8 June: better day off

Sunday, 8 June 2014

my day

A better day off than yesterday because there was not smoke.  And much as I like friends and the market, the perfect day off for me is when I do not set one toe off my own property.

Smoky likes the little hollow in the middle of the garden where I dug a not so good rose out awhile back.

A project suddenly came to me, and I took the three bags of newspaper that we had in the garage and made a new debris bed in the southwest corner of the fenced yard.  My goal was to make the end of the long narrow fence bed ready in case I need room for more plants this summer; since we will soon at at a Hardy Plant Society plant sale, I had better be ready!

Eventually, I will have a low bed here with some more shade plants.

I ran out of newspaper and cardboard and Allan was off watering the gardens at the port.  (His choice not to take the day off; the dryness of those gardens had disturbed him.)

I asked local expert Kathleen Sayce for an ID on this flower.  Diplarrhena moraea (New Zealand, Butterfly Flag).  The green tag marks a plant (dormant, probably) from Todd in N. Carolina.

the flowers of my most stunning Sambucus laciniata

It’s a treasure. Below, Philadelphus ‘Belle Etoile’ droops its fragrant truss of white flowers.

I spent some time hanging up fence decor instead of weeding…and relettering signs instead of weeding…

a re-lettered sign

Recently, my dear distant friend Louise Runnings died, she who was the mother of Bryan, with whom I lived for five years (1981-86), and she had written to me on every birthday and Christmas since then.  Before she moved to Qualicum Beach, BC, she used to still have me over for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So as I think of her daily, the purple rose ‘Veilchenblau’ that I got from her as a cutting is blooming.

She called it her stolen rose as she herself got it by a cutting.

Louise: friend, mentor, gardener, Quaker, peace activist; I loved the way she called Bryan “chum” and so valued the way she kept in touch with me.

1986 in Vancouver, BC

Bryan, his sister Gwyneth, Louise, Bryan’s brother Morgan, and me at the house of the punk band D.O.A,

Gwyneth, who kindly got in touch with me so that I could write a last letter to Louise, and her mother.  Louise would have been 86 on June 12.

Louise Runnings obituary is here.

Rosa Veilchenblau will always bring back memories.

front garden; Allan mowed when he came home.

The bird scare tape idea in the front garden is working so far to scare deer; the roses are growing back.

On both days off, I picked ripe strawberries in the dusk; there was too much wind to have a campfire even though we were prepared with sausages and beer.

In the water box…I think I managed to catch a frog in mid croak.

Allan’s Day

Allan checked out the progress on the controlled burn house a block away that had caused so much smoke on Saturday.

The little house had been leaning so no one could go inside; no wonder the smoke smelled a bit toxic.

The crew had tried to save a maple tree; I can see here that it must have gotten too scorched. It is gone; the hawthorne still stands.  I admire the skill that left the wooden buildings standing, too.

Allan was able to hose water the bed at the west end of the port.

The building inside the sidewalk has just done some landscaping as well.

I think this and one other rose will be the only welcome plants.  (Dare I imperialize with poppy seeds?  There is landscape fabric under the bark.)

Allan dug a little hole to see how dry the soil was. (Dry down deep.) When I saw it, I thought he was showing me that someone had stolen a plant!

better

Allan was pleased to meet a Moto Guzzi rider who had just been to visit members of Allan’s old Guzzi club up north (Seattle Tacoma area)

I’m sure Allan wished he himself was riding off on his red Moto Guzzi (which has some problems at the moment).

my favourite perennial, Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’, by Marie Powell Gallery

After being able to water several of the Howerton Way gardens with hoses hooked up here and there, he got to the east end.  The east end garden has no hose access, so Allan bucket watered, flooding it with 23 five gallon buckets of water.

flooded with bucket water

the plants are singing!

one last photo of the burn, and then home to mow the lawn

Next: back to work, now firmly into the season of watering.

 

 

 

 

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Dragon’s Loyalty Award

I am pleased as punch to have been given the Dragon Loyalty Award by the author of a new blog I recently discovered. The Bulging Buttons blog is a discovery I made while participating in the National Blog Posting Month at Blogher.com. As a fat activist since age 21, I like her style and her slogan: Not Bad for a Fat Girl.

