24 June: not quite a day off

But first, a real time announcement.

I’m having another little plant sale of the leftovers. Nothing terribly special or cutting edge except the cool olearia that no one seems to want! Most of them I have only a few of. It will be Friday, July 2, 10-4, very faint possibility of Saturday too, depending on how Friday goes. I hope to set it up in the front driveway because, well, I feel the Fourth of July doesn’t draw all the sort of people I’d like in my garden. Here’s the reason I am having it. A friend is having her excellent annual sale two doors down, the one she usually has on Memorial Day weekend, so we are kind of riding on her coattails. Here’s her ad; it will be fabulous.

Garage sale Friday, July 2 and Saturday July 3
From 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Corner Lake and Advent, Ilwaco
Thursday July 1 is by appointment only
call Janell at 503-970-8664
Masks required.
Antique, Vintage, Collectible. We ‘ve got it.
Private collection of vintage & antique books, most are 1st ed.
Vintage linens. Quilting books & fabric.
2 Cuisine Arts
Have a safe & fun 4th of July!

So check that out and then come see us. Here’s my plant list…and here’s an odd combo of items: Allan will be selling some of his collection of motorcycle magazines! He says a dime each but he might be joking.

The garden will be open for people who let me know they saw this announcement. You know I have face blindness so might not recognize you! It’s pretty unkempt because it has been way too hot to weed! Now back to the narrative flow:

Thursday, 24 June 2021

at home

This was the day I’d hoped we could plant Susie’s garden. But we heard the mulch would be spread today, so we can plant tomorrow. I prefer my days off to be in a block of at least three, though. It’s not as peaceful to have just one or, in this case, part of one.

I didn’t intend to tackle the driveway bed, but I did. Because it was so spontaneous, there is no photo of what it looked like before I removed some spent Cerinthe and a lot of weed grass and sorrel.

I was thrilled to find that I do have my favorite Dianthus, Charles Musgrave, from cuttings off of one I had in a Long Beach planter.

Allan wasn’t the only one to notice the callistemon by the driveway.

I cut back some Melianthus major inside the front fence…

…down to fresh new growth.

The remaining tall stems could use some deadheading or maybe cutting down, as well.

To be chopped later.

Port of Ilwaco

In the evening, we had to go water as I had heard back from the Powell Gallery that they would rather we do the watering. I was ecstatic in that it means we will be able to favor the plants that we know are new and need the most attention; I just wished I’d known earlier so we could have done the watering last night. To sweeten losing part of a day off, I took the opportunity to give the plants some fish fertilizer, which I normally feel too rushed to do.

The most challenging curbside garden with the worst soil, almost like concrete and then pure sand.

The plants are happier since we manage to work in a bit of mulch last year.

The other side of this cistus looks beautiful!

I checked on the port office south wall garden.

Rose campion and alliums

Back home

I got to see my good friends, Cotah and Bentley.

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The promise of courgettes

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Gladiolus cardinalis

Iris ‘Black Gamecock’

Woodland poppy from Jane still blooming

At last we had an evening with low enough wind that we could have a campfire dinner.

A big piece had fallen out of the danger tree snag.

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Like a gift to our campfire.

Sambucus ‘Black Lace’

As I enjoyed looking at the garden, I had a revelation. I think most people with elegant, heavy lawn furniture also have people who mow their lawns for them. I certainly remember moving a lot of heavy outdoor furniture when I used to mow for money.

Secondhand, comfy, easy to move

Skooter joined us after awhile.

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He has been coming in at night lately. We phased him off of the Prozac because he was so mad at us for daring to rub a dab in his ear once a day that he would not even allow himself to be petted without growling. So he wins another battle.

That will be the last campfire dinner for awhile, as no rain is in the forecast and we are expecting some hot weather. Not as hot as Seattle and Portland, which are both expecting temperatures up to 110 degrees. It boggles the mind.

