Tuesday, 21 May 2019
I was determined to get all of the port gardens weeded in preparation for the three day Memorial Day weekend. My goal was to get Thursday off to prepare for our plant and garage sale. (The amount of work involved has been mind boggling. At this point, I expect to make negative twenty dollars an hour for my time).
I was thankful that we had had this much rain overnight…
…meaning that I only had to water in the greenhouse.
We started with weeding the Norwood garden, two doors down.
The shade garden is maturing.
Then on we went to the boatyard garden, where we weeded from one end to the other, mostly pulling big horsetail in the north stretch of the garden and little scrimmy horsetail in the south end, and bindweed and creeping buttercup and sorrel along the whole length. I managed to find room for five six packs of cosmos.
We took a half hour break to go home during a rain and wind squall, even though tonight we would be watching crab fishermen working on deck in a winter storm in Deadliest Catch.
Allan’s boatyard photos:
Boats were coming and going during the three hours of weeding.
With the boatyard garden good enough to pass most people’s inspection, we worked our way along the Howerton Avenue gardens (not in perfect order).
I love this orange helianthemum, just wish it bloomed for longer.
I wonder if it would rebloom if I cut it back after its first big flush?
The California poppies have not all gone to orange.
The cosmos I planted last week are doing fine.
(We only care for the gardens on the street side of the sidewalk…except for Time Enough Books and CoHo Charters…and the Freedom Market, sort of.)
I planted an Eryngium ‘Jade Frost’ (in the CoHo Charters lava rock) that is already reverting to green.
Allan did the lava rock weeding….
Not our landscape, as you can tell, although I keep encouraging California poppies to encroach…
I don’t think dead weeds hit with weed killer look better than live weeds.
With new mulch and removal of some river rock, I finally have poppies blooming in the Time Enough Books garden!
What is this mystery plant?
We have not eaten at the pub for ages. It is usually closed on the midweek days we want to go out to eat. And we are going out to eat much less often because we are trying to economize toward retirement.
The gardens were not quite as perfect, especially at the west end, as they would be if I were not more focused on my own time needs this week.
At home, I wanted to get the west side driveway beds all weeded. I have befores but no afters because I worked till dusk and still did not get done.
It’s gotten so weedy again, seems like so recently I had it looking good.
Trust me, those beds look good again, but I did not make it through the last big bed.
And I must finish it before yard sale set up begins on Thursday at both our place and Nora’s, so I’ll do it tomorrow before work!
Yeah, best not to calculate all your time when it comes to plant sales! If every garden club didn’t have volunteer labour….
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wow! so much hard work…and it all looks so beautiful! that is a LOT of weeding!!
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Thank you!
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Well done all round. Things look good.
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Thanks, Mr T!
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The tall spikes on the plant you questioned may be some kind of Yucca??
Could you tell me the cultivar of the dark purple/black aquilegia that is in the photo below the plant you questioned? It is beautiful. Black Barlow? Mine is not as dark.
Also, thanks SO much for mentioning The Irvington Diaries. Am reading it now. Great book👏 I miss your book posts….hope you do more. I understand you are a “little” busy now. Thanks for all your work and posts.
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Did I reply to this? I thought I did. It is a self seeded aquilegia. But it sure looks like Black Barlow. I am thrilled you like Ivington Diaries. There are two books, maybe three by now, I want to blog about when time allows.
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Nice work, Skyler! All the gardens are looking wonderful. The Port island beds are looking especially pretty. All your hard work will pay off for the plant sale. Visitors will enjoy touring your garden, learning about plants and getting inspired to be creative in their own gardens.
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Thanks! It was an excellent four days.
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