The rules for acceptance:

“The Dragon’s Loyalty Award is an award for the loyal fan/commenter, whether the recipient is a fellow blogger or just someone who follows and comments regularly”.

[Rules lifted straight from Bulging Buttons]: There are some rules that one must follow in order to fully accept the award and they are as follows:

1.Firstly, display the Award on your site (see Award page or sidebar!) You earned it and you deserve it! [Done, and I had to figure out how to add images to the sidebar. Thus I was able to add the Liebster Award which was given to me by Future World some time ago!]

2. Link back to the person who gave you the award in your acceptance post; [Done!]

3. Nominate 15 well-deserving bloggers for the Award and let them know the wonderful news by sending them a message on their site;

4. List 7 interesting facts about yourself

Rules one and two were easy. Well, relatively easy, once I found a tutorial about adding images.

Rule 3:  I don’t think I even have 15 commenters, so will include some blogs that I admire in order to get up to the count of 15.  Three of my regular commenters, Pamela of Back Alley Gardens in Gearhart, Judy (four doors down from me), and Sheila of New Leaf Plants and Pottery in Shedd, Oregon, do not have blogs of their own. So to those dear readers, I can simply offer the reward without a place for them to post it. As for bloggers:

1. My favourite blogger, Mr. Tootlepedal, comments regularly. However, he has plenty to write about his fascinating and well photographed daily life, so I will give him the award but exempt him from the rules. His blog inspired me to write daily, and to believe that the quotidian details of life in a particular place are well worth reading, and to not be afraid to post too many photographs.

2. Another favourite blog of mine is from my good friend since age 12, Montana Mary. Although her Yummy Montana blog is not enough to make me want to move to a landlocked state, I enjoy reading her droll humour about an environment so very different from mine.  Her other blog, Yummy Northwest, has lots of recipes and food articles.

3. I get frequent and much appreciated comments from Cathy of Cathy and Chucky, a blog from Australia which is indeed the cat’s pajamas with homey posts about gardening and food.

4. Another daily blogger is Loren Williams, who hails originally from this part of the world.. He is absent from blogging while going through treatment for cancer, and I am thinking of him every day. The treatment is difficult and his prognosis is good. In his blog Future World, he writes about many angles of daily life, and my life is less full without his daily posts. His blog literally makes me laugh out loud sometimes.  I appreciate him taking time to comment on my blog.

5. I follow JM Goyder who is not afraid to write the truth, no matter how emotional and revealing. She often writes about the experience of having a loved one (her spouse) in a nursing home. Her story reminds me of the excellent book “To Love What Is” by Alix Kates Shulman.

6. I follow not one, but two blogs by Rebecca, prolific author of Thrifty Style at 60 and Scene in Our Garden.  Amazingly, she writes still more blogs, on spiritual and family topics:  Links are on the garden blog.  Somehow she still finds time to comment on mine.

7. New to blogging is Susan Poozan, writing a weekly entry about her life in London. She is the sister of Mr. Tootlepedal and is someone who, like her brother, knows how to tell a good story through photos. She immediately took to commenting and is supportive of my own blogging efforts. I appreciate it.

And of course, we have the gardening blogs! Some of these writers offer comments more often on my Facebook page link to the blog than here on the blog itself.

8. Danger Garden is all about tough pointy plants, not the much softer and wussier plants that I grow, and so I find her blog fascinating and educational.

9. Debbie Teashon has recently redesigned the blog on her Rainy Side Gardeners site. I’ve been following Rainyside for years and used to participate in the forum (now discontinued) and have had the pleasure of getting together in person with some of the regular readers. Debbie has been to visit us at the beach twice in the last year and is ever supportive with comments and help.

10. Outlaw Gardener is another entertaining blogger whose garden spills over and breaks the rules. Danger, Outlaw, and Rainyside are all friends and get to go plant shopping together. I envy this!

