real time alert: Our plant sale and open garden is continuing today, May 25th, 10 till 5.
We are on Lake Street in Ilwaco between Pearl and Advent.
And now back to our week old story:
Friday, 17 May 2024
at home
The grey rain gauge showed we had had a goodly amount of rain.
This barrel which had been down to 1/3 was almost full again, as I discovered when I took a watering can just to water a few of the sale plants in the evening.
Almost all the plants were wet enough so that I did not have to hose water, thank goodness because I was exhausted and sore after today’s accomplishment of weeding in the bridged swale, the metal path, the bogsy wood mounds and the T path between the mounds and the south fire circle garden.
Before, east side of the old bridge:
I had already started bringing buckets of rocks from the new rock pile that our neighbour Shelly gave us.
Skooter helped.
After:
The clear glass fish plates will swim through here.
A fuchsia close up while weeding:
Gold twig dogwood at the beginning of the metal path (the fuchsia is under it):
The metal path (and, to the right, that infernally pesky maianthemum):
I pulled some of the maianthemum foliage to give little ornamental grasses a chance.
The Wayback Sit Spot (where no one ever sits):
It needs a comfy bench, not just a bistro chair.
Metal path after:
The stem part of the T path, which runs between the mounds north from the metal path:
After pulling maianthemum and pruning along the sides:
Mahonia on the crossbar section of the T path. I trimmed some leaves because they are painful to walk by.
After weeding the south side of the fire circle, I moved the peacock to the east side, where this bed really needed something interesting.
I weeded, pruned dogwood, and added some rocks on the west side of the old bridge.
There are many more rocks, a pile of small ones from our friend Pat who has moved to Brookings, and medium sized and small ones from Shelly three doors down. I don’t want to make an actual “dry creek bed” because they would get muddy in winter but, more importantly for me, would be hard for me to walk on in order to weed.
I finally remembered to paint a log with some old mouldy yogurt, which may make it grow moss. (Too late, I read that I should have mixed some moss bits into it.)
Allan went down into the deep path (the part that isn’t still under water) and pulled some weeds along the edge, which I much appreciated.
I was still weeding on the other side of the path.
My woodsy weeding project took six hours non stop.
Allan blew the loose bits off of the east junction of the metal path…
…and off of the T path (which had been hidden by maianthemum, which will turn yellow and go dormant soon).
As I walked back to the house, I contemplated another native plant, that…um…white thing, here in the danger tree bed…(It’s fringecup)…
…and here in the big west bed…
It is pretty, till it gets shabby, and it takes up huge amounts of room where I could have a tapestry of other plants of more interest to me.
Meanwhile, before coming back to the woods at the end of the day, Allan had been weeding along the driveway.
Before, yesterday afternoon:
After, today:
Along the edge of the garden bed that borders Alicia’s driveway:
After:
Further along, before:
And after:
It hasn’t looked this good in a long, long time.
The woodsy area is pretty much done. Next I will do the three big beds which, being more level and having had a thorough weeding once this year, won’t be as hard.
Looking south over the big beds:
I look forward to weeding them.
Oh everything is looking great! Your visitors yesterday and today will have had a treat. As much as I love to forage in a garage sale, I would have been hard-pressed to pull myself away from your garden.
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Your huge efforts rendered beautiful results.
Good luck with the plant sale!
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All that weed paid off. The garden looked well kept and lovely. I’m glad to hear the fish plates were new; I wondered if I had missed them before. They look great!
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Thanks! Our friend gave us the fish plates last autumn but it took quite awhile to figure out how to display them, because I couldn’t figure out how to hang them on a fence (not the right shape for plate hangers) and then Allan thought of the book display thingies. We will take them in during the wet season because the book thingies might rust or a branch might fall on them. I guess a raccoon could also cause breakage so fingers crossed.
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Thorough weeding is very satisfying.
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