Colorful Coastal Gardens tour: Gary and Kristie’s garden

Saturday, 14 July 2018

Colorful Coastal Gardens tour

 Grayland, Washington

presented by the Master Gardeners of Grays Harbor and Pacific County

Gary and Kristie’s garden, Grayland

Gardeners’ quotation: “Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding up until your back gets used to it.” 

by the street

Allan saw some history that I somehow missed.

The house, when purchased, was 528 square feet and I believe is still that size.

today (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

shady side of front garden

The gardeners seem to be winning over the depredations of slugs and snails.

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

blue bottle edge just inside the front gate

“Clematis are their passion…”

at the front of the house (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

This golden barberry got lots of admiration.

“The first plant Kristie placed in her garden from the coastal region is the calla lily at the entrance of her home, greeting guests.”

back of house (Allan’s photo)

At the back of the house, I admired the well grown vines.

Passiflora

A green and white clematis made me green-ish with envy.

Like Chie and Bill’s garden, this one had enviable outbuildings.

an outbuilding

just by where the two women were walking in previous photo

“...carvings abundant in the garden…”

same little building seen from behind the main house

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

 

further back, an enormous (to me) outbuilding, AKA She Shed.

Allan’s photo

“…ease the soreness of gardening with the charming outdoor shower and spa...”

beachy outdoor shower (Allan’s photo)

between the two outbuildings

Behind the smaller shed was a grandchild’s play garden.

Allan’s photo

back wall of small shed

The center area of the back garden has a fire circle and hot tub.

with those nice, smooth beach rocks

and a driftwood fence

cannas and curry plant

Allan’s photo; he saw this but I did not.

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

At the back of the garden:

ladies in waiting at the back of the garden

Allan looked toward the back for compost heaps because the description had mentioned “tons of compost” to overcome the challenge of sand.  We learned that they have bought compost (as we did at first and still do sometimes) and had it delivered.

On the shady side:

the shady side

All this on what realtor info sites say is a lot slightly under ten thousand square feet.  That is one of the great advantages of having a tiny house with a small footprint.

Right across the road, this sandy road led over a dune to the beach.

Takeaways:  I haven’t had a Helichrysum italicum (curry plant) for a few years.  Must get some.

Ask Allan if he would be so kind as to collect reasonably sized not too difficult driftwood on boating trips. And some beach rocks.

Interlude

Nearby, we saw this cute little trailer painted like a lady bug.

Plant Sale

Next up was the Master Gardener group’s plant sale at a different house.

It had an enticing front garden that was not on the tour because, as the owner said, she had been spending all her time on the plant sale.

Allan’s photo

ducks! (Allan’s photo)

treats!

I got some good plants, including some Crambe maritima, and some hakonechloa grass at a great price, which I got with Alison of the Bonney Lassey blog in mind.

I am holding (and will buy two) one of those cool teucriums that I liked last year in Markham Farm garden…which will be our last stop on this garden tour.

thinking of you, Alison!

some baby Verbena bonariensis!

People were trying to ID this plant and could not.  I couldn’t remember what it was, either.

It has blue flowers.  I know I have had it before.  Does it start with a p…? a b….?

Two more gardens to go on this tour!

 

 

 

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Hardy Plant Weekend: Roses & Sebright Nursery

Sunday, 26 June 2016

Hardy Plant Study Weekend in Salem, Oregon

Grand Hotel, Salem

from the Grand Hotel: goodbye to our view of Salem

a plaza with hanging baskets

and sculptures

in the distance: train tracks and a mysterious globe

kudos to the hotel for a good room design with a divider between sleeping and sitting areas.

At breakfast, we overheard another Hardy Planter saying that the fourth garden of the list of eight on today’s tour was south, and all the others were north.  We saved considerable driving time by going to the Salem garden first (even though it meant a late arrival to the plant sales at the first official stop of the day).

garden 20: Laveryne’s Garden

The front garden was indeed a show-stopper.

I do love a boardwalk anywhere in a garden.

Allan’s photo

bountiful arrays of clematis

into the back garden

Allan’s photo

a hedge of clematis

Just over this privacy hedge was a vast ballfield.

Allan’s photo

clematis embracing lilies

dahlias and the ballfield

salvias and conifers

looking back at the garden

Allan’s photo. Allan says: According to http://www.tractordata.com the Bolens 800 garden tractor was only built from 1963 to 1965, over fifty years ago.

