Sunday, 11 November 2018
Good weather and fall clean up continued. The days have been like the best of summer, sunny but not too warm.
Long Beach
My goal was to complete a few fall clean up areas and erase them from the work board.
We began with clipping catmint and pulling crocosmia and planting the Basket Case donation of sea thrift in the Sid Snyder Drive planters.

before

after

The ocean was bright blue and calm today.

the westernmost planter

gazania still blooming
The World Kite Museum garden, on the south side of Sid Snyder, got its fall clean up.

The museum dwarfs our pots and pocket garden.

before

after
The garden needs a lavender to match the one on the right side.
I like to leave a lot of seed heads standing, for birds, so did not cut back the oregano or lavender here.
We checked up on the Bolstad beach approach planters. I did not mention last week that we planted some sea thrift out there. I did not want to tempt the fate that has for the last several years made plants disappear by the day after I planted them. It was worth testing it out with free plants from the Basket Case—and the plants are still there. I am hoping that the thief has moved away. Or reformed. I am not hoping the person died, although I suppose that is a possibility. I am also hoping said person does not read this blog.
Something strange happened. I stood at the west end of the beach approach after pulling just a few weeds there and suddenly, I fervently wished it was February or March and that we were about to embark upon the ten to thirteen day annual first weeding of the beach approach garden. I shocked myself with a feeling of joy at the prospect. Peculiar.

looking east down many blocks of weeding
Apparently I still like this job. That made me wonder how I am going to make the decision to retire from Long Beach!
We turned our attention to the fall clean up at City Hall (and the big popout nearby, where I clipped back some straying rugosa roses).

City Hall garden, north side

some late Welsh poppies
We next went to Coulter Park, where Allan pulled a vast number of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ in a bed that became inaccessible after a ramp was built, unless you crawl through or climb over the railing.

before

after (Allan’s photo)
The ramp goes to the old train depot building which will house Shoeboxes of Joy between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Shoeboxes of Joy in the old train depot, 2013
We don’t have time to make a shoebox (for local seniors) so we just give a monetary donation by popping in with some cash on a day when the volunteers are working, after Thanksgiving day.

Cotoneaster berries in Coulter Park
While Allan yanked Crocosmia, I did the fall clean up on two blocks of planters. The planters will need a go-round again after the first hard frost.

I found a rock.
The cosmos are coming out of all the planters now.

They have little left to offer.

a planter that still has much to offer
As I took photos, my Lumix—a refurbished one less than a year old—insisted several times that it be turned off and on again, and then came the dreaded message:

Looks like another Lumix bites the dust. (The several new Lumixes I have bought have all done the same thing after a year or less.) I am disappointed because I like its capabilities.
I switched to my phone camera.

Escallonia ‘Pink Princess’, before…

and after, again thwarted from being eight feet tall and wide.

Chrysanthemum and Geranium ‘Rozanne’

another chrysanth just now starting to bloom—how I love them!
I have read several blog articles on Garden Rant frothing over with chrysanthemum loathing. Fie on that! They are quite wonderful here, bloom for ages, and return reliably in the planters. And I adore the scent of the foliage.
When I bought my grandmother’s house in 1980, I spent some time trying to find chrysanths that were like the ones she grew when I was a child, the tall ones, almost as tall as me. Then I realized my memory was measuring them based on my height as a little girl.

The dusky pink one just north of NIVA green is slowly fading.

Across from Dennis Company, has been blooming for weeks.
I am not going to do any fiddly deadheading at this stage. When the frost comes, or when we go to shop at Dennis hardware for some reason, I will take that whole plant down to the base at once. Later.
My last individual task was to pull and clip the BadAster which has been moderately welcome to grow under a street tree.

The seeds blew down the block….
Allan and I reunited by pulling some cosmos at the front of Coulter Park. A hebe had suddenly decided to hide the memorial.


fixed
After we dumped debris, we bought four bales of Gardner and Bloome Soil Building Compost at Dennis Company. The first three went to…
The Depot Restaurant
…where I had felt that mulch was needed after yesterday’s fall clean up.

before

after
The fourth bag went to…
The Shelburne Hotel
….to fluff up the area where we had dug out loads of Crocosmia corms to make a new fuchsia bed. I am sure the soil had been thoroughly worn out by the vigor of crocosmia.

No wonder Allan is tired by end of the day.
That bale would be un-liftable had it been outside for awhile. Dennis sells it from inside of a building, so it is dry.

very nice for the Hawkshead fuchsia I planted there yesterday…
While I did more tidying of the path and put river rock at the back of the fuchsia bed, Allan cleaned up a neglected area on the north side of the building.

before

after (Allan’s photos)
I noticed the canna is blooming in the full shade mini bog garden by the fine dining entrance:

The big dining room is open with its own menu on Friday and Saturday nights.
We did some more garden trimming until dusk….

Shelburne at sunset

the garden by lamplight )Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo
…and then we were lured into the pub by the warm lights through the stained glass windows.

guests by the living room fireplace

I tried a Cranberry Shrub, delicious!
I told Brooke, the young bartender, that we were celebrating the end of Mulch Week. She replied in her delightful manner, “I don’t know what that is, but yay!”…a reminder that not everyone knows our gardening terminology.

Caesar salad, delectable black garlic fried rice, fish and chips

my favourite dessert, the cream cheese blackberry tart
But oh, the dessert Allan had is new and so delicious, a rocky road semifreddo, like a frozen mousse. It could almost divert me from the tart…This will be a difficult choice next time.

Allan’s photo
I reflected during dinner on how I feel that the Shelburne itself wants me to be its gardener, and how it missed me during the ten years when I left the garden (because of reasons). I feel a connection with the place that I cannot explain.
At home, I was able to erase Coulter crocosmias, beach approaches, city hall, and kite museum from the work board.

I won’t say where, but today I saw the hidden stash of a homeless person hidden in a barberry patch…

I can only imagine the misery of making a camp in a grove of barberries because of the terrible thorns:

Tiny mean thorns all over the barberry grove.
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