Friday, 6 June 2014
To begin the work day, Allan watered Larry and Robert’s garden (five doors down) while I enjoyed a pleasant stroll around ours with visitor New Judy, from three doors down. Just before Allan and I left for work, I decided that the view in through Nora’s driveway does make the garden look enticing.
wish I could stay there all day
The Depot Restaurant
We checked on the Depot first for small weeds and slug damage to the cosmos.
The garden is just beginning to fill in.
Chef Michael was there and liked my idea to move the whiskey barrel in order to make room for the Clamshell Railroad history sign that will be installed soon.
I have left the area around the barrel unplanted till that sign is in!
Planting by Nancy of the Basket Case Greenhouse on north side of the restaurant.
Long Beach: Fish Alley
With the Depot’s few weeds pulled and some Sluggo applied, we went on to Long Beach and added some cosmos to the not very impressive welcome sign garden. The evil horsetail was already sprouting back. Then, due to a breakdown in morning communication, the bag of potting soil I had been counting on was not with us, necessitating a stop at Dennis Company. Because it’s at the northernmost block of planters, we took the opportunity while parked there to water two blocks worth of planters (8 in all) and two street trees. It was all worthwhile because I found some mimulus and a cute little calibrachoa in the Dennis Co garden department.
yellow mimulus, exactly what I wanted for the one soggy, non draining planter in Ilwaco.
We needed the soil to fluff up the four planters in Fish Alley. Maybe it was the mimulus; I all of a sudden felt one of those moments of supreme joy in our job. (I remember years ago as I walked to deadhead the roadside box of flowers at Andersen’s RV Park being overcome with delight that someone was actually paying me to plant and care for flowers.)
Fish Alley in Long Beach
People seem to be using the planters as their own personal source for starts of sedum, so the soil is going away as well.
fixed
And then we were off to the Basket Case Greenhouse to get some more variegated lemon thyme to fill in where some in Fish Alley had died last winter.
The Red Barn Arena
On the way, we took care of The Red Barn and Diane’s containers.
at the Red Barn, one of three barrels in the cold north wind
and the one that is protected by the barn from the cold north wind: same plants, much more lush
the mouthwatering Calibrachoa ‘Lemon Slice’
the salubrious effect of being on a warm sheltered wall
On the east wall: Erysimum ‘Winter Orchid’
Amy and friend
taking a horse to the far pasture
one of the new perennial planters by the entrance
Diane’s Garden
Just north of the Red Barn, I fertilized the pots in the back of Diane and Larry’s house and removed some dead bulb foliage.
Diane’s potted garden
Allan used the strimmer along the highway; it would be better to weed there but we don’t have time.
That WOULD be a lot of weeding. Strimming will make sure Larry won’t get out there with Round Up!
a quick solution (although the rough ground was hard on the string trimmer)
Basket Case Greenhouse
Berlandiera lyrata…chocolate flower smells intensely of chocolate
I got three chocolate flowers for assorted clients and got the plants we needed to finish Fish Alley.
This selection of slightly tender dianthus in one of the annuals houses often comes back the next year.
Fred and Nancy know that red geraniums and pink petunias are not my favourite annuals; remember this for later in the day!
Long Beach planters
By four o clock we were back in Long Beach to water the Long Beach planters and the street trees. I knew the trees would be a struggle as it would be their first hose watering of the year so some of the in-ground spigots would need digging out. Allan took the trees, I took the planters, with gratitude that at least the north two blocks were already done.
Just as we were gathering together our hoses and buckets, I saw suspicious activity across the street. A woman with grey hair in a ponytail rode her bicycle purposefully up to the planter kitty corner from us, by the “World’s Largest Frying Pan” park, dismounted, and started messing around in the planter. After watching with suspicion, I walked across the street and said “Hi, whatcha doin’?” in a surprisingly jolly manner. She said “Oh, I am just deadheading the rose so it will keep blooming.” I said, “That’s my job and we are just about to check on all the planters.” As she held one hand behind her back, I said “Whatcha got there?” And here came the hand full of a bouquet of picked lavender. I sighed. “I really wish you would not do that; the city pays for the plants and upkeep and would rather people not pick out of the planters.” “Oh, I just picked the ones that were hanging over the edge.” (Here comes my age old lecture:) “But think about it, if everyone picked themselves a bouquet, there would be no flowers left.” I shook my head and added “Sorry, really, it is just your bad luck I happened to be here right now.” She bicycled off with the last words “Well, I did deadhead the rose so it will keep blooming.” (I might add it is a once blooming rose, but…oh well.) For some reason I felt like a meanie. She looked quite poor and like she could not even afford dental care. Later, when I described her extreme thinness and lack of teeth, a friend said “meth” but at the time I just thought terrible poverty. Then I remembered my years in my mid 20s of having so little spending money that my garden budget for the entire year was literally $20. I would go to Molbak’s in the Pike Place Market and carefully choose $20 worth of seeds. It would never have occurred to me to take plants (sedums from Fish Alley anyone?) or bouquets from public gardens. As I headed off to water (with the thyme plants for Fish Alley in my bucket) I felt torn about finger blight and wondered whether I should just let folks pick themselves bouquets of lavender. I am sure it happens often enough that I don’t see, and occasionally it must happen in a way that leaves to evidence for me to notice later.
