16 May: planting time restart

Monday, 16 May 2022

Before work, we saw the cute mystery cat in the garden…

….and the flowers on Davidia involucrata ‘Sonoma’ (pocket handkerchief tree)…

…and Halmiocistus wintonensis ‘Merrist Wood Cream’.

Then we were off on a planting day, delayed by a week because of wind and rain.

Long Beach

Planting is not my favorite thing.

Sparaxis…used to have lots more of these bulbs.

One last tulip among some Crocosmia in Coulter Park.

Just a few events of the day: We pruned that giant annoying hebe in a planter by the frying pan…

….and we found that the planter in front of NIVA green and the one north of it has become full of invasive bluebells…HOW? I planted some red salvia in the NIVA planter and then switched them to some blue Salvia patens, because how can red plants look right by NIVA green. We fought our way through bulb foliage that has not yet died back enough to remove.

We do try to color coordinate with adjacent buildings.

Someone seems to have driven into the big Hebe ‘Boughton Dome’ across the street from Dennis Company…what a shame, its dome shape is shattered. It still has its odd little topknot, which I propagated starts from a year or two ago. They are not dome shaped!

I was frustrated to quit early, with six planters left to add cosmos to and one large and two small other planters to plant…all to attend a City of Ilwaco zoom meeting about the emergency housing situation where their zoom function failed just as public comment was about to begin. This delays the whole discussion and any help or solutions or accountability by another week…except for a port commissioners meeting tomorrow which starts at four!! I’ll be even more frustrated to quit work that early but we want to hear the public comments….then we can go back to work. No wonder there is so little participation when most people are still at work during the meetings.

As I finished this post, I checked the weather for Wednesday, when we have yet another local zoom meeting to attend (Downtown Ilwaco Revitalization group, just to listen in). I see that another 30 mph wind storm is due….so much for trying to keep the plants from being battered on their first week out. All in all, a frustrating day!