5 July: Long Beach and Ilwaco

Thursday, 5 July 2018

at the post office

our post office garden

matchy matchy Asiatic lily (probably ‘Landini’) and a sanguisorba

Depot Restaurant

weeding and watering…

Dierama (Angels’ Fishing Rod) is blooming.

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’, Agastache (‘Blue Boa’, maybe) and Cornus ‘Hedgerows Gold’

Long Beach

Allan string trimming around the welcome sign

We watered the Long Beach planters downtown.

busy tourist town (Allan’s photo)

Cosmos ‘Xanthos’

We will crisscross the street to do the other three planters in a group of four while waiting for a large crowd to move on.  Still, we do end up having to ask people to move so we can water.

Only once years ago did someone get angry and ask me to come back later; I said gently that we were on our way to water all the Ilwaco planters after Long Beach so no, we could not come back later—and she did move.

Sometimes, even though Long Beach is fun, I get tired of the noise and traffic in summer and end up counting off how many planters I have to do before I am done watering.

Sanguisorba ‘Pink Elephant’ persists in a planter even after I decided it was too tall and moved it to Fifth Street Park.

One of the shop workers arrives to work on this. (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Fifth Street Park (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

We tidied up the gardens in Veterans Field for the Friday farmers market.

Brodiaea ‘Queen Fabiola’…and a white one.

Due to sprinkler problems, the monarda looks stressed. I think I don’t want it in this bed anymore. (Sprinkler probably blocked by too many plants—typical of our gardens.)

Port of Ilwaco

We watered some, but not all, of the curbside gardens.

my one pitiful eremerus (Allan’s photo)

by Ilwaco pavilion

A pleasant fellow stopped to ask about santolinas; he liked them.

My favourite bed is still marred by finger blight.

The lavenders may not heal up. Certainly not by the big fireworks show on July 7th.

The santolina will heal…eventually.

Don Nisbett’s signs have been installed!

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’ gets the most comments and queries nowadays.

We were tidying because of fireworks show crowds on Saturday and Art Walk on Friday.

This is what a properly pruned santolina looks like.  It will flower later.

This is the only one I forgot to clip!

We got the watering done from David Jensen’s architecture office all the way to Time Enough Books; then I did a walkabout of the Ilwaco planters while Allan watered them.

downtown window

before chickweed removal

after…it lurks beneath though

Diascia ‘Blackthorn Apricot’ (top) is my favourite. I was worried people would not find it bright enough.

matchy!

Good citizen Ethel was string trimming and then raking along the sidewalk for art walk night.

Ethel’s efforts to beautify the town were a perfect example of action instead of big talk and complaints.

While Allan continued watering the planters, which takes an hour and a half minimum, I watered the boatyard garden.  It used to take us half an hour or forty five minutes to water the planters back when we bucket watered them, before the water trailer.  But we are just no longer up to hauling what was literally 800 pounds of water twice a week.

view from behind the boatyard fence; the shadow is of a boat prow that was above me

While watering, I pulled some horsetail and grass away from the back of the fence.

I was daunted by huge slugs hiding down there.  I had not brought to the far end of the fence my slug disposal tools or a pair of gloves.  I was just pulling with bare hands.  I do hate touching a slug.

Afterwards, I looked at my particularly arthritic finger and for a creepy few moments I felt like it was just going to break right off at the joint.

horrific, depressing old age

I walked down to the other far end of the boatyard and the hose was not there.  (I use a series of hoses that lay around by the faucets…usually.)  I simply could not hobble all the way back to the middle of the other stretch of fence and drag a hose back.  Fortunately, Allan, who has no arthritis that we know of, showed up in the nick of time and watered the south end of the garden while I sat in the van in a state of collapse.  So glad to be home at dusk.

 

 

 

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16 April: past the halfway (or breaking?) point

Sunday, 16 April 2017

Easter brunch at Salt pub was not on our schedule. We have too much work to do after too few nice days. I was pleased to see our flower bouquet in their announcement.

We figured that a clam tide in the late morning would have the beach approach very crowded, so it was a good day to begin with a bit of shopping at The Basket Case.

Basket Case Greenhouse

Oops, they open at noon on Sundays and we got there at 11:20.  Three other vehicles arrived at the same time so Darrell and Roxanne put the open sign out!

Beautiful new sign

garden art

Darrell putting out a pelican

Gardener Ed Strange (Strange Landscaping) and Jackson

the annuals house

meeting shop dog Buddy

the perennials house

and so it begins

We won’t buy annuals till around Mother’s Day, but perennials and tender perennials are good to go now.

diascias, erysimum, agastache, nicotiana

Long Beach

On the way to the beach approach, we checked out Veterans Field for signs of an easter egg hunt.

All ready!

 

Allan’s photo

 

The hunt would begin in an hour.  We did not take time to wait and see it.

Then back to the beach approach, where we began with the last of the somewhat open of the 13 sections.  All the remaining sections after this are rugosa rose thickets.

Allan attacks the roses with a pick to get them pushed back from the edge.

today’s section, before

today’s section, before, looking east

Cat stopped for a chat.

picking some crocus bulbs out of a weed clump

after

an old dog and a puppy (Allan’s photo)

awwww

With the section done, and the time being not quite four o clock, I had the bright idea that we could do just one more section, the 45 foot long one (instead of the usual 55 footers) that we had skipped when it had had a big puddle on the street side.

before

two hours and forty five minutes later

Even though we finished it, I was sorry we had started it because I was so very tired and sore by the end.

before

after

Allan does the hardest part, swinging the pick to remove rose canes and wheelbarrowing the heavy barrow of weeds off to the long grass.  While I used to just lazily dump right at the far edge of the lawn, he insists on humping the loads up and over the little hill so the piles of weeds don’t show.

As we drove away, we saw yet one more banner had been stolen…probably on the same night as the three missing banners that I noticed yesterday.

further west than the other three

We were too tired to dump the rose debris at city works so we just took it home.  Then the plants from Basket Case needed to be unloaded and watered and that is when I learned that Allan had since yesterday been feeling tired to the point of being queasy.

At age 64 and 62, are we pushing ourselves too hard? But the work needs to be done (and trust me, over the years I’ve tried finding helpers, and no one works in the way that we do except for folks who have set up their own successful gardening businesses).

While weeding that last section today, I had contemplated how I will find it hard to retire from our public gardening jobs (Long Beach and Ilwaco) unless I knew that someone who cared as much as we do would be taking over.  Someone who is bothered by every weedy spot and every deadhead.  When I give up a private garden, its condition doesn’t bother me because I don’t have to see it again.

What to do?

The short term solution is that rain and 30 mph wind is due tomorrow, and we will take the day off whether or not that forecast comes true.

An even shorter term solution is that Allan took an hour long nap and felt much better.

We will make our next work day something easier than the remaining sections of the beach approach garden (a project that will take us at least three more days, possibly four or five).

Erasing the work board to show that we are over halfway through the approach garden was not as satisfying when I realized I had been pushing both of us too hard.

work board tonight

Some check-ups on jobs, involving deadheading and tidying, would be easier than anything that is on that work board right now.

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