And the cold north wind blew, as I walked through town and watered three out of four remaining blocks of planters, planted the thymes in Fish Alley and deadheaded the Veterans Field garden, while Allan struggled with the muddy street tree spigots that had filled with dirt over the winter.
On one planter bench, I found these, and moved them to a park bench.
I enjoyed the display in front of The Wooden Horse gift shop.
The Eryngiums were looking mighty fine in the frying pan park:
Eryngium ‘Jade Frost’
flowers start white and all turn to blue…amazing
and Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’, my favourite perennial.
all in a little strip of garden
When Allan finished the trees, he tidied the park in front of Captain Bob’s Chowder and then helped water the southernmost two blocks of planters.
I found another very obvious finger blight situation in the planter by the credit union.
one of the tall and quite hard to find forms of Ameria (sea thrift) knocked sideways and yanked partway out of the soil.
next to it, all these little starts pulled off and abandoned. Maybe someone got yelled at by a passerby for finger blighting.
Just about then, fellow gardener Ed Strange pulled up in his truck to say hi. We commiserated about the icy cold wind and I gave him the little starts to try to grow, as I did not have time to deal with them.
With all the main street trees and planters watered, we dumped our buckets of debris. I so did not want to check the beach approach planters. We had to. The ones out on the west end of Bolstadt looked parched, and we did not have much bucket water with us so we gave them what we had. There is no water source inside those planters. I think the city crew is spraying them with water from their water trailer once a week. I hope so.
At the west end of Sid Snyder Drive, where the eight or so planters do have soaker hoses, I was in for a big surprise when we visited our new planting (having dug massive weeds out of there a couple of weeks ago and added drought tolerant perennials that we would have to check on only once a week or even less often).
It was full of pink petunias, red geraniums, and red fluffy salvia!!!!
I was amused and delighted for a bit, and then worried about the perennials being smothered, and then thought whoever planted this had better not think I am going to do all that petunia deadheading…we Don’t Have Time.
I knew who it was, though.
Many of the old signs remain and give the impression the planters are still done by volunteers.
I pondered this lightly for a day and decided by the next day on a solution: we would move the perennials to another planter (the also newly planted one near the kite museum), thus making the other planter look better, and I would talk to Back Country (whose horse corral is just down the block on Sid Snyder) about the planter now being high maintenance and see if they are planning to deadhead. It sure does look cute right now though, and I have high hope it will remain that way because it will be a treat for the people who stay at the two hotels out there.
Ilwaco
By now it was 7 PM and despite being tired and cold (with flannel shirt, sweatshirt, jacket and winter scarf on!), we had to water the Ilwaco planters. Allan hooked up the water trailer from its parking spot at the city works yard, while I walked around and checked all the planters and added a few plants (the yellow spotted mimulus to the one by the yellow Portside Café!).
We had been promised that the city crew would always fill the water trailer with water, thus saving us 15 minutes of filling it. It was empty. Perhaps that is just as well, as we had realized that just the water full trailer weigh over 800 lbs and unless it is well balanced, how would Allan hook it up to the van? He filled it at the boatyard.
The planters had not been watered since Sunday. There had been much debate between us each day over whether they needed watering yet. I must confess that wanting to go to Taco Thursday at the Cove is one reason they did not get watered Thursday night. It had been a bit too long of a wait.
The Erysimum were slightly wilty.
Above, you can see how the Nepeta (catmint), with its blue flowers, looks all yellowy at the base. The yellowing always comes on even when we water more often. This was bringing down the tone in all the planters and I had a revelation as I walked (hobbled) around clipping half or all of each one back despite the blue flowers. (New growth will come back and I hope make them look good again in a couple of weeks.) THE CATMINT ALL HAS TO GO!
It has been a problem with yellowing foliage, and then dead flowers that need to be clipped in midsummer, ever since I started doing the planters. The planters came to us with the catmint already planted, and since it’s a perennial that I like very much in gardens, I have just accepted it. But think how much nicer a couple of diascias would be with summer-long colour and no deadheading or yellowing lower leaves.
It is too late for this year as removing large plants would create too much planter ruction, but in the fall, OUT they come. What a thrilling thought. Why did it take me 9 years to figure it out?
And oh was it cold, and the wind blew at 26 mph. Just as I was finishing, Kathleen Shaw, who was down for the weekend called to arrange a Saturday meet up, and I am afraid I was rather grumpy. Something about the blankity blank planters and the blankity blank wind and some other blankity work thing. Finger blight, probably. We agreed to talk again when I woke up on Saturday!
The blankety blank water trailer is saving back strain from bucket watering but it does indeed take FORTY FIVE minutes longer per watering session, time we just have to pull out of…somewhere…time we get paid for and yet would rather have the free time than the money.
At dusk, we finished with a quick watering and deadheading of the garden boat at Time Enough Books where I bunged in six more cosmos because I am not at all satisfied with the floral display.
watering…thank all that is holy for GARDENS with HOSES.
Tired and both of us very crabby, at least we knew we had earned a weekend off, although Allan did have an idea that he would do some more watering at the port on Sunday.
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Tangly Cottage Gardening