11 November: the last fall clean up job

Friday, 11 November 2016

I began the day with waking to the kicked in the gut feeling.  Reading the news of more hate crimes exacerbated my despair. Was comforted at that very moment by a message from a friend on the east coast; he said the tears were still coming for him, as well.

Also, Leonard Cohen died this week.

birds on a wire (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

I honestly do not think I could even go to a job right now where our client did not share our feelings of dismay.  Fortunately, we had a job to go to where the clients are simpatico.

We began the work day with a trip to Peninsula Landscape Supply to get a yard of soil energy.  Our intention was to finish the day by spreading it at the port, thus crossing two things off of our work list.

Soil Energy (Allan’s photo)

fishies

Klipsan Beach Cottages

We focused on the fall clean up and clipping back of plants that looked tatty now or would look tatty soon.  (First, I had a long talk with Mary.  Denny joked that I had better not charge for it because it had nothing to do with gardening.)

Allan worked on the swale and roadside gardens and took all the befores and afters and Bella photos:

before

after

before

after

He then joined me in the fenced garden clean up.

before

after

At Denny’s request, Allan removed, with great difficulty, the roots of an old and unattractive fern that were well edged into the railroad tie edge of the garden.

before

after, leaving a nice sword fern

Bella had a good roll in the gravel.

Denny was not thrilled at the results.

Bella greets the visiting nurse for Mary’s mother.

After the fenced garden was weeded and clipped, the soil looked tired and battered despite having been mulched well this summer.  Mary said they would have to get some more bagged mulch, After some internal debate about how I would not be able to cross two things off the work list today, I offered up our load of  Soil Energy, which meant we would be working tomorrow instead of a day off.

one yard of Soil Energy

applied with buckets

After the mulching, at dusk, the garden looked very fine:

agapanthus seed heads

hardy fuchsias still blooming

Mary got out her winter signs.

Long Beach

We saved two buckets of mulch and got to Long Beach before dark.

parking near Vet Field in a light rain

Even though the last bulbs were planted in almost darkness, we managed to get the final Long Beach bulbs installed into the four planters that have been dug in (for electrical repair purposes) and could now be finished for the year.  I was able to erase both KBC and Long Beach bulbs from the work board.

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1995 (age 71):

Nov 11: I emptied the 6 wooden pots and planted bulbs and pansies on top.  At 4:30 I went into shop and tried pairing off bulbs to plant together but it was too complicated to match up colors, depth of planting and when bloom.  I cleaned the dahlias so they are ready for peat moss and then to bed for the winter.  I washed several of the terracotta pots.  I’ll put pansies in them.

Someday I should count how many pansies I bought.  I planted the 4 Philodendrons in the 2 tall pots.

1997 (age 73):

Nov 11: Store day—just Payless and QFC.  Then I went out to close the water faucets.  First I had to wash scads of pots and trays piled up in sink.  By then the ground around the sink was very wet and mucky.  I got wet and dirty closing the faucet by the greenhouse.  But I took a hot shower and was ok.  There didn’t seem to be any damage from the frost that I could see.

1998 (age 74):

Nov 11:  In all day again doing apples after going to the store for more lids.  I canned the sauce I cooked yesterday.  Picked 2 buckets of apples.  I peeled some more to be dehydrated.  Picked up more apples—there seems to be no end to them.

 

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10 November: working for Freedom

Thursday, 10 November 2016

I woke early, after maybe four hours of sleep, to the kick in the gut feeling of the election, and immediately turned to the news on my iPhone because I knew more sleep was impossible.  My heart broke over reports of hate crimes across the country.  I also learned that the biracial child of a local friend had been targeted by violent bullying; we do not think it is coincidental that it happened the day after.  I was somewhat heartened by peaceful protests across the nation (some marred by the usual small contingent of vandals).  In Portland, the peaceful protestors made a gofundme to donate to repair the vandalism and raised $51 thousand  dollars (by the time I am writing this five days later).  (Now 55K, as this publishes a week later.)

