Saturday, 16 November 2019
Skooter’s new favourite spot is the bathroom counter.
Ilwaco Fire Station
I had two missions at our volunteer garden at the Ilwaco fire station (a block and a half from home). First, I mulched with bagged Harvest Supreme mulch mixed with chopped leaves that I brought from home.
before
I wish I had more mulch.
It is pricey and so I did not buy enough to go around the corners.
I then joined Allan in gathering a wealth of leaves from the parking lot.
Allan’s photo, before
after
I forgot to tell him to leave the leaves on the garden beds as they will be good for the soil.
However, many more will fall.
still to come
My rich bounty to take home:
at home
I spread the leaves out on the lawn next door and mowed them, heavy work because they were wet.
Allan carried some of the mower bags to the former kitchen compost bin, which is now a designated leaf mulch bin. What a fool I was to have given away one of my plastic compost bins, especially since it was to That Job I Quit. Darn it.
A large pile of clean debris has accumulated along the driveway, waiting to be shifted to the four pallet bins.
former kitchen compost bin almost full of leaves
Allan went off to a meeting 3 blocks west at the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum:
I would like to have seen the new short film about the nature reserve but could not tear myself away from three buckets of plant starts that I wanted to get potted up.
(I have seen the nature film now, because it has since gone up on youtube. You can watch it right here, birds and all.)
Home again after the meeting, Allan helped me cut some leycesteria for a high school project—not ours! A teacher friend asked us for help getting some hollow stemmed material so that a class can make some bee houses. Other than the leycesteria and some bamboo which I steeled myself to part with, I couldn’t come up with any more hard but hollow stemmed branches.
a pile for a project
Allan mowed our lawn. I kindly did not ask him to bag the alder leaves.
Allan’s photo
primrose (Allan’s photo)
Nicotiana sylvestris (Allan’s photo)
By the time I had gone in to read, I heard the hum of the pencil sharpener chipper-shredder as Allan chopped some thin willow branches that were not worth a test of the newly repaired Might Mac. I could not stir myself from my reading chair to have a look.
Allan’s photo
He told me he did not get the pile dealt with before dark so I imagine the Mighty Mac will emerge from its lair soon.
Skooter as I closed the curtains for an evening of reading:
Sunday, 17 November 2019
Just a tad bit more gardening work got done by Allan during a late afternoon break in the rain.
Ilwaco Community Building
A tatty salal got bottomed out…
…revealing a self-seeded wax myrtle.
The last clump of three Sanguisorba ‘Pink Elephant’ got clipped to the ground.
before
after
Despite the glimpse of blue sky, most of Sunday was reading weather, as you will see in tomorrow’s post.
I love all of the leaves. Yours are prettier than mine, not that it matters when it comes to leaf mould. Thanks for linking the video.–Informative and it gives hope that at least in some places, preserving nature still matters. I have 9 bags of mulched leaves from my neighbors waiting for me to do something with them.
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Nine precious bags! Delightful!
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Fallen leaves are gold for the garden. I have access to alpaca manure from a neighbor here too, and they make a nice mix.
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The only manure I can get is horse, which I find to be too weedy. I envy you your alpaca poop!
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That is a sweet little primrose poking up from the fallen leaves.
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Your leaf mowing exploits are admirable.
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Thanks, Mr T!
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Mulched and shredded leaves are so beneficial to the garden, hard to believe more people are not making use of them. Perhaps, too “messy” for some gardeners? Their loss.
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Yes, and I leave the ones that fall on garden beds, just scavenging them off pavement and lawns.
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I don’t mean to keep asking off topic questions, especially after such a delightful picture of Skooter, but do you happen to know what those evergreens at the fence on the edge of the parking lot at the fire station are? They look like they are just some sort of Chamaecyparis. If they were here, I would guess that they are a ‘Skyrocket’ juniper or something like it.
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I think they might be Ilex ‘Sky Pencil’ or some other columnar Ilex.
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Wow! I NEVER would have guessed that. Holly is even more interesting than ‘Skyrocket’ juniper.
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I really like Sky Pencil but most of mine died and I don’t know why. So now I use Euonymus….oh what is name …..Green Rocket?? Instead.
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I am not familiar with modern cultivars of Euonymus. I have not planted one in any years. I find them to be inferior to the old types, and the old types are not so great here. I really like hollies, but like the Euonymus, some of the modern cultivars are weak. I would grow them anyway, just to get acquainted with them, even if they don’t work out.
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