25 March: poppy seeds

Susie’s garden

Friday, 25 March 2022

Allan had some important paperwork to do this morning, leading to a late start. Then work was delayed by a small social gathering of five friends on Susie’s porch in Seaview. From the porch, I could see how the very end of the driveway garden segued awkwardly into the weedy mound of brown sand which we had reduced in size by half in the late winter (and taken the sand to new beds in our woods expansion project at home). I suddenly decided that the garden must be extended to join the brown sand in a sweep down to the street. The big electrical box would keep it from being driven over even though part of the mound is not actually part of the property.

Allan was tying up the sweet peas we had planted yesterday. I started just digging into the mound a little bit when he got a phone call. So while he talked, I kept digging and then couldn’t make myself stop. I had begun by shifting sand over a low patch of weedy grass at the end of the garden, to see what it would look like, thinking that I’d deal with it next week. Instead I ended up digging with difficulty into the buried well-rooted grass. It usually takes longer for a shortcut to prove to cause more trouble than just doing it right from the start.

This is after I pulled some brown sand over the ditch of weed grass:

Allan helped pry the flat mat of grass off the edge of the driveway. We may eventually peel it off all the way to the street.

When we had it smoothed and shaped, I planted three lavenders that I’d propagated for the port gardens, a start of Russian Sage that I’d been carrying around in a bucket of water since thinning the huge clump at Diane’s garden, and some multi colored California poppy seeds, and then added some mulch.

We met a cute and friendly dog from the humane society who is being fostered right now but is up for adoption: Bandit.

Long Beach

The unplanned extension for Susie had taken so long that we only had a couple of hours in Long Beach. We weeded the two Veterans Field garden beds, as I recall reading that there might be a concert on the stage as soon as next week. Some of the red poppies I planted are coming up.

Poppies!

We pulled crocosmia out of the end of one of the parking lot berms in the fifteen minutes we had left in our time budget. So far, we are whittling away at the berms a few feet at a time. Next week, I hope to devote a day or two to getting it done.

I was after crocosmia only, not the Stipa gigantea yet.

We used to weed all the low grasses out, too, but is it worth it after they’ve been let go for two years? They are good for critters. It is sort of tempting because we finally have mulch to fill in after weeding, and in years past I was frustrated by having no mulch to fix a battered garden. Now we have an endless supply.

Port of Ilwaco

We did some weeding and I planted more colorful California poppy seeds and three starts of Russian sage (used to be perovskia, now officially a salvia) in the beds at the west end of the port.

A start of Russian sage, which might like this dry garden

We weeded north of the port office and deadheaded the narcissi at the south port office garden.

Many deadheads

Muscari ‘Golden Fragrance’ and the white one that Tony Tomeo liked and some small cupped narcissi, my favorite kind:

I was too tired to walk across the lawn for a close view of the marina.

The work board tonight shows projects are almost done and then regular maintenance, which is easier, will take over for awhile.

Tonight we will be revitalized with an episode of Gardeners’ World, and we have tomorrow off.