This blog is mostly in my voice, unless Allan writes about a boating trip.  Don’t doubt that he also feels great dismay at current events.  At first, I thought he did not feel it as deeply as I, simply because tears were not his first reaction, but the day after I learned that he also was losing sleep and experiencing distress and feeling sick while reading the news.

We decided to start the work day with a project:

Ilwaco Freedom Market

Ilwaco now has a marijuana shop at the port.  The owner had asked us if we could make their entry garden look good.  I was thrilled to take it on.  He even wanted us to deal with the weeds along the sidewalk between Howerton and Waterfront Way, property that doesn’t even belong to the Freedom Market.  That shows a good civic spirit.

the sidewalk, before

We decided to string trim the left side and weed the right side of the sidewalk.

Allan’s photos: before

during

 

after

along the building, before

and after

The garden itself had landscape fabric under shallow bark so that the “underwear” showed badly.

the Freedom Market garden, before

I decided the fabric had to go away.  In the process, I ended up leaving it under the south side of the garden bed which is a walking area.

The pulling commences.

Weeds with their roots stuck into landscape fabric show how ineffective it is in a garden bed.  In the long run, this area would have filled up with firmly entrenched weeds.

Half of the fabric was the ridiculously thin kind that tears like paper.

1.75 hours later: I provided some free Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, lambs ears, and a libertia, which it now occurs to me is a perfectly named plant for a Freedom Market garden.

The whole time we were working, the Freedom Market did a bustling business.  This should be good for the city’s tax coffers.

While Allan weeded at the Salt Hotel curbside garden, I visited Karla at Time Enough Books for some much needed commiseration.

Ceanothus having an unusual lavish autumnal bloom.

some timely reading matter

Mike’s garden

After the Freedom Market, we went to Mayor Mike’s garden for its final fall clean up…a short one because we had done considerable clean up last time.

Mike’s garden

garden spider (Allan’s photo)

Mike’s kitty cat (Allan’s photo)

Mike’s garden now goes onto the “post frost clean up” list, probably just for leaf raking.

Long Beach

Some tidying in Long Beach finished the day.  Allan worked on the Veterans Field gardens while I groomed a couple of blocks worth of planters.

Vet Field corner garden (Allan’s photo)

a ridiculously early anemone (Allan’s photo)

The carousel (across the street from this planter) is now down for the winter.

I am finding it helpful to stop and visit friends who I know who are also having a dark week.  At the end of the day, one fellow we visited was wearing this year’s Jake the Alligator Man event’s 2016 t shirt.

Apparently I am still feeling intensely blurry, as today’s work board photo indeed testifies.  It does show that the “fall clean up” list is almost complete and that the “post frost clean up” work list now awaits either a frost (which we might not get) or a final clean up at some jobs before the Christmas holidays, whichever comes first.

haven’t added Mike’s leaf raking yet

The Van Engelen end of season sale began but did not include the sort of bulbs I want.  Unless they add more, some of the second round bulb planting list might simply disappear from the board.

The Cove Restaurant

Our close friends are all as devastated as we are.  It took some doing for us to find our energy to have our weekly North Beach Garden Gang meeting.  I pushed for it because it is important to me to support local businesses with simpatico owners (such at The Cove).  I was so glad we went, because at the next table were two dear friends who sorely needed hugs and conversation.  With the hate crimes in the news, people are devastated emotionally and, if potentially a target, are afraid.

Also, the food was delicious as always.

Lomo soltado

ambient music by Tom Trudell

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1995 (age 71):

Nov 10:  I bought “berry” wire at Yelm Hardware and 3 more metal posts for the new raspberry row. I hope Robert’s back gets better—they won’t be up there till the day before Thanksgiving.  [That must be the autumn when Robert threw his back out planting bulbs and was down for several days.] I stopped at Gordon’s=32 pansies and 18 mums.

