Wednesday, 14 November 2018
We had an errand before work that took us near a former job of ours, so we took ourselves on a brief tour of
Discovery Heights,
a series of entry gardens that we planted and maintained from 2005 through…I can’t quite recall when we stopped gardening there. As these photos show, the job entails a lot of climbing up onto raised, boulder-edged beds, something that became difficult as my knee got worse. The garden is now in the capable hands of Terran Bruinier of BeeKissed Gardening.
The middle garden:
All montbretia in the gardens were brought in with the soil (not my choice of soil, not sure where it came from).
When we first began this job, I asked if the community was going to be gated and was told no. I have a preference of not working in gated neighbourhoods, but I was fully invested in the job when the gate went in.
Driving back down the hill to where the Discovery Heights entry road intersects with the 100 Loop road that goes to Cape Disappointment State Park:
I regretted having planted the escallonias at the front of the top tier. Terran’s solution to their height works.
It is pleasing to see the garden full grown. The first flat terrace was always a problem because of such heavy clay and a break in the irrigation line. My camera failed to get a driveby of the back of the garden where some rhododendrons, once quite small from the Clarke Nursery going out of business one gallon sale, are now full sized.
We went on to work at
Mike’s garden.
Our task was the last of the fall tidying, along with pruning an Escallonia iveyi that was hanging out into the sidewalk area…or the area where a sidewalk would be if there were one.
My preference with escallonia is to have them thick and shrublike all the way to the ground, so that it looks like this (same escallonia, this past July).
However, it was now growing well over the property line and Mike wanted it pruned. Cutting it back to the line revealed a tree like rather than shrub like form. I had to work with that, and also had to reduce the height, because that is what people generally want when they ask for a shrub to be pruned. Given what we had to do, here are the befores and afters:
The lilac to the left is going to be completely removed…by someone else…because it is pestering a sewer line.
It is rather shocking how much had to be cut to get it back behind the railroad tie edge. At least I managed to save a layer of foliage that will give privacy for the deck.
Poor thing! It should fill out again quickly next year. It is now possible to easily walk the path behind it, also, which was party blocked before the pruning. If it had to be done, I would rather it be done by me that someone else who might have just leveled it off halfway down and left nothing but shrubs.
We left Mike’s and turned our attention to the
Ilwaco planters and street tree gardens.
I was not sure if we would get through them all. Rain was predicted. The sky was so dark for awhile that it felt more like dusk than midday.
The city crew (a much smaller crew than that of Long Beach) was installing the cords for the lighted crab pot holiday decorations.
Allan made quick work under the trees with The Toy (our new Stihl rechargeable trimmer).
That darn invasive pea under one tree has swamped all the “winter interest” plants, as have the BadAsters in the other tree garden pictured above.
Here is a before with no after…
I got distracted from taking an after photo by my thoughts about the post office garden. I’d been asked by the crew if a crab pot could go IN the garden and had said yes, if they would just avoid tramping around with their boots. I suddenly decided we had better go to the post office and make some clear space.
We had pulled all the cosmos. The Toy worked a treat trimming the Stipa gigantea (the tall airy grass in the center).
Back to the planters, I left a few of the healthier nasturtiums just out of curiosity about how long they will last.
We are said to be due for an extra mild “El Nino’ winter.
That rosemary is in one of the two planters on Spruce Street, out of the First Avenue wind tunnel that damages the ones I have tried there.
With the planters done, Allan went to dump the debris while I used The Toy at the Norwood garden, two doors down from ours.
The Toy made what would have been tedious clipping into a less than five minute shear!
We just had time before dark to check up on and pull some montbretia out of the J’s back garden, leading to some happy erasure on the work board.
I am hoping for semi-staycation to begin in two days. I am calling it semi this year because we cannot completely neglect the Shelburne and Long Beach for two and a half months. Post frost clean up—if we get frost—will be necessary in a few locations.
I had a nice cuppa tea at home. Only one Builders tea bag remains and I am saving it…
As we watched an amusing show on telly, I was astonished by a city street scene. I had to hit pause in amazement.
Look at that overhead tram, and all the traffic, and bridges. I reflected on my 38 years of city life in Seattle and on how much quieter my last quarter century has been here at the beach.
So soothing to scroll through these photos of the plants . . . still green! no snow! Then I see the NY streets on your TV and think, yes, at least I am safe from traffic here where I live. It might not be green and lush, but it’s quiet.
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I love quiet. Ilwaco is pretty bustling with the fish processing plant but the pace of life is soothing. A traffic jam is three cars at the grocery store turn or a sightseer driving slowly.
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Your last comment about Seattle life compared to life here spoke to me. Although we did not live in Portland we did go there often. Now it and all of its surrounding areas are so congested and noisy. We visit and are very happy to come home to this quiet place.
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I’m happy to just be here. 🙂
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GREAT POST! Fall clean-up is keeping you very busy!
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Thank you!
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We watched a very interesting programme on a factory that makes millions of tea bags last night. The process is amazing.. .
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Fascinating!
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Why the preference to not work in gated neighborhoods? My former neighborhood happens to be gated. It was a great neighborhood for me, but the gates seemed to attract the sort who were not such great neighbors.
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Where we live, there is already a huge class divide. It just seems to me too much about the haves and have nots here and made me uncomfortable. It wouldn’t be so striking in a more populated area.
A few years back, Long Beach WA had the biggest economic divide between rich and poor of any city in WA. Ocean Park was fourth. Pacific County is one of the poorest in the state.
I decided to focus on jobs that everyone can enjoy, public gardens and resorts with viewable gardens, and quit or turned down all jobs that benefit only private gardens owned by moneyed people. Makes me feel better as a working class person myself.
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There are neighborhoods like that here as well. I do not think that I could avoid working in such neighborhoods though (when I am doing that sort of work). It is too much of what I do. Such neighborhood have the biggest and most problematic trees.
One advantage of Santa Cruz County that happens to make it quite different from Santa Clara County, is that those with less do not perceive their respective situations as lacking. I mean, many live simple lifestyles by choice, and do not crave what those with more have. It is probably healthier that way. I would like more than what I have, and I know that is not healthy.
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I was just reminded that my mom lived in a gated community that became sort of a hotbed of crime and drugs in a rural kind of way. Near Yelm.
For some reason I’ve pretty much remained content with a small life. It would be nice to live in a beautiful quirky house instead of an old double wide but if this lot had had such a house, I would not have been able to afford it.
On the rare occasion someone upscale invites us to a party and even more rarely if we go, it’s awkward when folks talk about their big spending, remodels, trips to Europe, etc, and then look to us for our news. Um I bought some cool plants. Silence. 😀
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My hometown happens to be one of those towns that is portrayed as being for the rich and famous. (Other communities here are actually wealthier, but we are those who want everyone else to know about it.) I happen to be a member of the local Beautification Committee, where we sometimes talk about those who are not keeping their properties up to ‘our’ standards. It can be awkward at times. I have always lived very meagerly, like a few people used to live here when I was a kid. My last home (in the gated community) did not have electricity. I was quite pleased with it. What do you suppose those who read my gardening column in the Canyon News of Beverly Hills would think? There is more scandal than what I want to write here. . . . . Someday, I will write more about it. I am considering another blog.
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