If we are driven out of our house by deafening neighborhood fireworks on July 4, as we were last year, we might allow ourselves the tiniest of campfires with only a small pile of dry wood.

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23 June, part two: jobs near home

Wednesday, 23 June 2021

We drove home from our jobs outside Ilwaco, first stopping by the boatyard to ask if there were any changes to the water valves since last year. Nope, all the same.

Mike’s garden

UI weeded and trimmed while Allan moved a paver path out a bit so it more easily skirts a patch of linaria (toadflax) next to the house, on the north side that I have to think about because the garden needs more structure since some big shrubs (a lilac and white escallonia) were removed.

That part of the garden has some good plants, like the Allium christophii, above, and the penstemon, below.

I’m pleased that the boxwood along the front path has finally knit together. It could be sheared now, maybe next time.

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Ilwaco boatyard garden

Now that watering season has truly begun, we will be back to working some evenings at the port, dividing the watering into at least two sessions. Tonight was the boatyard.

I watered the shorter south end from the inside of the fence (above) and then started weeding. Allan hooked up three hoses and was able to do all of the garden north of the gate from the sidewalk side, which meant he could weed, too, as he went along.

The annoying patch of orange montbretia

Horsetail

A passerby asked, as people often do, if it was a wildflower garden. (Or else people comment, or write on local social media, about the “wildflower garden at the boatyard”.) It is not a wildflower garden but a carefully chosen selection of perennials, most of which I propagated because of budget limitations. It’s filled in with reseeding and perennialized California poppies and annual red poppies.

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

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Red penstemon

Stipa gigantea

Allan’s blue shirt matches the blue ceanothus as he pulls bindweed and waters.

Blue lupine before deadheading

Baptisia still going strong

Echinops (blue globe thistle)

The deer are eating Geranium ‘Rozanne’

Halmiocistus wintonensis

Ilwaco Fire Station

….was next, where I weeded and deadheaded three Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’…

….while Allan watered all four sides of our volunteer garden.

Double Shasta daisy originally from the former garden of Jo Fitzsimmons

Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’

J Crew Cottage

….was our last brief garden check up of the day, across the street from home.

The last thing during watering season is always watering all the container and the greenhouse plants at home.

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23 June, part one: jobs away from home

Wednesday, 23 June 2021

We did our “north” rounds, which are no longer very far north at all.

Susie’s garden

We dropped off a potted plant I’d been babysitting for Susie and had a visit with Bill, partly talking about the retaining wall that they are going to build along the west edge.

The mulch has still not been spread, so we couldn’t plant today. Lesson learned about delegating to another business. On the other hand, it’s good to not have to wheelbarrow yards of mulch.

The Depot Restaurant

….got a quick check up but not a deep weeding because the sprinklers were on.

South side of dining deck

north side of dining deck

North side planters by Roxanne of the Basket Case Greenhouse

Patti’s garden

Stella got a biscuit.

Patti got a passionflower vine because I’ve been worried that her morning glory seeds (three kinds of blue) have not germinated. Fortunately, I found a few more seedlings so I hope she will get at least one of each variety.

Sweet pea success

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Supervisor

Basket Case Greenhouse

We stopped by even though the greenhouse is closed today…

…to give Roxanne a pair of shoes that no longer fit me. Our reward was to meet the darling Princess Peach.

The Red Barn

Cosmo received and sent messages to Skooter.

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We weeded and watered.

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Supervisor

I remembered how I loved a teeter totter.

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Diane’s garden

We weeded along the roadside garden. It is looking more floriferous now.

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While Allan was working along the road.

The gravel area in front of the septic vault, where I had very vaguely tried to get some flowers growing, had apparently been hit with round up, so that’s the end of that ineffectual attempt. I don’t think sprayed dead plants look better than green plants. Oh, well.

The vault garden itself is looking good.

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After Diane’s, we did another half day in Ilwaco. That’s enough for one post, the rest can wait for part two.