We couldn’t linger because of wanting to get to the plant sales while the pickings were still good, so on we drove to…

garden 17: Sebright Nursery

After we parked in a grassy field, I made a beeline to the vendors.  It was hot, by the way, in the upper 80s.

I don’t think there were ten vendors…maybe five…unless I missed some.

Allan’s photo

the famous and affable Roger Gossler.

Dan Hinkley and a hardy planter

This is when I succumbed to Hacquetia ‘Thor’, and a hardy begonia.  Dan said I had a good eye and had made two excellent choices.  I said he must say that to everyone, but he said not so.  😉

amusing Dan Hinkley tag, photographed at Dancing Oaks the previous evening.

Allan with my acquisitions from Windcliff and from Secret Garden Growers.

While I was browsing the Secret Garden Growers table, I overheard one of the owners quote a garden lecturer as having spoken of planting in “generous drifts of one”…what Ann Lovejoy calls the “onesies” of the plant collector.  Or ones-sie-ing, which is impossible to spell.

Allan’s photo

Hardy planters admiring a cool acquisiton. (Allan’s photo)

Having spent another small fortune, we walked down a long road to the Sebright display garden and nursery.

display gardens

Arisaema candidissima

Allan’s photo

welcome shade

It was so hot that I must admit I did not walk over to the gazebo.

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo: He liked the way this dierama had space to show off its form.

Allan’s photo

hostas, Sebright’s specialty

My three hostas at home are all pathetic, snail-chewed things.  At garden after garden on the hardy plant tour, I had seen gorgeous, perfect hostas, all probably from this renowned nursery.

Hardy Planters, including Lucy Hardiman (in purple top) and Nancy Goldman (right).

how so perfect? how?

cardiocrinum (center); the snails always get mine before they barely start.

the nursery

I did acquire a choice Sanguisorba ‘Lilac Squirrel’ and wish I could have acquired more plants.  I was daunted by having to carry them up the hill, and because Allan’s back was still “out”, I could not load him down like a pack pony.

a small purchase (Allan’s photo)

On the way out, Allan photographed this amazing flower; I had to ask on Facebook for an identification:

Caesalpinia gilliesii . Bob Nold said probably easy from seed and is hardy in Denver.

Next: an iris nursery and owner’s personal garden

 

 

 

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first day off

I procrastinated all morning, but there were reasons: catching up on the blog, and bad (ish) weather. Maybe I was sick of planting plants, but I had many to plant here and needed to get started. Finally I got myself outside with the memory that I had very much been looking forward to another go-round of pulling Impatiens (jewelweed, touch me not) out of the front border.

2:38 PM, front garden

after editing

I need to learn to mark the spot where I take my before photo to make the results more clear!

I was amazed at how big this cardoon has gotten since last time I noticed:

humungous

Another task that I had been longing to do in the back garden was to use the hedge shears to lop back the Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’. It gets so lush that it flops open. Last year for the garden tour I had to use all sorts of short bits of rebar to hold it up and make it halfway decent looking. By chopping it at this time of year, the plant stays more compact and still flowers, but with smaller, not so heavy flowers so it does not fall open. I recently did the same to all the ‘Autumn Joy’ in the Long Beach planters.

before

Unfortunately, when I tried to use the hedge shears my right arm protested mightily. It has been plaguing me for two days….”planter’s arm”, apparently. Allan stepped in and did the job.

after (but not picked up yet)

The creeping sorrel in the raspberry patch had suddenly leaped to almost as tall as the berry canes.

Yikes! When did that happen?

After running some errands of his own, Allan stepped in here also and did a wonderful job.

Thank you, Allan!

By then, I was heavily into planting annuals and perennials. I told myself I would get at least thirty plants planted before I let myself get back to the enjoyable task of weeding, and I am sure I surpassed that number. While planting on the west side of the house, I kept catching myself thinking “Nora and Devery will like these.” (Devery was Nora’s wonderful caregiver.) Then I would remember with a huge pang that Nora was gone. I had made sure over the last two years that the west side garden that she can, I mean could, see from her front window was vibrant with bright colour.

Tomorrow planting hell will surely conclude, because all I have left to plant are these:

holding area on east side of house

(Not as bad as it looks, because some of those are in permanent pots. Probably about ten plants there that need planting.)