11. My favourite gardening blog remains Moosey’s Country Garden. I intend to spend the winter catching up on the last year’s worth of posts. Talk about supportive: She once mailed me a book (“A Garden, a Pig, and Me”) all the way from New Zealand! She has been writing a journal on her elegantly designed website since we before the most of us jumped on the blogging bandwagon.

12. The Miserable Gardener is a particular favourite of mine. The author has suffered tragedy, in the death of his true soulmate, that breaks my heart. Since last spring, he is writing in the persona of his border collie, Chess. That sounds cutesy. It isn’t. This is one of the blogs (and they are few) that makes me laugh aloud sometimes. He engages well with all his commenters. A lot of his subject matter is over my head because he is a true botanist and plant collector.

13. Garden in a City is another recent discovery from someone’s blogroll. The author is a good back and forth commenter and supporter of other blogs and writes of topics that bring back city gardening memories for me….like collecting bags of leaves from the curb in Seattle to add to one’s compost pile.

14. I Vary Widely touches on many subjects, with a bit of gardening and a lot about dogs. It is personal, inspirational, and revealing.

15. Alison of Bonney Lassie not only comments on my blog but has been to visit my garden. I was at first confused by the title of her blog into thinking she was a Scottish gardener till I figured out she lives by Bonney Lake in the Pacific Northwest.

Rule number 4

Now for the seven interesting facts about myself. I recently avoided the Facebook meme of having to come up with surprising facts about oneself. It is hard.

1. I used to be a punk rocker and spend many evening out either moshing at punk shows or dancing to disco, reggae, and new wave, since unlike the classic punk rocker I did not espouse the view that “Disco is Dead”.

2. Uh oh. I am stumped for interesting facts.

Um. Once upon a time, I almost moved to Arizona for love. That would have led to a very different style of gardening.

3. Thirty years ago, I lived on a pot farm. A pot farm in house in the city. I personally did not enjoy smoking pot and I did not participate in the farm work in any way. It was another thing I did for love, I suppose. My partner won all sorts of awards at some sort of pot convention after we no longer lived together. My main reason for ending the relationship was that I no longer wanted the stress of worrying that the household would get busted.

4. I bought my first house at age 25. My friends were highly skeptical of this venture, as they thought my mortgage ($400 a month) was impossibly high. (We were mostly poor.) My main reason for wanting a house was so that I could garden without fear of having to move.

5. I had a housecleaning business for 18 years. And became very tired of cleaning.

6. I was much closer to my grandmother than to my parents. She had a day care center in her home (unlicensed, back in the 60s) so I was raised by her more than by my parents, for which I am grateful.

7. I have realized I am a lot less interesting than I thought I was because of my difficulty in coming up with seven things here.

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birthday…work

People do urge me to take my birthday off, but it falls at such a busy time of year that I do not get the day off unless nature cooperated with rain.  Yesterday was the day off.  Today, I would rather have worked in my own garden, and did linger a bit to admire my new garden present from my gardening near-neighbour, Judy:

Maddy with my new garden pig

After considerable procrastination (including a stop at The Planter Box for more poppy seeds), we worked at Andersen’s RV Park all afternoon.

I had thought it would be miserably cold, but by the time we finally got there, we were able to work comfortably for hours.

The beach is just over the dunes at the end of the RV parking sites.

Our main project this month is to get the west side garden looking better, ridding them of the Bad Aster and most of the goldenrod, and the too enthusiastic cranesbill geranium ‘A.T. Johnson’.

westernmost area with a mat of the Bad Aster, noon.

considerable improved, 5 PM

Owner Lorna wants more small ornamental grasses, so there they are.  We still have much weeding right around the driftwood; the area is rampant with couch grass, which my grandma called Witch Grass.

Allan worked on this area along the restroom/clam cleaning building…a hideously weedy spot that is almost always the last one we get to.

horrible area

Worse yet, it was in the cold shade!

horrendous corner at noon

and at 5 PM

It is very clear what still needs to be weeded and mulched in this area.

still to do

We will go back there on the next workeable day, even though other clients want us.  It is becoming increasingly clear to me (with age?) that life is not satisfactory when we hare madly back and forth from garden to garden, never getting a project completely done.  I am determined that we shall finish this, and get poppy seeds planted, before we go anywhere else, and Allan is in full agreement.