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22 June: pruning and watering at the port

Tuesday, 22 June 2021

Port of Ilwaco

My task today was to prune a low, arching ceanothus. I didn’t plant it and don’t know what kind, but it must be a readily available cultivar. The pruning was for three reasons: It needed to be kept back from the sidewalk, and the street curb, and it has to be lowered so that it wouldn’t block the view of the Time Enough Books sign from low-slung vehicles. There is another one down by David Jensen’s office that will need the same treatment at some point, but it’s not blocking any signage…yet.

It hadn’t been done for two years and had a lot of dead branches inside. Limbing up seemed necessary to get the sideways growth back into bounds, which led to some unsightly gaps…but not too many…and revealed a pink spirea that had been half hidden, and some perennials that had long disappeared under the ceanothus, reminding me it did not used to be so large. The job took a long time and I wasn’t entirely happy about the results, even though the more open sparse look is pleasing to many people.

Befores and afters:

My least favorite result because of much overhang before. Will deadtwig it some more next week.

This bird kept chirping at me, so I was extra careful. I found no nests or fledglings.

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After

Fortunately, in a public garden there is no one (but me) to weep over a pruning job. I and other gardeners trade stories of weeping clients who later are impressed at how well the pruning turns out. Ok, one weeping client, who always came around later to see that what we had done was good.

MaryBeth stopped for a chat on her way into Time Enough Books and gave us an interesting snack: a small and decorate tube of chocolate lentils. Mary and Denny, former favorite gardening clients of Klipsan Beach Cottages, who now live the retired life in Naselle, drove by. We had a little visit.

When they suggested meeting for a meal, I said we’d love to, but after watering season is over. We are still following Covid protocols…not as strictly as I want to because of vaccinated friends who are more casual now than we are. But with some breakthrough infections making people somewhat sick, I am well aware that we have no one to back us up on watering if we couldn’t work.

Meanwhile, Allan had started the first of the difficult three hose waterings of the curbside gardens, required at both the east and west end. He could not find the faucet at the west end dock after dragging a hose out there, but port crew guy Darrel came along and dug it out where it had become completely buried under sod.

Having thought the faucet was just gone, Allan had tried to hook up near the port office, only to meet with another disaster.

A woman walking down the sidewalk said to me, “Your hose is [something about leaking]”. I said, “Oh, that faucet always dribbles!” And then I saw this.

It is a good thing we didn’t start after hours as there was so much water that neither Darrell nor Allan saw that the shut off valve was right nearby. We’d have been doomed without Darrel to put on a new faucet handle; he cleverly put an upside down bucket over the geyser while he worked on it.

Allan was able to change from dragging three hoses down the sidewalk from the office annex….

….back to dragging three hoses from the dock faucet.

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All because three port administrations ago, well over a decade and a half in the past, absolutely no plumbing was provided to water the curbside gardens as they were created.

He helped me finish the ceanothus clean up when he finished watering from the Don Nisbett gallery all the way to the west end. We then went to the east end, where he ran three hoses from another dock faucet while I watered by the Dave Jensen architecture office. We finished with the pavilion and At the Helm Hotel, saving the Powell Gallery garden till later in the week so I can find out if they want to water or want us to. Instead of more tedious details of tiresome hose dragging, here are some photos of the gardens.

The west end, a windy and dry two beds.

Time Enough Books through the Nisbett Gallery curbsides:

Ilwaco Pavilion:

Ilwaco bakery, Coho Charters and the dry and windy east end, where we dug out some grass infested sea thrift and I did a serious weeding of the accursed groundcover, Euphorbia ‘Fen’s Ruby’, which hitched a ride in somehow and is taking over:

Watering season has officially begun. I’m grateful that it started later than usual. Three more months!

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21 June: small accomplishments

Monday, 21 June 2021

At home

I managed to get one more thing done from my list: Watered all the permanent container plants (not the plant sale plants) with fish fertilizer mix, with rainwater dipped from the barrels. I didn’t get the sweet woodruff weeded nor did I plant something gold at the end of the metal path in the Bogsy Wood…

….but I did think of a plant I could put there, this golden brunnera.

