17 May: planting, day two

Wednesday, 17 May 2023

Long Beach

At last, the water was on and we were able to fill out the downtown planters with some more plants. I have successfully got them pretty full of long blooming perennials, especially Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and edging plants like silver thyme. Sometimes I miss the showier days of more annuals, but I’m trying to get the planters lower maintenance and more drought tolerant. The weekend heat, a week since any rain, and not having the water on till today was quite a test, one I might not have dared to make. The plants came through great, and I am very pleased. Once the new plants establish with a week or two of twice weekly watering, I just might dare to try watering once a week.

Planting is exhausting and perhaps my least favourite gardening task so…mostly pictures today. Almost all taken by Allan. Planting takes all my energy.

Plant ID question, answer was Parahebe perfoliata.

A new cistus where an unhappy rhododendron came out last year:

LOTS of extra-tatty bulb foliage to remove; the heat speeded up the yellowing.

Sparaxis, below, I don’t see it for sale anywhere or I’d have bought more over the years.

Sometimes the planters look battered at this stage, but at least they are green, not yellow and brown. A lot of them looked better than the one above. I didn’t have the energy to plant in the three planters left at this end of town….I had hit the wall an hour and a half before, kept going, my toe hurt (my doctor thought I just needed a bigger shoe, but sometimes it screams even now!). My legs hurt. Suddenly I just could not go on.

We just had these two more planters to tidy that wouldn’t need more plants, below across the street, and a few plants to put into the one above…

And I could not go on. So I finished this one…

And that was that for today. Apparently, at 68 years old, I can’t work till dark anymore.

However, there were mitigating circumstances today. This scene had sped right by us, first south, then police cars going north. We heard the gun shot and I thought, I AM going to get these plants planted and just kept working!

A parent had seen the driver almost hit some kids further north, and chased him south through Long Beach tailgating and honking. They past within a planter width and I thought the parental chaser was the road raging bad guy. Two block later was the go kart track incident and then the shots as the chase headed north again, one street to the east, while the cops came sirening north right past us. ““He fired either a shot into the air or back at the vehicle,” WSP Sgt. Bradford Moon said. “It is undetermined where the gun was pointed. A couple of witnesses said it looked like it was pointed up and one said it looked like it was pointed back.”

For the rest of the day, I had been more aware of the roaring, sometimes aggressive traffic, and I think it had something to do with suddenly being in too much pain to work; I think we were both holding a lot more tension than usual.

Ilwaco Fire Station

While I watered at home, Allan watered our volunteer gardens at the fire station and the post office.

Last winter, for some reason, the fire dept folks cut down the big maples that made an L next to the parking lot and the small, unused old historic fire station. I do not know why. Something about leaves (but we loved the leaves and took them home for our leaf mould bin) and branches overhanging the neighbours’ property.

Marc Hamer had something to say on this subject in his gardening memoir, Spring Rain.

We will miss the leaves.