1997 (age 73):

Nov 10:  Happy Birthday Marine Corps.  I worked again in the Tam area, the same work I’ve done the last two days.  On the evening news they said it will be below freezing tonight.

1998 (age 74):

Nov 10: Beautiful warm day and I spent the entire day in the kitchen canning the applesauce I cooked last night, and peeling and cooking more which I’ll can tomorrow after I buy some more lids.   I also dried 5 large onions, potatoes, and 2 cabbages.  Cabbage doesn’t dry well.  It ends up little tiny shreds.  Too much waste.  HAPPY MARINE CORPS BIRTHDAY.

[My mother was a Marine in WWII.]

 

 

 

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8 November: a bad ending

Tuesday, 8 November 2016

Frosty and Smokey at home

Although it was an annoyingly windy day, we decided to get one more fall clean up job done in the afternoon.

Anchorage Cottages

Mitzu demonstrated how windy it was.

Our good friend Mitzu (Allan’s photo)

Mitzu and cotoneaster (Allan’s photo)

a late dahlia (Allan’s photo)

parking lot garden near the office, before

after cutting the green shoots out of the variegated fuchsia.

Wind gusts of thirty miles an hour plagued us by blowing around everything we clipped.

Long Beach

We had time to tackle the garden by Kabob Cottage (me) and the south side of the police station (Allan).

nearby Veterans field shows the wind. (Allan’s photo)

Two little gardens. Above it All Kites closed years ago.

behind Lewis and Clark Square, before

before, with annoying crocosmia (including the pesky orange kind)

after

after

Allan’s project was a windy one:

south side of police station, before

before

after

Right under the police captain’s window, flattened and grown through with roses, Allan found a dessicated but still stinky dead raccoon.  Someone probably put it there.  We turned that problem over the to the city crew when I realized how odiferous it was.  They dealt with it promptly.  I will spare you the rather interesting photo Allan took of it.

While we worked, the city crew was busy putting up Christmas lights, their goal being to have the whole town extensively decorated before Thanksgiving.

Allan’s photo

audience (Allan’s photo)

There are four planters north of where we worked that we have bulbs in waiting for.  I was pleased to see they had been dug into to try and find an electrical problem that must be fixed.

I should be able to plant bulbs soon.

at home

Acanthus senii about to bloom

Geranium ‘Rozanne’ still blooming

I worked on the blog post about Klipsan Beach Cottages journals as the first election results trickled in.  As the evening progressed, I kept blogging and checking the news, till we finally settled in to watch the telly news.  By then I knew the electoral college was hopeless for Hillary.  I had come to actually love her from reading about her extensively after my hopes for Bernie were dashed.  I don’t demand that a person be perfect and flawless before I love her and I had felt she would accomplish much good, and that anyone who carefully researched the many attacks on her would find her to be someone who had been falsely maligned on many counts.  I had been filled with real horror and disgust by her racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic opponent but I had never underestimated his ability to rile up the masses.

By 11, or maybe it was midnight, we watched a cooking show instead.  Or Allan did.  Because I was fairly quiet about it, he did not know that I couldn’t see through tears brought on by the realization that so much of social justice and environmentalism I had supported since age 12 was very likely about to be dismantled.  Everything that matters to me had been on the line.  It felt like an assault.  I almost wrote everything other than gardening…but…climate change affects gardening in a major way.

Three hours of sleep followed.  Frosty, who has never slept with me before, slept right by my head, purring in a way that did not help me sleep and yet was comforting.

My mother was conservative.  But I can tell you right now, the minute D.T. insulted her hero John McCain, she would have been done with him.  When he said of sexual assault in the military, “What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?”, she would have been done with him.  She was a Marine in WWII and she WAS sexually assaulted in the military.  When he made a joke about the Purple Heart, she would have been apoplectic.  I wish I could talk with her about it.

