24 November: holiday bulbing

Thursday, 24 November 2022

As we left for work, the temperature was 37 degrees. Miscanthus giganteus glowed in the sun. I remembered being too warm in my winter shirt at Diane’s yesterday and wondered if I should take a summer weight shirt. Surely not.

the hillside garden

When we started planting bulbs in midmorning, the weather was hot like summer and we both wished we had brought summer shirts!

The splendid view; the pampas grass is on the other side of the retaining wall:

It was a high pressure day so we didn’t take many photos as a work record. We planted narcissi and alliums and assorted little bulbs (crocuses, species tulips which may not be alluring to deer, Iris reticulata, anemone blanda and more) in the upper driveway bed….

…and the driveway bed by the deck, and the south bed below the wall which will have an artwork eventually (very exciting but I don’t want to give it away what it will be till it appears). If a bulb rolls out onto the driveway here, it rolls a long way.

Allan hacked into the hard soil to plant narcissi in spaces in the shrubbery two thirds of the way down (no photos).

Then we were off on a mission to finish all the bulbing.

Long Beach

We stopped at the welcome sign on the way up to town, thinking of pulling out the yellow ageryanthemum. I decided its green shapes were good till we have a hard frost. We can quickly pull them sometime later. The back side of the sign is not dug out yet, so the narcissi I have saved for there are going to go somewhere else.

We planted the four planters at Third and Pacific and pots in the park by Castaways Bar and Grille and in Veterans Field.

We tidied the two northernmost planters that don’t get tulips because of deer and pulled a spent annual poppy at Coulter Park.

The narcissi meant for the back of the welcome sign went into the north parking lot berm.

On the way to dump our debris, we saw a bad situation at the stoplight and stopped to clean it up and take the trash bag to city works. We were racing sunset so I didn’t know if it got pulled out of the garbage can or if someone dumped their personal trash bag there. The birds would have had it spread all over the intersection, not a nice look for a holiday weekend.

at home

We’d had no plans for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner because work took precedence…otherwise, Allan probably would have made chicken, potatoes and cranberry sauce. He had ordered a box of dressing mix that had not even arrived. Our friend Jodie of the J Crew Cottage had gone to her father’s house Oregon and texted me that they were bringing us leftovers of their home made meal. Turkey, potatoes with gravy, dressing and bean casserole and homemade cranberry sauce complete with dinner rolls and two delicious slices of pumpkin pie with walnuts. What an amazing treat. We felt all warm and happy as we dined in our comfy chairs watching McDonald and Dodd.

The work board tonight: We only have six non – tulip (deer food) planters to tidy and a last check on Long Beach parks, and a visit to our neighboring Norwood garden that won’t take more than half an hour, before we are on staycation. If the weather forecast is right, that last Long Beach day might not be till Monday.