Saturday, 16 March 2019
Before work, Allan helped me plant my new stachyurus.
To the right is a Dan Hinkley selection of a different stachyurus, a willow leafed form, whose flowers do not show off as well.
I moved a young Descaisnea fargessii into a sunnier back garden spot to make room. If it plotzes, it will not be too terribly hard to find a mail order replacement, and it has not liked this spot.
Here is my gorgeous Descaisnea from my old garden:
It had blue beans, thus its common name. the blue bean shrub. From this blog years ago, the photos below also show another shrub that I want to regain in my now not to new garden.
Frosty wanted me to stay home.
And I wanted to stay home with him.
On the way to work, we toured the annual Peninsula Quilt Guild Show at the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum just three and a bit blocks east. That will be our next post, which may or may not be tomorrow morning…or the next day.
We stopped off for a book exchange at the library, where we admired the garden (a project that is mostly Allan’s). I reflected that our Stihl electric shears would finally make it possible to trim the heathers, the main feature of the garden (which we did not design; we have just managed to squeeze some other plants in amongst the heather and salal).
The entry garden from the corridor windows:
The Master Gardeners were setting up for a seminar in the community room.
It looked like a plant giveaway was part of the event, but work called on this pleasantly warm spring-like day.
Long Beach
When we arrived at the north parking lot berm, I suddenly felt so incredibly sore that I had to take the magic combo of advil and tylenol.
I felt that The Toy (we each have one to wield) considerably speeding up the first clean up and trimming of the north parking lot “berm”. (The three so called berms are barely raised, thus not really berms, but they have had that name since they were installed by the city almost two decades ago).
Someone had dropped a treasure trove for my compost bins:
Allan found an egg:
Allan took one side of the berm and I took the other.
This is not a job where we have time to strive for complete perfection.
Not one but two big trucks came and parked on our debris. The first one’s driver heard my muttering even though I was yards away and cheerfully moved the truck back when I said that it was preventing us from cleaning up. She laughed (in a friendly way) when I said, “Don’t write about the crazy gardener on TripAdvisor!” The second huge raised big tire truck drove onto some debris while I was raking it off the pavement. I held up my hand and walked forward, making it back up, while the young driver looked like he just did not understand why.
My mind boggled. I also must be careful of my muttering during tourist season. Next time, we will set up a cone or a line of buckets to define our work area.
After, trimmed but not yet completely picked up:
Between the two truck incidents, I got a message from a friend that teenagers were picking daffodils in Fifth Street Park. (They got yelled at to stop by said friend.) Also that day, a friend’s own planter by her business suffered from a child picking the flowers while a mother indulgently observed and said, “Thank you”. Friend’s mind also boggled.
The Toy made easier work of trimming small branches back from over the pavement.
Tomorrow, Saint Patrick’s Day (Sunday), is my birthday. My wish was to get one section of the beach approach weeded; that dreaded job (that takes at least ten days) is hanging over my head like the axe of doom. However, I’ve decided the other berms would be wiser because, with such nice weather, a Sunday on the beach approach might have a great deal of vehicular traffic. My nerves are being worked hard by the picking of flowers and parking on debris so I had better work somewhere other than by a busy road tomorrow. Maybe getting older is making me more crotchety. As a rule, when my gardens are not being damaged, I LOVE tourists; I remember being one.
Sending you Happy (belated) Birthday wishes! 🙂🎂🎉
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Sending you Happy (belated) Birthday wishes! 🎉🎂🙂
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Thank you!
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Belated birthday wishes! I hope the day was as beautiful there for you as it was in Astoria, and that your workload allowed for at least a small celebration.
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Thank you!
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Happy birthday in retrospect. The world is full of other people and I notice this more as I get older.
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So true, and I have to remember each one of them has a little life that is as important as mine.
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Happy Birthday Week, Skyler! Hope you have a wonderful year ahead. Sorry about the trucks and the flower pickers. Some people are just clueless–must be so frustrating. I love all the spring flowers in your photos. The satellite view is helpful. Thank you!
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