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1995 (age 71):

Nov 8: I started piling new wood.  Some pieces big enough for chopping blocks.  I guess I’ll have to order split wood in future.  If Robert doesn’t have time I’ll have to hire someone to split it although Del offered to help me.  NICE MAN.  [Robert and I visited mom for 3 or 4 days each fall to do chores for her.]

Started hemming the new slacks I have had for months.  Then the shopper came [newspaper circular with ads].  Pansies and mums for 39 cents!  I dashed in and bought 4 full trays (64 plants).  I may go back for more plus some mums.

1997 (age 73):

Nov 8:  It was such a beautiful warm sunny day so I went out and worked in the upper part of the Tam area, cutting back, weeding etc.  I got about a third of the Tam flower bed done.

 

 

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7 November: Fifth Street Park

Monday. 7 November 2016

Our mission today was to finish still more fall clean up.

Long Beach

Fifth Street Park was first on the agenda.  We did not know for sure if the Christmas sea serpent would be installed at the top of the fence on the northwest side.  Allan got the area ready just in case.  His photos:

before

before

before

after

after

after

At the last minute, I decided he should not cut that one big miscanthus.  It still looks good, and balances the ones on the other side.  It is the last of several that were on the north side.  They were removed because the businesses behind them did not like the blocked visibility.

south side of the park where visibility is not an issue

The other grass that Allan did chop all the way looked tatty and was more in the way of the dragon.  I mean sea serpent.  I always think of it as a dragon.

Here’s a photo from a previous Christmas.

Sadly for us, Captain Bob’s Chowder was closed today.

Meanwhile, I tackled the south east quadrant of the park.

 

before: Darmera peltata and Gunnera

before

before

during

darmera roots saved for MaryBeth

after

after

after

after, with a blue spotlight

Now the city crew will easily be able to clean out the pond.

We both worked on a difficult rectangular bed in southwest quadrant.  It is rooty, soggy, and always a misery to weed.

before

after

Geranium ‘Rozanne’ still blooming

lots of debris (Allan’s photo)

cosmos blooming in the City Works debris pile.

At home, we watched some telly.  Stressful suspense about the election was foremost in my mind.  As I write this five days later, to be published a week later, I am glad I was not too hopeful that a progressive government devoted more more than less to human rights would win. You know how that turned out.  Sleep eluded me for the most part.

In good news:

 

The work list is getting smaller.

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1995 (age 71):

Nov 7: Received firewood in pouring rain ($75.00).  They insisted it was dry.  Del Lord offered a tarp—much appreciated as the tarp I planned to use was very wet.

1997 (age 73):

Nov 7:  I did paperwork so got a late start outside.  So I only worked a couple of hours.  I planted a few tulips in the patio and UDFB [Upper Driveway Flower Bed].  I pulled scads of sweet woodruff and cut back several perennials and weeded so at least the UDFB is put to bed for the winter.  Later I’ll add some mulch.  Also stepped on Hardy Fuchsia shrub.  Damn.

1998 (age 74):

Nov 7: Noon-6:00  Peeled apples all afternoon, and got 10 more pints canned slices.

Next week:

• Clean the rest of the pots and containers
• Plant Park Seed perennials
• Start planting container bulbs
• Cut back all plants that have frozen

 

 

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3 November: mulching time

Thursday, 3 November 2016

The weather turned out as good as predicted.  I hoped to cross two mulching projects off of the work board by the end of the day.

The Depot Restaurant

Before we could acquire mulch, we had to do the rest of the fall clean up at the Depot garden, including taking the hops down from the dining deck lattice.

Chef Michael asked for an extra project, clearing a narrow area between deck and wall of bamboo so that a repairman could get in to fix the heater.

Fortunately, Allan could fit in the narrow passageway.  I am not sure I could have.  Well, I could have fit, but not worked easily.

