Thursday, 9 May 2019
We had planned to plant in the Long Beach planters all day, but we were thwarted by heat.
They call this warm? It was a blazing inferno.
I received five tubers of Canna ‘Stuttgart’ from Home Depot, much bigger than the tiny one I got from Brent and Becky’s.
I wasn’t sure if three of the five had eyes, or buds. In the heat, I planted them in three pots that went into the water boxes and the boat. That was all the weather I wanted to experience, even though I was worried about the Long Beach planters. The plants for Long Beach spent the day by the garage door. I spent the day till late afternoon churning out the previous three blog posts.
Long Beach ladies in waiting:
Just before four, Allan watered the Norwood garden…
…where alliums were just opening up.
Dutch iris had already spent some of its bloom.
Across the street, he watered the Js as well.
Dutch iris in bud:
Even the valerian was feeling the heat.
Roses in the Js back yard, and the new rose:
Meanwhile, I had been watering all my potted plants. I’d planned to do so at end of day but they were hinting at distress.
Skooter seemed to not mind the heat.
We went out to water in Ilwaco between four thirty and eight. I planted a few plants at the port office.
The tulips in the Time Enough Books boat still look so good that Karla’s new Firecracker fuchsias got an outing to the port and back home but did not get planted yet.
I watered along the port, dragging the hose from garden to garden.
…has a mystery plant whose name does not spring to mind.
Karla was leaving work and she did not plant it. She will start giving the garden supplemental water, which will be so helpful. When I dragged the hose past the Marie Powell Gallery, Mr. Marie (Randy) told me that he had watered the curbside garden this morning, so I was able to keep dragging hose eastward.
Dragging hose is heavy work. I don’t want one of those little collapsible hoses for this job, though. The port office just got one and it has lower water pressure and whips around like a snake if you set it down while the water is on. I often set my hose down to soak an area while I pull weeds.
It feels like a long slog around the Jensen building to get to the faucet… First, across the parking lot…
…around the building and up this passage to the faucet, having stuck the hose end under the nailed shut gate…
…and all the way back around; this view is the reward.
Meanwhile, Allan filled buckets at the boatyard…
…next to a shiny blue boat.
He was pleased to see that the planter at Peninsula Sanitation had been watered.
How sad I am that the bad aster and the wild sweet pea have taken over two of the street tree squares.
How very dull.
Allan watered the fire station…
….and the post office.
He found me at the port where I hope he was impressed that I had made it all the way from Time Enough Books to the Jensen Architecture office, including planting a few plants at the port office.
We drove to the boatyard, where I watered the garden…
…while he watered the two westernmost beds at the port.
Boatyard garden already has so very much horsetail coming back.
Because I mostly water from the inside of the fence, I cannot weed the garden while watering.
The horsetail wants to be the star, just as it is on the inside of the fence.
I sorrowed to see the middle hose running up into a boat so that I could not get at it.
I had had enough of hose dragging. I thought glumly about the heavy hose at the other end of the fence. I found one of those soft hoses further along…
…and thought I could easily drag that to an empty faucet. But after I had hooked it up and watered the north end, I simply could not unhook it again. By the time Allan came back from his west end watering, I was still stymied. He finished watering with our hose while I got to pull some horsetail at last.
I hope these difficulties were not a portent for watering season. Last year, I was fortunate in having excellent hose luck at the boatyard with all the hoses almost always hooked up and available.
While I went home, Allan zipped up to the Depot Restaurant to make sure the newly planted barrel had not wilted.
It had not.
The work board tonight:
Tomorrow, we must plant in Long Beach whatever the weather.
Yoiks! 85 should read “wilting”! Good job done despite the heat of day!
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Thank you!
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Yes, it was too hot! So happy it is cooler and raining here today. Watering with hoses is quite a chore. The gardens are looking nice, though. Skooter is looking cute on the boat!
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It was hot! My willow started a large drop of spring leaves. It looked like fall. And until today, 21 days without rain. Bah!
Love the look of your canoe pond getting further swamped by plants in the garden. It will be a great visual discovery as you walk along the garden paths beside it.
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Thank you. I hope you got rain by now.
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I liked the view at the end of the narrow passage but it was a long way to go to get it.
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How funny to read about the heat now. It was very pleasant here for about a month, but then got cold and rainy. It was hard on the trees that were just foliating. A small will out in the landscapes fell, and a big box elder here fell this morning.
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It seemed like it was going to stay hot all month but, of course, it changed.
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Yes! All the way down to Southern California!
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PS sorry to hear about your trees.
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Thank you, but they were no problem. Coincidentally, I was on my way out to work on the willows when I found the fallen one. I probably would have cut it down anyway. The box elder fell at a good time, when no one else was here.
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