Monday, 23 May 2022
Long Beach
How fabulous it is that we could hold off this long on planter watering. Usually it starts a week early if not sooner. And we haven’t had to water the port yet at all.
My rollator makes a great bucket and hose carrier, and I also used it to discreetly fend off tourists who want to get too close to ask for the best location of ice cream and fish and chips in Long Beach. (The answer to the latter is Captain Bob’s Chowder.)
Allan had trouble with his faucet bayonet and had to spend quite some time getting a piece of wood (bark) out it. The first day of watering always has some kind of problem. Speaking of which, the city is supposed to get the tree garden faucets, that haven’t been used for two years, cleaned out and functional; they are in holes in the ground. I had better remind them.
I still get annoyed at how weedy the planters got last year, because I am going to be dealing with the results for three years, if I last that long before retiring, or else someone else will inherit the problem. One year of weeds equals seven years of seeds, or something like that, not to mention all the grass that worked its way into perennials.
I wish I had called the city last summer and said, “I’m getting texts from people saying things like ‘Long Beach is a hot mess!’ What’s going wrong??” I had that vertigo in August, though, so couldn’t have worked anyway.
Love this white silene, and the white narcissi with a tiny little cup.
I put a couple of little penstemons and eryngiums in the bed at Fifth Street Park’s SE quadrant. The cold weather has the baby plants just sitting there not growing much.
I do not like this rose (it is rootstock, with muddy red flowers if any at all, and hangs into traffic)…
…and I don’t want this Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ either. Something to deal with later. Even the crew tried to dig the rose out for me once but it is firmly entrenched way down deep.
We weeded the little popout…
…planted some green santolina and a few more plants in Fifth Street Park west ….
…and were annoyed that whoever pruned the escallonia hedge had chopped and dropped rose canes into the garden (OUCH!)…
…and pulled bulb foliage out of Minnie Culbertson Park’s little planting and then we were done.
We had to be home by six to zoom another Ilwaco City Council meeting where they kicked the can of the emergency housing “renoviction” crisis at the Beacon RV Park further down the road. Two councilors are doing all they can but are being thwarted. Public comment was again scintillating, but the meeting itself was so confusing that afterwards zoom attendees messaged each other, what the heck just happened?
Tangly Cottage Gardening 
You know, in the process of plucking the dried foliage from the Crocosmia that has always been in my one downtown planter box, I was again reminded that it does not migrate. The colony is larger, but has not overwhelmed the entire planter box as would be expected of the common Crocosmia. I canned the few bulbs that came up with the foliage, although I have no plans for them, and will likely never plant them, regardless of how docile they are. Nonetheless, I am sort of wondering if they are a non invasive cultivar or variety. Also, I got some of those old Crocosmia that I met when I was a kid in Montara. They are not very invasive either, and grow quite large, with broad fan of foliage. I will grow them in confinement, just because I am familiar with them, although I will not likely plant them anywhere else. I do sort of like the bloom.
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Interesting !
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The City’s gardens are already looking so much better, Skyler. I think it’s a huge job that could be completely overwhelming to almost anybody but you two. Obviously it was way too much for last years’ “gardener”. Thanks for your devotion to public gardens!
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I ma sorry about the confusion at your meeting. Zoom meetings are far from satisfactory.
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