Tuesday, 2 October 2018
I had hoped for another reading day. Sunny weather sent us out to work, thwarting my desire to spend a day reading Marion Cran.
Long Beach
Writing up the September planter reference post over the weekend had filled me with desire to clip back the tatty looking Geranium ‘Rozanne’. Like this one:
I did not get an after, but I did get a photo of the Salvia leucantha:
And the smoke shop:
Not every Rozanne needed clipping, just maybe half of them. Probably depends on how much wind each planter gets.
Meanwhile, Allan had been digging the big old lavender out of the planter we redid last week. It had looked just awful in the planter reference post:
We did a bit of clipping and deadheading in Fifth Street Park. It is looking at its best now—after the tourists have mostly gone home.
I divided that aster from the boatyard; I wish I could remember its name. The tall asters are the ones I like, and I must collect more.
Each street corner had a supposed dwarf pine, chosen by the same landscape architect. This side it is indeed dwarf, and the other side is huge!
We saw Scott and Tony walking Bailey and Rudy through town, two more dogs to pet.
It was past time to dig the dangity blang non blooming cosmos out of the welcome sign—AND the one that was blooming, because it could not stay there all by itself.
We saw a big frog, a medium frog, and a little baby frog.
I am sure they had a bad day, with their shelter being almost all removed.
Well. That was my worst failure of a garden bed in long time. I picked Cosmos ‘Sensation’, even though I knew it gets tall, because I thought the Geranium ‘Rozanne’ would grow vigorously and swamp a shorter cosmos. So the cosmos was too tall for the sign. Even where I did not have to clip it, it did not bloom, perhaps because the conditions there are too lush. It is one of the few gardens that has an irrigation system. I hope that next year will be better.
I kept the non weedy debris for my compost bins. The cosmos root balls would get dumped at city works because they have horsetail in them. On the way, we did some clean up at city hall.
I noticed that the baskets were down!
I am happy to say I snagged all four baskets (minus the basket) out of the debris pile when we went to dump.
On the way home, we pulled Gladiolus papilio out of one last planter.
We got home in time to deal with the vast amount of compost.
We had found one dramatically fasciated cosmos:
It was not till a few days later that I read that fasciation may be caused by a virus and such material should not be composted. Oh well. I LIKE fasciated stems.
I enjoy fall clean up and composted and petting dogs, so this was a good work day.
Nice work cleaning up the planters! Fifth Street Park looks beautiful. I love the tall purple asters, too. I have one blooming in my garden. Thanks for the information on fasciation–I will have to watch for that!
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There’s a Facebook group called Fasciation Fascination!
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Poor frogs.
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Since the cosmos did not flower or set seed, I wonder if they would have overwintered and flowered the following year?
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This was a good day. Scoring the baskets, compost, little fuzz faces, and decent weather!
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Yes it was!
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