Tuesday, 7 June 2022
I found a sad plant, a lovely begonia that Pam Fleming gave me, that a cat had pushed off a shelf. Poor thing. It sat in the sink, well watered, all day, and did perk up. It’s supposed to be outdoor hardy, but the one I planted outdoors does not appear to have made it through the winter.

We loaded up the second crop of cosmos that I had grown, along with some left from the first crop that I had been saving for J’s, the post office, and Diane. I’d panicked about not having enough, made a second seed order of which I could only find a mix, Double Click, and some Seashells, and as predicted, the second crop had almost caught up to the first. I love cosmos and grow them as a gift to all the gardens. I just wish I had more ‘Cupcakes’, my favourite these days.

J Crew Cottage
First, across the street, I planted some along the driveway where baby Panicum ‘Heavy Metal’ is being slow to start, and some in the garden. No pretty pics. I may not have take a single photo today as planting, which I don’t much enjoy, takes all my energy. I did ask Allan to photograph the river rock as he weeded, because it is a good example of how weed seeds will emerge thickly many years after a garden is brought under weeding control. Before we took this garden on, the dwarf fireweed had seeded thickly, and it still pops up on a weekly basis.


Ilwaco Post Office garden
Allan weeded our volunteer garden and picked snails while I planted cosmos and put in little stakes to perhaps protect them from darling Meadow, the cat from next door. She has soft feet but…the cosmos are little babies.



Port of Ilwaco
Allan planted some dianthus all around the edges of the Time Enough Books curbside garden and then squeezed in some cosmos. I planted more dianthus in the port office south wall garden and some cosmos. I’d propagated lots of old-fashioned pink dianthus. Perhaps if I plant dozens, there will be enough for people to pick without destroying the flower show.
On the south side of the port office, only one allium had been picked.


Coincidentally, a fellow walked by and said he had been growing Egyptian walking onions that he had started from bulblets that he had picked at the boatyard, and that he noticed we didn’t have any there anymore and did we want some bulbs. (The wee onion bulbs grow at the tips of the plants, then the stalk bends over and the bulb roots.) I asked, “Why do you think we don’t have any? Could it be that someone picked the bulbs?” He said he had only taken a few. I said, “Maybe some other people also took a few…and that was all of them.” This didn’t seem to sink in, but he was amenable to my suggestion that he take some bulbs from his plants and stick them back in at the boatyard!!

By the marina, the outfall pipe that you see is the water that comes from the hill into drainage swales to the south of Lake Street, on the north side of the port parking lots. Supposedly an upcoming project by the Department of Ecology is going to make this system better, so that the water going into the marina is better filtered for pollution…somehow.




[Update, written Monday, June 13th: Little did we even imagine that this would be the last time we would work for the port, but not the last time we’d do the Time Enough Books garden! We quit the port today, June 13th, because of….reasons. We will continue to care for the Time Enough Books garden as a private job, because Karla appreciates us. This has nothing to do with the port commissioners, who have always been supportive and appreciative of our work. We also value the support and appreciation of the front office staff, April and Amy, for all these years. Special thanks to April for her diligent watering of the port office garden. So if you are a local and see that some port gardens are already weedy….well, we were going to weed them yesterday, June 13, but ended up quitting instead. The rest of the story must wait till the blog catches up with June 13th. Damn, now I won’t ever get those driftwood poles!]
Susie’s garden
She got some Cosmos ‘Double Click’ and a mix including ‘Psyche’, which I did not have in my first batch.


She recently posted this photo of her first sweet pea, from one of the plants I started in autumn and wintered over in a cold frame.

Long Beach
Fifth Street Park got a few Double Click. The horsetail has stayed at bay, and we hope it does so till at least next week.

The Red Barn
There is no room for cosmos here and not enough reliable watering for them to thrive anyway. The garden got a good weeding.



Cosmo the barn cat got treats and pets.



Bentley got a nice large biscuit. But new puppy Quinn, who was too fast to photograph, stole it right out of his mouth and ran away to eat it in a pasture. All I had left were small biscuits. Bentley took one with a sad face and walked away slowly with a disappointed air. He buries them, doesn’t eat them, sometimes digs them up and moves them. That must make for a fun quest for the puppy.





Diane’s garden
We did the usual weeding and planted cosmos. Allan planted along the road where I no longer trust my balance to work by traffic, and in the septic vault middle section where I can’t reach. He can still agilely climb up there. I made room in the entry driveway bed for some cosmos where wood strawberries had taken over.




The picket fence sweet peas looked better than last time. Allan tied them in, again.




We came home with only five cosmos mix left, perhaps for my garden, perhaps for the fire station. I am thrilled to have them (almost) all in the ground.
I am sorry about the need to . . . relinquish your duty. It is difficult to leave something after working on it and taking ownership of it.
That begonia does not look so bad. It seems to have grown upward while laying on its side.
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I’ll be telling the whole tale when I can bear to write about it. Maybe I should wait till I get my final check! It’s a doozy.
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Do you recommend I not read about it?
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It will be tomorrow. It will probably make you upset on our behalf but it’s not very long. It might bring back bad memories of …problematical…clients if you have had such in the past.
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