Along with poppy seeds in the west side garden, I also must plant sweet peas next time all along the white picket fence.  Happily, it is all weeded, mulched and ready from earlier this month.

picket fence garden

The mulch was fairly easy to move onto this garden area a couple of weeks ago, because it is in the woods behind that fifth wheel. Not so today, when Allan had to go behind the house from the west,  and over a rough lawn….

rough lawn

to the far, far away mulch pile.

far distant mulch pile over uneven ground

He told me he established some sort of a path.  Maybe he went this way:

into the woods and around to the back of the pile?

But I doubt it.  Either way, it was a trek, and I was most grateful that he also dumped some of my wheelbarrows full of weed grass and bad-aster.

Meanwhile, I was astounded to see a crew working on the Payson Hall windows and taking exquisite care of the garden.  They had screwed two by fours onto the planter beds and were standing ON the boards rather than the planter soil, something I have requested at various places to no avail.  I had not even had to mention it.  They just did it!

how to not hurt the planter boxes

solid boards to stand on

I complimented the crew boss, who responded “Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.”  Bless them!  They are champs.  The agile crew never let a foot slip into the garden.

I planted some special primroses for Lorna:  the peachy one I got yesterday at Back Alley Gardens and two of the Zebra primroses that Allan brought back from Seattle.

primrose

Primrose ‘Zebra’

Then…more birthday:

a flowered Polish pottery bowl from Mary and Denny of Klipsan Beach Cottages, with truffles, all most surely from Sweet Williams on Bay gift shop in Ocean Park.

bowl and truffles

a beautiful handmade shawl from my most longtime friend, Mary:

…perfect for comfort after a long cold day.  The shawl was accompanied by Hello Kitty themed presents (and some cookies):

Mary and I, whose birthdays are but days apart, know better than to send each other birthday boxes without chocolate in them.

On the porch, I found a very fancy gold box with purple crown from Queen La De Da:

Allan placed by the new water feature a comfortable chair that he made from an old bench (old metal bench ends, new wood):

birthday chair from which to view my river of Geranium ‘Rozanne’

And even though my first thought had been to collapse in exhaustion at home, we did go out for Shepherd’s Pie at our favourite local restaurant, The Depot:

a very Irish shepherd’s pie

The parsnips were divine, by the way.

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prequel: the rest of 2006

Since we still could not afford to take winter off, the year started with cleaning and painting (for pay, at special mom rate) all my mum’s kitchen cupboards.  We went to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show and stayed at Allan’s parents house and attended many seminars.

I have very little photographic record of 2006 because just when I needed the internet most, in February through April, my 6 year old PC (which Allan and I had been sharing) fell to an array of viruses. A local computer guru managed to keep it limping along because I was having a major could-be-cancer scare and needed to access Dr. Google, desperately!   Everything turned out fine, but as a result I took few photos that year.  With medical bills to pay, I buckled down to work, spent little on entertainment, bought NO plants at all for my garden, and was probably not much fun.

Discovery Heights middle garden in spring

a quick project

At he beginning of May, after surgery, I found out I was going to be just fine. Threee day later, we started weeding the area for this one off planting job. .  Other that that, the spring had been the usual round of work for our regular clients.

We made the yearly pilgrimage to Joy Creek and Cistus nurseries…

cat at Cistus nursery

new roof

We enjoyed life in our newly roofed house….especially when the cold of winter was over.

We did our usual round of jobs.

summer garden at the Shelburne Inn

Klipsan Beach Cottages garden was on the Peninsula garden tour that year which meant a lot of extra work.  I wish I had photos of it that day, as Allan and I hosted the tour.  (Mary wanted to but had to go to a funeral.)