I might save that project for a hotter day this weekend, when working in the shade would be desirable.

Here is where I mulched on Saturday with chopped leaves that had been at the bottom of the kitchen waste bin:

I am still wondering if it is normal for my Panicum ‘Northwind’ to come up looking so pale. It eventually turns glaucus blue…or so I hope.

I still haven’t rescued a rose that is being swamped by Perisicaria bistorta ‘Superba’.

It’s buried in there. I’m not going to remove Persicaria from around it as previously planned. That’s a losing battle. I’ll dig the rose out, yes, even now in summer, and move it to a more auspicious location.

Another job for next weekend is to do enough pruning to retrieve the Willows Loop West path.

I moved the cucumber that I had put on the newly clear greenhouse patio and replaced it with a fun new planting in an old drawer.

Around the garden today:

Nicotiana ‘Only the Lonely’ getting even bigger.

I love my Ghislane de Feligonde rose. Moved it from my other house, planted it too much shade, it died, I found another from High Country Gardens after a long search.

My mom’s “copper” rose, looking less coppery this year for some reason.

My mom’s “red velvet rose”.

My grandmother’s pale pink “sweetheart roses”, yes, from her original garden.

A rose I started from a cutting.

Iris ‘Black Gamecock’

The first oriental lily

I love the different colors of scabiosa in the center bed. Once upon a time, I was sure the dark one was Knautia macedonica. But now I don’t think so, because it’s tall like a scabiosa.

Paul’s Himalayan Musk rose is fading to white.

It would look showier if we pruned out the long green canes, but they will carry flowers next year and by then will have fallen forward toward the ground. If it were on a garden tour, I probably would trim them to get a solid wall of pink.

Allan worked on his kit built boat today though he says “there is not much to show. Two different seats now fit, the hatch is ready and the handle/paddle holders are on. All involved nervous and slow-to-commit drilling and damaged varnish.”

Ilwaco Post Office garden

In the evening, he watered our volunteer garden at the post office.

The blue is Brodiea ‘Queen Fabiola’.

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20 June: verticillium worrying

Sunday, 20 June 2021

Yesterday evening, I had noticed that the foliage on a big branch or side trunk of my Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Frisia’, a small tree with golden leaves, had crisped up. My first thought was it might be verticillium wilt. The poor little tree, which should have grown large by now, had split when young and had two trunks at an awkward angle so could never have grown into the healthy specimen that my first tree of that kind have become in my previous garden.

The sad branch on the left yesterday.

Robinia psuedoacacia ‘Frisia’ in my old garden

I did like the way it glowed as one looked from the front to the back garden here.

Last autumn, with the leaves of Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Frisia’ almost gone

Below the awkward junction, it had new growth. But I couldn’t see how that would turn into a tall and healthy tree.

So last night, I cut the unhealthy trunk, not a good cut either, as I grabbed the small chain saw in a hurry instead of the better hand saw or big loppers.

The inside looked like this.

Hmm. I posted the photos to my Facebook timeline, set them to public and shared them to a group for plant geeks, asking for advice, saying where I live, trying to follow the rules. When I looked a bit later, I found the post had been deleted, probably because I didn’t follow some other rule. I felt stupid and deleted my own post.

This morning, I woke up at the unholy hour of 7:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep for worrying about the tree. What if it was verticillium wilt? What if it spread? I’d had a small tree or shrub in the front garden, by the driveway, get it, analyzed as VW by Todd based on a discolored circle inside the trunk. What was that tree? I loved it and miss its fragrance and silver leaves….ah, Eleagnus ‘Quicksilver’. Allan and I had dug it out. And fortunately, the disease had not spread.

So I moved all the plant starts I had on boxes and benches on the greenhouse patio, and Allan helped me dig the Robinia out. That’s an actinidia vine next to it.

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The inside of the trunk looked like this. Is that a bad ring of color? I do not know. And what about that sort of green tint on the outer edge?

