. I just wrote about it for Tuesday. When it came up in the landscape, we were all baffled. It is uncommon here. I knew it was familiar, but could not remember why. My colleague believes that the seed came in with fertilizer provided by horses who probably ate phlox from a garden where they live.
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