And this line up on the path to Allan’s shop:

mostly cosmos and painted sage, and some of the cosmos will go to Ann’s on Tuesday.

Then there are some tomatoes in the greenhouse, and I could have done them during the blustery morning inside the greenhouse, had I remembered them!

tomatoes

Oh, drat, and these also, which I almost forgot were waiting next to the greenhouse.

more cosmos. I like them.

So tomorrow will be the planting of the six packs of cosmos all over this garden.

The relatively small amount of cosmos that will be left for Ann, along with two Penstemon ‘Burgundy Brew’ for two wine connoisseur clients, two Rosemary for Chef Michael at the Depot, and …oh….I should get some blue and white painted sage for the mayor’s garden….Those plants that are left are not enough to constitute a hellish amount of planting. So I am fervently hoping that by eight PM tomorrow I can declare annuals planting hell over for 2013.

My right arm will be grateful.

At almost dusk, I took a walk around the garden to photograph plants that had caught my eye during an afternoon of planting. (Like most gardeners do, I walk round and round with a perennial pot in hand trying to figure out where it could go.)

Clematis on east fence…most blooming on my neighbours’ side!

another east fence clematis

Siberian Iris

Smokey toured with me.

shade bed

I so look forward to a satisfying weeding of that shade bed. It was too windy to weed this close to the bogsy wood today, especially since the alder right over the shade bed has died! It is a great snag for birds but I fear a big branch breaking off in wind so I stay out from under on days like today, with gusts of 26 mph!

ominous

I wonder why this one alder died. I did not pile soil deeply around its base or anything bad… I skittered back to safety away from the tree.

west border (Hi, Mary’s red boat shed!)

a new rose by the west gate

another new rose (and…horsetail)

The new roses are from Heirloom roses, and I am going to sort out their names later this year!

I do NOT remember planting these iris. I think they are too big to be from the ones Kathleen Sayce gave to me and Ann….

view down west path to the bogsy wood edge

In the front garden, some truly accidental colour matching pleased my eye.

Imagine this astrantia…

when this clematis that is behind it gets big enough to show above the astrantia.

And the Allium bulgaricum also matches!

In closing, Allan’s excellent garden in the dusk…

perfectly weeded

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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flashback: 8 July 2009 — mom’s 2nd garden open day

On July 8th, the Vancouver (Washington) garden club returned in the morning to tour mom’s garden.  Early rain had us worried but had almost stopped by the time the group arrived, and overcast weather does make for better garden photos.  Mom made brownies and iced tea and decorated the table with some of her African violets (heirlooms passed down from my grandma).  Of course, we had the garden open signs up at the entrance.

garden open today

refreshments

We kept the garden open till mid-afternoon and a few friends stopped by.  I think had it been 2011 instead of 2009 we would have had far more people because my Facebook connections are much vaster now that they were then…

visitors

Mary Caldwell from Klipsan Beach Cottages came (center, above) with her mom (left) and her friend Carol Schisler (right).  Mom was pleased to meet Mary’s mother as they were the same age.   Having garden tour visitors to chat with had made my mother more aware of the usual solitude of her day to day life.

Lola visited from the Anchorage Cottages and a few other friends and neighbours.  The guests  wandered the grassy paths all around the garden and followed the paver path around the west and south sides of the house to admire the clematis, raspberries, and veg garden.

east-west path in front of house; you can see the concrete strip that used to be for parking a trailer.

looking east on the east-west path in front of house (with soil filling in a low spot)

And at the south edge of the garden is the Escallonia hedge in full bloom.

east end of grid

Here the long east-west grass path emerges onto the wide path that swings by the curving south borders.  You can just see over the tops of the lilies where the path widens into a patch of lawn with chairs and tables.

One of the feral outdoor cats mom cared for sat on a dirt path in the veg. garden.

On this open day, the garden looked lovely in all of its details….

plant table

old planted chair

My mom’s limited budget always went for plants and soil rather than fancy garden furniture, but Allan and I had brought very old chairs from our garden to add to the ambience.  This one had been given to us a year before by the owner of Sea Garden.

Our planted tables and chairs are inspired by George Schenk’s wonderful book, Gardening on Tables, Pavement and Hard Surfaces.