I was scared because I found this photo set online:

From University of Massachusetts

Same thing? I cannot tell. I should have stripped off some bark, but I can’t now because the tree went away when the trash was collected. I don’t see any spots around the center. I posed the question on Facebook again in a conversation I’d earlier seen about verticillium wilt, with photos. There was no reply. As Robert used to sing to me if he felt he was unheard,

“I talk to the wind
My words are all carried away
I talk to the wind
The wind does not hear
The wind cannot hear.”

I felt stupid and I insignificant as no one replied. But that was later. I was still hoping for opinions so I’d know how much to worry.

Meanwhile, I consolidated the plant sale plants onto other tables and was pleased with a clearer greenhouse patio. Allan helped me reposition a large pot. He is called upon for such things because he comes with a proper level and makes things right.

I put a potted cucumber in the newly empty space, because I have a lot of cucumber plants, and it would have room to sprawl.

But I was still worrying and remembered that I’d wondered about the unsightly lower leaves of the hops vine on the other side of the greenhouse patio. What if it had verticillium wilt, too? Searching online told me hops often suffered from that, and yet it could just be that when the vines get tall, they put their energy into the top growth.

I had been regretting for a few years that I had planted hops in that particular spot over a decade ago. Now I had a good excuse to remove it. Or try to. Its vines sprawl over my potting table and pop up where they can and block light from one of the fish totes, all of which I had staged on old sheets of plywood to keep the hops from coming up into them. A photo from last week:

I’d run the hops up some bamboo poles just to keep it busy.

I certainly did not get all the roots out, but after I was done for the day it looked like this.

There is still hops at the other end of the tote garden, which I will probably never be able to eliminate as it’s all tangled with a Dortmund rose. I wish it were just the rose there. The roots of the hops are tough and ropy and hard to even cut.

I’m still concerned about the lower leaves looking like this.

A knowledgeable friend happened to drop by in the early evening. She examined the cut vines and roots with me and felt they looked clean inside and not diseased. Here’s hoping.

I am going to make a sit spot where the hops were, with a lightweight chair that’s easy to move, and ask Allan to string trim and mow there when he does the lawn.

I will do more clipping and digging, too, and my friend had the brilliant suggestion of pouring boiling water on the area, even of setting up our camp stove next to it for immediate dispensation of said water.

I had moved my faux flint topped wall to the fish tote area.

I think it looks wonderful with the big messy hops cut back.

To the left, above, is a much clearer view as one enters the back garden. I found snow peas in the first fish tote that had been completely hidden by the hops and had grown quite large, almost too big to be tasty.

I am not sorry about the Robinia either, as it was such a pitiful specimen that would have eventually split down the middle. I was reading on the RHS about it being a rather weak tree over across the pond, so I don’t think I’ll try it again, even though I loved it so.

That was not at all how I had planned to spend my day! Fortunately, we had the next day off, as well, and perhaps I could get back to weeding out my sweet woodruff that I’d started earlier in the weekend, one of the three things in my weekend list, only one of which (planting my new Digging Dog plants) had gotten done.

Skooter had the best day. In tidying the patio, I’d shaped up the actinidia (ornamental kiwi), which Dan Hinkley has described in a lecture as “kitty crack”, and dropped the stems on the patio. They made Skooter very happy.

We had the first delicious beetroot of the year with dinner, an unthinned batch that had been hiding under the overhanging hops.

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19 June: fuchsia appreciation day

Saturday, 19 June 2021

Skooter spent another night outside and was found at 10 AM sleeping on the front gravel path, looking like he had rolled in dirt and rocks.

I started my day with a zoom presentation by the author of the Fuchsias in the City blog (now The Fuschietum).

Presented by the Longview Public Library

Allan joined the webinar partway in and was sorry to miss the interesting history of fuchsias and how they came to the west coast at the beginning. I loved all the photos of fuchsias…so many that I don’t have. And one that I did have, ‘Checkerboard’, that I somehow don’t have anymore.

