Wednesday, 20 February 2019
While Allan pruned the Shelburne Hotel wisteria (see yesterday’s post), I did some garden clipping and tidying before helping to load the debris.
Before:
After:
I was happy to see the beginning of the spring bulb display.
With the wisteria debris loaded into the trailer and the trailer parked at home, we joined Our Kathleen for burger night at The Depot Restaurant.
We had a good long talk and, just as in My Dinner With Andre, we looked around when the kitchen lights went off to realize that we were the only diners left and that the staff was tidying up.
Thursday, 21 February 2019
Our small Pond was lightly iced over.
I noticed that next door, Nora’s patch of snowdrops is blooming by her garage.
After a dump run with yesterday’s wisteria clippings, I decided that the remaining pile of wisteria at The Shelburne, along with what we would clip today, would not be enough to fill the trailer for a second dump run. In order to save our clients money by combining a load, I resolved to collect some more debris first.
Long Beach
We visited City Works to ask the crew for a pile of Soil Energy mulch and picked up a bucket of gravel for a low edge on the Heron Pond garden.
The area we weeded earlier is level with the sidewalk now but needs some river rock (of which there is a bin at City Works) to dress it up.
We could have dumped today’s LB debris at City Works…but It would save time to just include it with the dump load.
We spring cleaned the corner garden at Veterans Field…
….and clipped and weeded the little popouts.
I walked over to the main street to check on a planter that I had been told had been recently dug in (plumbing problems). The damage was minor. To my distress, I saw on a different planter that someone had picked every single flower, the crocuses and irises and early narcissi, and shredded them into a pile left on the edge.
WHY?????
I carried the petals back to show Allan. I had resolved to not get so upset about finger blight this year and have already failed in my resolution.
The Depot Restaurant
We trimmed the ornamental grasses on the south and east side of the dining deck. That doesn’t mean we can erase The Depot from the work list, as the north side garden is still untouched.
The Toy, which made short work of the lighter grasses, is not strong enough to go through the giant Miscanthus, whose stems are like bamboo.
The Shelburne Hotel
While Allan finished the wisteria pruning and made the second dump run, I did more general spring clean up of the garden. (I wish I had a before and after of the excellent pruning of an old woody hydrangea that I accomplished there yesterday.)
Anyone who has a lot of sword ferns to clip should buy themselves The Toy. It is available at Clatsop Power in Astoria and is saving us a substantial amount of time.
It also worked wonders on zipping through the epimedium. You can trim epimedium to the ground now so that the new flowers show off. I just thinned it here to avoid a bare effect.
In the garden:
We worked on wisteria clipping and clean up till dusk and then rewarded ourselves with dinner in the pub.
Brian O’Conner performs there most Thursdays. His deep and resonant voice makes any song emotionally moving. I resolved to try to dine there most Thursdays this year. That may be a resolution I can keep.
He plays in the parlor, which is adjacent to the pub and also has pub dining.
My favourite, chopped salad with Mary’s fried chicken
So much in bloom considering the recent colder than usual winter. Your gardens held up beautifully.
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The apple cobbler . . . yum! Love the little crocus and snowdrops. We have a “toy” trimmer, too. I will have to try it on the ferns. I have been hand clipping to avoid cutting the smaller new fronds.
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You’ve gotta do it really early while the fronds are closed knuckles.
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Actually, my trimmer is a bigger one by Kobalt (battery operated) with a much longer blade (more powerful–might be able to cut the tall ornamental grasses?). Today I was at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show. Stihl had the smaller model HSA25 trimmer at their booth, so I bought one! I am guessing that is the one you have. Thanks for sharing your success with it! I can’t wait to try it out on my ferns and perennials.
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Yours sounds very useful indeed. Maybe we should get one. With the little one, we needed two or we would be fighting over it.
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Hi Skyler, I finally had a warm enough day without snow to try out my new Stihl HSA25 trimmer. I trimmed 10 large sword ferns in under 10 minutes. That was so fun I did some more trimming throughout the garden. The light weight of the tool makes it so easy to carry.
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It is so fun to use and saves so much time!
Plus if you zip back and forth you can fell the plant in compostable or chop and drop pieces. Hmm must remember to point that out on blog.
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I love your boat garden. You have done a great job building it.
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Still plenty to do then.
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Always!
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Is that third picture a crocus? Others have been sharing pictures of crocus. I no longer grow any.
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yes, crocus tommasinianus. Why no more crocuses for you?
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None of the ‘common’ crocus that I have grown naturalize here, and even as annuals, they are not very impressive. I would think that ‘ready-to-go’ bulbs would at least bloom well in their first year, and then realize later that they dislike the mild chaparral climate. However, after seeing so many pictures of the not so extensively bred crocus that are more like basic specie, such as Crocus tommasinianus, I am wondering if they might be more tolerant of the mild winters and dry summers here. I tried a saffron crocus that did very well just before I left that garden. I would like to grow it again, even if I do not know what it is. I do not think that it was labeled correctly, since it bloomed in spring like other crocus should. For the moment, I am not too concerned about it, since I have no place to put crocus where they would fit in properly. I think the are pretty sweet for confined gardens in suburban settings.
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