We planted up a deck full of containers for a new client, Diane.

on Diane’s deck

more containers for Diane

In late September, Allan took his heavy old canoe out to the Baker Bay kayak race…mostly kayaks…and I think got an award to having the biggest or the oldest boat in the race…certainly not the fastest.

canoe at the port

Yet, as you can see, there is great satisfaction in finishing a race.

the thrill of finishing

Allan says:  The only money I put in this canoe was fresh paint and fiberglass patches. My dad built it from a $50 kit in the 1960’s and it must have had over twenty years of Boy Scout abuse before he gave it to me. It has a wood frame and is covered with sheets of fiberglass that is patched where it meets, one vertical seam is under my right hand. Its now stealth black instead of pumpkin orange with white patchwork seams. I came in last but, 2nd in my class, almost too late to pick up the medal.   And Sheila replies:  If you enjoyed yourself, that’s all that matters!

The Tall Ships came to Ilwaco, and one of them sailed past China Beach Retreat while we were gardening there.  Allan got this photo:

tall ship off China Beach

At the end of November, after half a year of sharing Allan’s ancient, creaky-slow PC (with even slower dialup), we bought a Mac, got DSL, and embarked upon a happy new computer era.

December at Tangly Cottage

upper patio in December

In 2007, I started my blog, and now….I have caught up to that year.  To follow through with 2007, click here.  Otherwise, my next entry will return us to the present at last!

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a Not Job of 2006

Allan is going through his old photos and found these, of a job that we were offered in 2006.  Keep in mind that I am terrified of heights!   We got a call from a park ranger at Fort Canby State Park (now Cape Disappointment) that they had an area that needed weeding.  I pictured it down by the campground but instead, he took us to a bluff by the North Head Lighthouse…

outside the lighthouse fence

and showed us, in all seriousness, that this area needed weeding in order to help along some native grasses that had been planted:

just weed…out there

On both sides of the curved narrow strip, the cliff falls straight down to roiling waves.  I got dizzy just thinking of it!

We later heard that some sort of youthful crew did the job AND that they were roped in while doing it!

 

 

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prequel: four jobs of 2006

I wrote about some of these gardens in my 2007 blog, but since I the photos were actually taken in 2006, I will reprise them here.

Suzanne’s Garden

We did not do regular maintenance on the Sahalee garden that Robert and I had created for Suzanne, but she called me in a couple of times a year to weed.  On one of those days in 2006, Allan took these photos:

gate

path

by the porch

along the path

with glass ball

Joanne’s garden

Below:  Joanne ‘s garden in full bloom in summer. She died of cancer in the fall….and now we maintain the garden in her memory.

Joanne’s garden

Linda’s garden

Later in the summer, we were hired by Linda L. to put in a garden at her beach house in Seaview.

Linda’s house

First we made a tiny little pocket garden, all white, with ingredients she already had, in memory of her very special and beloved cat, Whitey. This was sort of a get to know you project, because her real idea was much bigger.

Whitey’s garden

Her dear husband had died several months before, and she wanted a healing and memorial garden on the west side of their beach house.

before:  Allan starting the garden

Here’s the garden from her deck; we chose mostly plants with blue flowers because that had been her husband’s favourite colour:

after

the garden from above in late summer

Because he had liked fishing, we made a river rock dry pond with fish.  You can’t see the fish very well; they were mounted on stakes.

dry creek pool

Linda got a fish bench for the garden.

fish bench

We made a little rock area in the garden, the idea being that anyone who visited could place a little round rock on the bigger rock in memory. They had both loved frogs so Linda added lots of frogs.

frog and the little rocks

Linda herself took this photo of her cat in the garden:

Up on a dune on the path to the beach they had an old boat; their guests had believed the story that it had washed way in from the ocean. I do love planting up a boat…

garden boat

Linda has since moved away (and her life is happy again) and the house is now a vacation rental, but we have the memories.

Marilyn’s Garden

Another meaningful garden project was to create a garden at this new house near Surfside, for Depot Restaurant owner Nancy Gorshe’s mother, Marilyn. It was a blank slate except for the little entry sidewalk.

before

beginning

Marilyn wanted a lawn, so we delegated that, and we made a generous walking path around the house that would be friendly to any friends who used a walker or wheelchair.

garden with path

Below: Marilyn’s garden with the lawn seeded and the gravel path rolled and some new plants already in.

progress

Below: the entry from the driveway to Marilyn’s path.

entry

We put round rocks along the house to make that strip of non-garden advocated by my garden guru Ann Lovejoy.

rocks along house

This garden turned out very well and it is scheduled to be on the Peninsula garden tour in July of this year.