I will be joining the Oregon Fuchsia group…and hoping they have zoom meetings. I like their cute cap, modeled during the webinar by Theo.

It would be fun to attend the annual event if it weren’t for my anxiety level about city traffic.

I enjoyed hearing Theo’s story of getting in trouble for popping the buds of Swingtime fuchsias as a child. So did I. They made such a satisfying pop. My grandmother objected because she believed it would prevent the flowers from opening up property. We never did a controlled study on that. And Swingtime was one of her favorites, that she wintered over every year and grew in hanging baskets and window boxes, and she grew two big fuchsia magellanica with red flowers on the north side of her house (later, my house; they are probably still there).

From my Seattle garden, decades ago: Fuchsias ‘Archie Owen’, ‘Pink Marshmallow’ and ‘Blue Satin’.

When I went outside after the webinar, I was inspired to start the afternoon by walking around admiring my fuchsias (although some are not blooming yet) and the garden in general. I do wish I had labeled all of the fuchsias. I can only identify a few. I also learned that I should be fertilizing them more…must get around to that.

In the background: One of two treelike Fuchsia magellanica, pale pink

Willows Loop West

Delta’s Sara

Grayrigg is my current favorite.

My new Nicotiana ‘Only the Lonely’ from Annie’s Annuals and Perennials is getting big.

Nearby, a clematis is blooming on its way up a red elderberry.

Dipplarhena moraea

Sambucus ‘Black Lace’

Sambucus nigra ‘Laciniatia’ doesn’t grow as large as it should but I love it.

My golden corylopsis is finally starting to grow.

I’m going to move the oriental poppies, which I don’t especially like, to Susie’s garden; she loves them. I’ll put them with her daylilies!

Verbascum ‘Southern Charm’, bless my heart if I remembered it wrong…

Paul’s Himalayan Musk rose is in its perfect glory this weekend.

I almost missed the Iris flowering underneath it at the edge of the pond.

Callistemon viridis by the driveway, the one I got from Klipsan Beach Cottages when our job ended there. Mary’s brother had given it to her and it was in a big pot. This is the first time it’s bloomed since I transplanted it to here.

In the afternoon, someone new to me came over to find my kitchen compost bin so that she can put her kitchen veg and fruit waste in it. I’m thrilled to get the extra compostables and even more pleased that we had a simpatico conversation about many things other than gardening (she’s not a gardener but is a great reader). I emptied some chopped leaves from the bottom of the bin to make room for future kitchen clippings and used it to mulch a bed by the Bogsy Wood.

That’s about all I got done except for making a small start on removing rampant sweet woodruff under the contorted filbert.

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Half a wheelbarrow full peeled out of there hardly made a dent.

I had some plant problems to deal with. Why did half of my Jude the Obscure rose suddenly look so bad? I don’t know, but I removed that whole crispy part and hope the other stem doesn’t succumb.

I noticed another problem with a small tree that took up most of the next day, preventing me from finishing the sweet woodruff weeding. More on that tomorrow.

Allan printed some more of his boating books, with Faerie supervising.

He mowed the vast back lawn at Alicia’s next door, which grows fast because of the high water table.

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This lawn is proof that regular mowing will eliminate a large patch of Himalayan blackberry. It towered over our heads on the west side of the lawn two years ago.

Allan made a space in his garden for a Fuchsia ‘Debron’s Black Cherry’ that MaryBeth had brought us…

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I’ll be able to see it from the front porch. So we begin and end today with fuchsias.

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18 June: mowing as weeding

Friday, 18 June 2021

Skooter stayed out all night after we took pity on his cries of woe and let him out at seven yesterday evening, instructing him to be back at midnight. What fools are we. After we heard him squabbling next door, we were out searching at one AM. But we can’t barge into our neighbor’s yard to chase him around by flashlight. This midmorning, I found him snoozing in the greenhouse.