Allan’s photos: passage of chopped bamboo, before

after

Allan did the inside passage to the dining deck.

before

me working on the outside

inside, after

outside, before

All the bare, strangely textured stiff stems of hops have to be clipped and teased out through the lattice.

after

I had been hoping to be able to get, say, five bales of Gardner and Bloome compost from the Planter Box for this mulching project.  As soon as I was reviewed it, I realized I would need a full yard of Soil Energy from all the way up at Peninsula Landscape Supply.

Long Beach

We just had time to do some clean up of a lavatera and some perennials at Long Beach city hall on the way.

LB City Hall (west side) with more clean up done.

pulling some Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ at Coulter Park

after

We divested ourselves of today’s debris and headed north to

Peninsula Landscape Supply

plenty of Soil Energy on hand. (Allan’s photo)

“This light, absorbent and nutrient rich manufactured soil provides an excellent medium to grow grass, bedding plants, shrubs, roses, and fruit trees. It is our lightest and most free draining soil with great fertility and growth characteristics. This works as well in your deck’s planter boxes as it does in your landscape beds. You can plant straight into it or use it as a soil amendment added to your existing soil to give it a boost and improve its drain-ability. Soil energy combines composted wood products, aged screened sawdust, screened sand, composted chicken manure, lime, fertilizer and iron. (pH 6.2, brown tan in color, 38.9% organic matter)”

One of two scoops being loaded into our little trailer.

Lots of other hardscaping material for sale, including oyster shells. (Allan’s photo)

one yard, tarped and ready to hit the road (Allan’s photo)

back to The Depot Restaurant

a thick layer of mulch, applied bucket by bucket over the log

luscious

Fuchsia ‘Hawkshead’ can now be seen.

ornamental grasses on the east side of the dining deck

We had time to go the Dennis Company in Long Beach and buy two bales of Gardner and Bloome for the pocket garden at the kite musuem.

across the street from Dennis Company

World Kite Museum

one of two tightly compressed bales

with mulch applied

World Kite Museum

Rather to my surprise, we had time to tidy up the planters along Sid Snyder drive (just north of the kite museum).

Allan’s photos: The one with crocosmia, before…

and after. Crocosmia was planted years before by a volunteer.

Our friends Steve and John of the Bayside Garden drove by while we were working but we didn’t see. Steve snapped this photo downtown showing a color match by one of the planters:

Photo by Steve McCormick, cropped close by me

On our way to a near dusk debris offload, we pulled a few more clumps of crocosmia from the parking lot berms.  

a large mushroom on the parking lot berm (Allan’s photo)

I had time at home to write up one blog post before going to dinner at

The Cove Restaurant

where we were joined at our usual North Beach Garden Gang dinner meeting by Our Kathleen, down for a long weekend.  All we local gardeners are just getting over property tax and quarterly sales tax payments so salad followed by fish tacos ($3 each!) was the order of the night.

2 fish tacos, filling and economical

As usual, we closed the place down and lingered for a bit more chatting in the parking lot.

The work board lost four things today: two mulching projects and the fall clean up of city hall and the Depot.  Now the latter two get shifted into a new column: post frost clean up, whenever that might be.

Not all jobs get a special post frost clean up.  The Depot has window boxes that need to be cleaned out after a freeze.

Tomorrow, I hope Ilwaco and the port and the boatyard will drop off the fall clean up list.

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1995 (age 71):

Nov 3:  Finished digging dahlias.  Cut down lily stalks in UDFB [Upper Driveway Flower Bed] and PBB [Patio Back Bed??]  Drove around Yelm paying bills, bank, Payless, Stock Market, and Gordon’s.  Bought 16 more pansies and more perennials.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 November: undoing a garden

Last Sunday, I had such a poignant moment when I got a message from Nancy (co owner of the Depot Restaurant) that her mother Marilyn’s garden (and house) had sold.  Marilyn had passed away this past summer.  We had not been sure when the real estate closing closing would be, perhaps not even till early November, and so the possibility of one last clean up there had still been on the calendar.  Now it had passed into the hands of new owners.

