Tuesday, 17 October 2017
After hearing rain pelting and strong wind at night and this morning, I was surprised when the weather turned sunny.
I must remember now that on sunny days, the greenhouse door must get opened.
It would be too easy to go to work and leave the plants to bake.
Greenhouse spider had wisely made a web off to the side today.
this much rain overnight
My plan to get the garage ready today for bulbs changed. Because of the sun emerging, I happily decided that I could re-do a garden corner by digging out Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ and making a space for interesting new plants. Then I looked at the weather and saw that 54 mph winds were predicted for tomorrow, along with 1-2 inches of rain. The most telling point was when I looked at UPS tracking and saw my bulbs are now due to arrive on Thursday, not Wednesday, affecting my work plans for later in the week.
The work board is full of bulbing now. And some at home projects have appeared.
I asked Allan if he would mind going to work to do some pre-emptive storm clean up at two resorts. He agreed so off we went.
In the driveway, I looked at my agastache and cosmos, hoping some flowers will survive the storm. I’m planning to make bouquets on Friday to decorate for a charity auction that will benefit local Hispanic families affected by ICE (my way of contributing without actually having to people). Both cosmos and some (not all) agastaches originate in Mexico so it would be special to add them to the arrangements.
left, Agastaches, right, cosmos, far upper left, Skooter
Because I am eager for compost, we made a quick detour to the city works yard and nabbed two of the hanging basket plants from the debris pile…
They are big loose basket shaped mounds. Not organic because of Miracle Gro use. Never mind that, I want them.
…and then went on to…
The Anchorage Cottages
Mitzu!
center courtyard
decided to leave these window boxes for one more week
Allan installed the spring bulb window boxes and I added yellow violas.
We pulled tall cosmos in the bed above. This area gets lots of wind that would knock them over by the weekend.
We started the project of re-doing two out of three pots at the Anchorage. One was just full of Lamium, probably ‘White Nancy’, leaving no room for other plants.
before, last week
Because we needed more soil and plants for the two pots, we went on to
The Planter Box.
autumn colour on trees for sale
autumn display
We got lavenders, violas, a lemon cypress, potting soil, pumpkins, bulb food, and some pavers for a project at home.
our three pumpkins
Then on to
Klipsan Beach Cottages
While Allan planted some aruncus (goatsbeard) starts in the woodsy swale by the clam cleaning shed and pulled crocosmia and iris leaves, I pulled tall cosmos out of the fenced garden. Perhaps because of being over-fertilized, several of them shot up to great height without many flowers.
before
after. The cosmos were just silly this year.
before
after
More prolific, shorter, flowering cosmos can stay for awhile.
late honeysuckle flowers
bright hamamelis foliage
blueberry fall colour
blueberry
blueberry and tetrapanax
tetrapanax flower buds
Hydrangea ‘Izu No Hana’ had few flowers this year.
Iris foetidissima
Fuchsia ‘Debron’s Black Cherry’
Eupatorum rugosum ‘Chocolate’
Persicaria ‘Golden Arrow’
looking in east gate
birdbath view
roses
Rose ‘Bow Bells’
I had been collecting cosmos and other clean clippings to take home for my empty compost bin.
I am 5’6″. Look how ridiculously tall the Cosmos ‘Sensation’ is.
We finished at KBC with some dumping of pots of annuals to make space for incoming bulbs. (Must remember to buy potting soil.)
Anchorage Cottages again
We finished dealing with the two empty pots. Allan’s photos:
Long Beach
We were pleased to get done in time to nip into Dennis Company during their last fifteen minutes to buy some more Halloween lights. The clerk tested out two so-called purple lights that turned out to be reddish. Another spider lights string and a cool ghost-projector made up for that.
We did a bit of deadheading and weeding on the Dennis block.
Port of Ilwaco
I pulled some cosmos out of the south facing Port Office garden, first garden to be battered by wind.
I left the ones at the far end in case the storm does not come.
Allan took photos from the Port Office deck.
gale warning flags are up
Almost in the dark, with Allan’s help, I added today’s compost treasures to my third compost bin, layering the green material with brown from the second bin. The third bin is already almost full.
Across the street, early morning wind had already knocked the J’s decor around. Allan fixed it, for now.
The only change to the work board is that I remembered more bulb clients, and now we have only one pot to re-do at the Anchorage, this one:
Beth finds the fuchsia messy and I don’t like that it got infested with columbines.
reading
I found that popular book about The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up more annoying that instructive or amusing, and yet the author intrigues me so I have just read the sequel.
This time, because of her honesty, I find her more endearing than annoying.
She admits to having “very few interests other than tidying.”
She shares how she got into trouble tidying her family’s possessions.
The same thing that made me reject her first book is repeated in this one. Books do not belong in a closet!
Just no! No, no.
My library is one wall of the living room, and the gardening books take up another shorter wall.
And I still reject the belief that socks have feelings.
My socks have never once complained about being rolled into balls to keep pairs together.
Marie Kondo is awfully sweet, though, and while I would never let her loose on my stuff, I’ll agree that she has some good ideas. I need inspiration, because there will be people coming for Halloween. In fact, if you are a local liberal Halloween lover, you, too, are welcome to stop by. I need to clean the house for company (which might include friends of Tony and Scott whom I do not know). From the dust, you would never think I had been a professional self employed housecleaner in Seattle for 18 years.