The tomatoes have so much more room to grow this year because I set them on the floor instead of on buckets.

I do have a couple of Tomato ‘Rosella’, the one Jim McColl of Beechgrove loves, big enough to put in larger pots. The other Rosellas are still microscopic.

Allan mowed Alicia’s garden and, at her request, turned part of a garden bed into mowable lawn since it’s all gone to weeds and isn’t maintained. A couple of big calla lilies went under the mower. They are very common here and I know from experience they will pop back up if the mowing stops.

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We have a disagreement about the huge dock he left behind the birdbath. He says it has a presence like the rusting old hulks in Seattle’s Gasworks Park, which he knows I like (although the park would be better with more gardens, like this one in Germany).

I think the dock is hideous and should be removed, and I am quite sure Alicia would agree! Allan used the strimmer to “weed” the front garden bed and did some hand weeding, too, both there….

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…and in the rose bed (which is, unfortunately, full of orange montbretia).

If I had the energy to dig up the montbretia, I’d make a garden there. It’s right next door. The other side (now mowed) is shady, and both sides are frequented by deer.

He also mowed at the Norwood garden….

…and our garden, where he found a fallen branch just dangling over a path.

When he went to the post office, he took these photos of our garden there.

Stipa gigantea

Asiatic Lily ‘Landini’

Phlomis fruticosa

Poppies

He met a cat on the way.

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Meanwhile, even though my day was slow to start and felt unproductive, I did get some plants in the ground that arrived this week from Digging Dog Nursery (ordered in late winter but not ready till now).

Echinops ‘Veitch’s Blue’ in the front driveway garden:

Pulmonaria ‘Sissinghurst White’ and Thalictrum ‘Hewitt’s Double’ on the east side of the fire circle:

Another Angelica gigas in the center bed, where there is, oddly, an empty space:

You want that back away from a path because, when it blooms, it is covered in bald faced hornets. In my experience, they find it from wherever they are and are peaceable, but I wouldn’t want to get up close.

A dark flowered Dierama went into a pot so it won’t get lost before it sizes up.

And so did a new Brunnera ‘Mr. Morse’ so it can form leaves before the snails attack it.

I bought it because of my beloved fluffy 20 pound tuxedo cat, Orson, whose nickname was Mr. Morse.

Orson at the original Tangly Cottage, 1995

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I still miss him.

Today, Skooter earned his keep by being cute.

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17 June: all Ilwaco

Port of Ilwaco

Allan pruned an escallonia into hedge form at Coho Charters.

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I clipped a mugo pine that would soon be getting too tall for traffic sight lines of cars leaving the east parking lot and was also encroaching on the sidewalk. I got pretty bored and couldn’t seem to maintain a zen attitude.

It was horrendously windy. Allan got done with his project first and helped me finish mine. I met an Ilwaco couple that Todd gardens for and their darling pair of dogs.

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Done for another year

The next garden to the west has these California poppies.

Mike’s garden

We prettied up around the hydrangea in the east garden, adding some mulch and a circle of Saxifrage ‘Maroon Beauty’.

Last week

This week

J Crew Cottage

We did some weeding and watering. I marveled at how the plum tree is laden with fruit, like I’ve never seen it, either from the pruning we did last year or because of removing a big mugo pine from almost underneath it, or both.

Because of the horrible wind, I had despaired of being able to finish work today. At least we could look at the port gardens and see if we could get some of it done.

Looking across the street to our garden:

Ilwaco boatyard garden

I couldn’t resist pulling some tall grass weeds at the north end. Velvet grass (Yorkshire fog!) is my nemesis because I am so allergic to it.

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Working under the statuesque Stipa gigantea

On the other side of the fence.

And then in the middle, where the fence comes together at an angle and makes an area wide enough for (clipped) shrubs, a rosemary which had been dying back looked so pitiful that we got stuck into some pruning. It is behind a big horizontal branch of ceanothus that makes the ceanothus look wider than it really is.