The garden was in better form than it had been on the day of the Music in the Gardens tour.  (I think it’s a grand idea that in 2012 the Peninsula tour will be in mid-July….time for lilies to bloom.)

lilies

Asiatic lilies

& lilies…

lilies and echeverias

echeverias and fishing floats

Clematis and rose on northwest house corner

Volunteer hypericum in a crack of the paver path

roses along the pea trellis

one of mom’s favourite roses by the veg garden

veg garden

southwest house garden

Climbing roses, blue potato vine, lilies and clematis under mom’s bedroom window. Her beloved cat Tabby was buried here in 2008..

birdhouse in apple tree

bamboo birdhouse

teacup mirror

In a bed nearby, one of mom’s typical hot colour combinations sizzled.

The row of marigolds across the path echoed the orange lilies.

Mom had wanted the proverbial riot of colour in the beds near the sunporch so she could see lots of colour from the house, and that is what she got.  That reminds me of a story Dan Hinkley told during a garden seminar:  A visitor looked at a bed of hot colours in his garden and said “If that was sex, it wouldn’t be safe sex!”

bed of colour

Allium schubertii….

…and Allium albopilosum with Cosmos and lilies in the bed of bright colours

In the curving south garden bed, cooler heads had prevailed.

Mom loved every part of this garden and enjoyed having guests.  We wished there had been more on this perfect afternoon in the garden, but now I can share it with you here.

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flashback: mid-June 2009 — interval between tours

Back from our nursery visits and garden touring, we spent two and half weeks trying to keep up with our regular clients while getting both Mom’s and Laurie’s gardens perfect for the upcoming Peninsula Garden Tour.

During the rushed and busy time we saw…

one sunning snake

…two pretty horses…

….three good dogs…

…a snake sunning itself on top of an azalea in Jo’s garden, and two of Laurie’s horses (Pinta, a Peruvian Paso, and Dewey, a miniature), and three dogs: Annie on left, Jasmine on right, who lived in the neighbouring RV Park and took walks up our road, and Lucky, the greeter at Olde Towne Trading Post, where we did NOT have time to stop for coffee!

We checked on gardens from the southeast….

Casa Pacifica, a private garden near the Wallicut River

to the northwest…and points between.

black Bachelor Buttons at Oman Builders Supply, Ocean Park

We had three gardens to perfect for the tour…Well, actually, six.  The four gardens leading up to Discovery Heights were also on the tour, but as public gardens they would not be hosted but would be self-guided.  I had printed descriptive signs of each garden and we’d figured out how to mount them against the rock in front of each big bed.

Laurie’s and the Discovery Heights gardens had not been as challenging to perfect because they were under our regular care.  Nevertheless, each had required considerable extra time and expense for the owners.  My mother figured out that she alone had spend hundreds getting ready for tour, buying more plants and a lavish amount of delicious mulch for all the beds.  Being on a garden tour doesn’t come cheap.

Most of the final week we spent in my mother’s garden seeking perfection.   My tour standards are exacting.  There must be no weeds, perfect grooming, and lots of garden decor.  We already had a list of items we would be moving from our garden to hers for tour day:  containers, plant stands, chairs, tables, assorted garden-art-on-stakes sorts of things.

A week before tour day, all her clematis seemed to bloom at once:

Clematis blanketed the side of the front porch…

Clematis ‘Josephine’ on the north wall

Clematis ‘Blue Light’ on north wall

Clematis on west wall of sunporch, with Solanum crispum ‘Glasnevin’ (blue potato vine)

My Mother was chronically shy.  She had self-diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder from a questionnaire she asked me to print out for her from the internet.  (I think she passed it on to me.) Yet after initial hesitation, she had decided that she would indeed sit out in her garden for the visitors.  She found it hard to believe my opinion that her garden would be among the best.  We fretted together over whether the lilies would bloom in time, and would the clematis stay in bloom?

Friday before tour day found Allan and me dashing from Discovery Heights in Ilwaco, to Laurie’s halfway up Sandridge Road on the bay, and back to mom’s, doing the last minute deadheading and fussing.  The plant stands and containers we had taken to mom’s garden on Thursday evening.  Because she found watering increasingly exhausting, we did not want to give her early responsibility for their daily watering.  We fit into our small hauling trailer as much garden furniture as we could, and planned to get up uncharacteristically early on Saturday to take up one more load and set up all the garden sit spots.  The garden tour committee would bring refreshments and….it was almost time for a garden party.

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