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prequel: garden touring, 2005

While Allan and I most definitely went to the Northwest Flower and Garden show…and stayed at his parents’ house in north Seattle…I have no photos from that year.  It was completely new and different and fun for me to go with someone who very much wanted to attend every possible seminar and learn as much as he could about gardening.

Garden of Mu, Olympia

In the spring, Allan and I went to Olympia to help a cyber-gardening friend, Mike Unser, dig up plants from his garden to prepare for a move to his new country home near Shelton.

Mike’s garden

There were many plants to dig up (and share). A number of folk from the Pacific Northwest gardening forum showed up to help. (I actually did have some people photos, somewhere…)

Mike’s garden

Here was another good example of gardening friends who met online coming to know each other in person.

Joy Creek and Cistus Nurseries

For the annual trip to Joy Creek and Cistus, we met Sheila and others from the Rainyside.com garden forum for lunch and plant shopping. I was still holding to my frugal plan of buying only for my clients, and none for me.

Sheila by an Echium at Cistus

at Cistus: Echium

Echium

Alki Beach, Seattle

In the summer, Allan and I went to Seattle, stayed at his parents’ house, and indulged in a Northwest Perennial Alliance garden tour weekend.  I think that is the July when we were there because his mom had a hip replacement and someone needed to stay at the house for four days to take care of making dinner for his dad, making sure Dale took his medication, and so on.  Or perhaps we were there for Dale’s birthday in August.

We now come to the very photos that inspired this whole set of prequel journal posts.  I was poking back through my albums and found these and thought “I MUST share these on my blog!”  And then I thought about all the old garden photos that I had…and began the big late winter project of catching up from 198something to the year I began to blog, 2007.  (One year to go at this point!)  So…just LOOK at the plantings all over this house in the Alki Beach neighbourhood of Seattle.  And these were not even on the official weekend tour; we just happened upon this place while on a drive.

the most astounding container display

The fabulous little house was tucked away between two tall buildings.

just…WOW

It is breathtaking.

astonishing!

more flower house photos

and more

As one drives along Alki past the cottage garden of annuals, one then seas a mysterious hillside garden with Asian inspired tea houses….This was the best angle I could get of that fascinating place.

Asian style garden on the hill over Alki beach

Up the hill into West Seattle, I also had to photograph this swoopy brick wall.

bricks

Northwest Perennial Alliance Tour

On spring and summer weekend, NPA members host open gardens for each other.  If I lived in Seattle, I would go to every one.

On the one that Allan and I attended, we saw in the lower U District, near the freeway, a Jurassic garden of huge plants.  This garden was meant to be tall enough to be structurally in tune with the towers that surround it.

Jurassic garden

Gunnera

Below, inside one of the NPA tour houses that was near Allan’s parents’ house in north Seattle…

garden window

outside the same house’s bay window

The same house had its bedroom, in the back, with doors that could completely open to the garden.

bedroom

Those were just two of the several gardens we toured that weekend….

Rainyside Tour in Portland

I was finding the garden touring to be irresistable; I’d never been able to do much touring with Robert because we were too poor and because his behavior was unpredictable. In early fall of 2005 we met up with some Rainysiders, including Sheila, for an overnight stay in Portland and touring of some gardens. I was particularly to see the one below, which was designed with 4 quadrants by Lucy Hardiman and which had been featured in her lectures at the garden show.

in the 4 quadrants garden

a gew gaw in the Lucy-designed garden

center of the 4 quadrants garden

in the 4 quadrant garden

Below:  another Portland garden by…someone famous! a garden writer whose name I have forgotten.  His garden spills out onto the street.

a well known garden

Below:  I think this was in Kym Pykorny‘s shade garden.

water container

I was thrilled to bits to visit Dulcy Mahar’s garden, because her gardening column in the Oregonian was a highlight of my weekly reading.

in Dulcy’s garden

Dulcy’s fire circle

and…somewhere on the tour

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