So with poignant thoughts of Marilyn and her healing garden (which will get a slide show blog post later this autumn), I took my finger to erase the task from the work board.

We will deeply miss making the “healing garden” for dear Marilyn.

Tuesday, 1 November 2016

I had a strong desire to dismantle the Corridor of Spooky Plants, having removed the cobwebs from it last night after 9 PM.

the corridor of spooky plants, de-cobwebbed and ready to be undone

Skooter (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Smokey and Skooter

However, I had a work plan for today rain or shine: to dismantle Diane’s roadside garden.  I collected from the greenhouse all the big pots emptied from this year’s tomato growing.

Look who I found snoozing in the stacked plastic pots.

Pacific tree frog woken from a nap.

Basket Case Greenhouse

On the way to Diane’s, we detoured to The Basket Case Greenhouse to buy some potting soil.

at The Basket Case

me and new owner Roxanne

Basket Case has some handsome cannas for sale.

and some black bamboo.

Diane’s garden

Diane and Larry’s septic system has to be redone and the line of trees cut down along the road, so we dug up a lot of the perennials from the roadside garden.  Heavy equipment will be driving there.  We worked through rain squalls and wind.  Most of the time the weather was tolerable.

getting set up

a new ramp for our good friend Misty, whose hind legs no longer work very well.

before

before

work in progress

The digging was blessedly easy.

We left in the ground the six or more large pink heathers and the rosemary because we did not think they would transplant well.  Perhaps they and the narcissi and crocus bulbs that are still in the ground will survive being driven over.  We plan to recreate this garden in some form after the project is done.

We also saved as many as we could of the river rock that edged the garden because rocks would surely get shoved down into the soil during the construction work.  It would be more expensive to buy another yard of the rock than to spend the labor saving most of it.

removing the river rock edge

after

after

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, two handsome purple penstemons, some pink and blue scabiosa, some lavenders, a Gaura ‘Whirling Butterflies’, an Eryngium and some bulbs were all salvaged.

The garden will live in pots over the winter.

piles of river rock stashed and waiting

an ominous looking mushroom or toadstool (Allan’s photo)

This was perhaps the most important project of the autumn.  I was glad to have it done.

The Anchorage Cottages

The bad weather held off long enough for us to do some pruning at the Anchorage.

our good friend Mitzu

Allan’s pruning of Escallonia ‘Iveyi’, before

and after.  We did not want it to obscure the sign by spring time.

Long Beach

I had been plagued recently by the memory of a dandelion I had forgotten to pull in the big Lewis and Clark Square planter.  Several times recently we had passed through town and I had gotten distracted from stopping to pull it out.

Today I remembered.

It was about to bloom!

Geranium ‘Rozanne’ is still putting on a show in the planters.

I need to remember to trim back the rugosa rose on the south side of the police station.

More ‘Rozanne’ and lavender

and this awesome succulent whose name I forget. (I only have two of them.)

home

We got home with just enough time to undo the Corridor of Spooky Plants before dark.

down comes Halloween

I took down the plants and Allan dismantled the bamboo and rebar framework.

back to normal

one less project on the work board

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1995 (age 71):

Nov 1:  Probate [from Dad’s death in June] completed per attorney.  Spent this afternoon digging dahlias tubers from Tam area [former juniper tam bed, now flowers, by the roadside].  Received Wayside and Spring Hill orders mostly perennials and some bulbs on Wayside order.  The shop [large two room outbuilding] was plenty warm this AM so I turned the heat off for the day.

 

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23 October: Sunday in the parks and planters

Sunday, 23 October 2016

The typing out of the bulb lists was not to be today.  We woke to fine autumn sunshine and decided to get as far as possible in the bulb planting of the Long Beach planters and street tree gardens.

Bulb time has started much sooner than usual this year.  For the past several years, my bulbs arrived in early November, and not early enough.  This year I called and requested earlier shipment because of my planned knee surgery.  The knee surgery is not happening this autumn after all because of economic reasons, and the payoff might be an earlier staycation than usual.