The horizontal sideways limb will hide some of the resulting mess.

The south stretch of garden, slightly telephoto.

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

Pink California poppies closed for the evening

The lupine is almost done, yet the baptisia is still going strong.

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Howerton Avenue gardens

While Allan dumped the rosemary debris, I weeded at the port office and then the curbside garden at Time Enough Books. I had a look at the curbside beds by Salt Hotel, reflecting that for someone who had tried to get the “noxious weed” oxeye daisy out of there, I had certainly failed.

It would take a bigger budget to give us time to eradicate this lovely plant. Till then, enjoy it. I must admit I do.

I love the Watsonia in the Time Enough Books garden.

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Top of the port agenda for next week will be to prune the big ceanothus at the west end of Time Enough books, for height and width (so it doesn’t block the business sign or overhang the street or sidewalk).

Ilwaco Fire station

I weeded and Allan watered all four sides of the garden. On the north side, the young brunneras are untouched by snails.

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East side….

South side

And we got done with time to spare for watering pots and greenhouse plants at home! I was so glad then to get out of the accursed wind and to look forward to four days at home.

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16 June: Red Barn, Diane, Susie

Wednesday, 16 June 2021

I woke up with darling Faerie on my pillow. Allan woke up to a different sort of animal on his…

The Red Barn

We weeded and watered….

As I faintly recall, the Shasta daisies were the only thing planted when we took on this area years ago.

Diane’s garden

Allan dug up a sad patch of pink achillea and replaced it with a sanguisorba, which happened to be a tall plant I had on hand.

It’s a challenging strip of ground out there by the road and the achillea doesn’t seem to like it much. I’ll take more of it out this autumn because it has become monotonous. It does seem to be taking ages for gardens to look lively this year. It is sapping my confidence!

I weeded the rest of the roadside bed while Allan fertilized the container garden, and we both did a quick check up of the septic vault garden.

Hesperis matronalis (Dame’s rocket) on the vault.

Geranium ‘Orion’

The Planter Box

We bought some Harvest Supreme bagged mulch for Susie’s garden and, of course, browsed a bit.

Susie’s garden

We returned to the driveway strip at Susie’s new house in Seaview and applied the bagged mulch.

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I laid out a combination of pretty tough plants: santolinas, sedums, penstemons, lavender, assorted dianthus, Solidago ‘Fireworks’, a tall aster, a couple of sanguisorbas just because I’m obsessed with them, a Panicum ‘Northwind’, cosmos because Susie loves it and so do I. I over planted because, in my experience, that works well at the beach, especially in a wind tunnel which this driveway had unfortunately turned out to be (to my surprise). They are babies so will take long enough to fill in that it will be a year or two before they need editing. It’s a shame we couldn’t get it started in early spring, but Bill and Susie didn’t own the house then.

Allan weeded and mulched a couple of small areas on the northwest corner of the house to fit in a Clematis ‘Rooguchi’ that I had saved from the Boreas, and some daylilies and a lupine out of the Boreas garden…and a Leycesteria (baby) because Susie loved the one at her previous garden. I don’t love daylilies, so this was a good place for them!

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All plants in and looking awfully tiny. I wouldn’t mind if it were March. I hope they hurry up. But not too fast because they are actually close together for their full size.

The older I get, the more anxious I get if I put together some plants for a private garden. Public gardens are a different feeling, as they don’t have to make just one person happy but lots of people, and it’s likely at least some of those people will like it. I also just have a feeling this garden is going to get driven on even though Susie doesn’t think it will. The first couple of weeks will tell the tale, and I hope I will be proved wrong.

It was nice to see some out of town friends arrive to visit Bill and Susie, their first company in the new house. It is already looking organized and welcoming inside and has a fabulous open kitchen, suitable for Susie and Bill who were famous for their cooking for Boreas Inn breakfast guests (to the point of winning top bed and breakfast each year from a state wide people’s choice contest!)They were planning a delicious dinner on the grill on their new front porch.

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