Today, we worked our way through the Long Beach blocks out of order, based on where we could find parking on a busy Sunday.

bulbs laid out in the recently redone planter in front of Stormin’ Norman’s gift shop.

planting

Geranium ‘Rozanne’ halfway cut back and still blooming in front of the police station

Hydrangeas in Third Street Park with fresh blooms on top of old ones.

I had a catastrophe at the police station intersection.  I have bulbs for each planter sorted into a separate bag or sometimes a bag for an entire intersection.  I noticed when planting the police station intersection (Third Street) that all of the tulips were viridiflora (green) tulips.  I always use green tulips for the NIVA green block, but since they are my favourite tulips, I did not wonder that I had them for the Third Street block also.  That is, until I got to NIVA green and saw the “POLICE” bag was still in the van.  I had grabbed the NIVA bag by mistake.  Fortunately, I still had one set of green tulips for the NIVA planter itself.  The other three on that block went purple and pink this year.  Dang it all.

squeezing bulbs into a busy planter by NIVA green

Each planter is a little different, and many that we have not redone still have rampant plants going back to the days when each one was done by a different volunteer.  We don’t redo all of them, just the ones with extremely annoying plants like a nest of vinca or a thuggish hardy geranium. (In the recent case of the wire vine in front of Stormin’ Norman’s, I had only myself to blame.)  Three planters have would-be huge escallonias that I cannot remove because their roots are all into the “works” of the plumbing, so I am stuck with constant pruning. Some have would be full size barberries that need constant attention, all leftovers from volunteer days.  Each planter started with a dwarf rhododendron (on the street side of the lamp post.  One of two that remain can be seen in the photo above) and two big heathers on either side of the lamp post, provided by the city.  ALL the heathers are gone now.  Oh my, they were boring, and filled up way too much space with flat dullness.  The volunteers themselves eliminated most of the heathers.

I was tremendously annoyed today to find that someone who is hanging out by the NIVA green planter on a regular basis is filling it with cigarette butts even though there is an ashtray receptacle RIGHT NEXT TO THE PLANTER.

truly disgusting

planting after picking out all the butts

I popped briefly into NIVA green to get some Halloween display photos for the shops Facebook page (which I help manage).

in NIVA green

Fuchsias still blooming in the planter at the south end of Dennis Co (and the flowers across the street are long lasting chrysanthemums).

My good friend Tam O’Shanter came to the door of the Herb N’ Legend Smoke Shop.

Tam (Allan’s photo)

planting at the smoke shop, with more late blooming Geranium ‘Rozanne’

Allan planted from the street side of this planter by Sweet Phee’s pizza place.

To my amazement, we did get all the planters and street tree bulbs installed, except for the four plants (Bolstad stoplight down to the police station) which might get dug up because of a problem with that electric line.  I am holding  tulips for those planters.

I was glad that I had also brought the box for Veterans Field even though I had been almost sure we would not get to it.

Vet Field corner garden before adding bulbs (of blue, white, and red flowers of course).

and after

By the time we finished this little project, we were in a drizzle, and by the time we had finished dumping our trailer load of debris at City Works, a lashing rain had begun.

perfect timing for rain

home

The work board is shorter, at least until I think of more projects.

Skooter and Azara microphylla ‘Variegata’

Halloween spider lights

a pleasing perennial chrysanthemum in the garden (from The Planter Box nursery)

late blooming cosmos

Tomorrow it will surely rain and give me time to type up the bulbs spreadsheets.

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1998 (age 74):

Oct 23:  12:00-5:00  I worked in Tam area again planted tulips and narcissus.  Also cleaned up the area by pruning and weeding.  It was a lot cooler than yesterday.  I called the WSU [Washington State University] extension office for up to date instructions on canning tomatoes, freezing, and drying.

 

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