Thursday, 21 September 2017

I always think I do not like the yellow evening primrose. And yet look how pretty this accidental one is.
Long Beach
We began Long Beach at city hall with the plan of pulling a lot of the Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ and then then clearing out the boring Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’ planter by the gazebo, getting new soil in buckets from city works, and redoing the planter with the plants we had brought with us.
There is a whole wall of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ on the south of the west side (not planted by us! I would have picked something else.)I then noticed that one of the two escallonias had produced three feet of new growth and decided to clip it away from the building. Look who I found while clipping: I am so glad I got that photo just before froggie jumped off.
As I clipped the escallonia, Parks Manager Mike drove by and called out a request, that we clip back the roses on the big pop out, one block south, because of sight line issues. That changed the day’s plan considerably. Soon after, I decided to cut the escallonia down very low so that it would better match the much smaller one at the other end of the garden. Meanwhile, I asked Allan to take the pick and remove the big armeria on the corner by the escallonia; it was a haven for creeping buttercup and was too far out over the wall.
While Allan finished, I clipped back the huge Aruncus (goats beard) on the north side.
The aruncus has gotten too big for that spot. Later this fall, we plan to dig it out and put it somewhere in Fifth Street Park (with a division going to my garden; it originally came from my previous garden).
Very little Crocosmia got pulled.
Before even going to the pop out, we had so much debris that we had to dump. We need revitalizing, yet the coffee drive through had four cars waiting so Allan said “Let’s go to the two guys.” I knew exactly what he meant: Abbracci Coffee Bar, owned by Tony and Bernardo.While we were by Fifth Street Park for our coffee break, we went ahead and deadheaded there.
Next: the big pop out project. As we parked, I thought that there was no way the sightline could be blocked by the rugosa roses. However, in recent years we have taken the pick and tried to push the roses back (to no avail, but at least they stayed shorter for the summer). I did not mind cutting them. I had told Mike I wished we could redo the whole thing, rebuilding the wall and putting in all new soil. By we, I mean the city crew and big equipment. As we were working on this, a fellow on a motorcycle stopped and wanted to give us a $20 tip. The same thing, with a different man, happened in Long Beach a couple of weeks ago, and that time I was able to kindly refuse. Today’s gentleman would not take a refusal; he tucked the $20 in among the stems of the rugosa roses (and we did not leave it there).
With another full trailer, we made another run to city works, and this time we filled buckets with soil for the original project, redoing a city planter.
While Allan got started digging the boring old geraniums out of the planter, I walked four blocks worth of planters to deadhead.
On my walkabout, I collected some Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’, some creeping succulents, and some cut leaf saxifrage and then joined Allan at the planter project. The sun had become hot, and the town had become busy with lots of onlookers, and we only had two hours to get the project done before a social event. The Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’ roots are so pervasive that we had to dig a lot of soil out. Even then, I thought maybe we had not dug enough. I was afraid to put in the two Geranium ‘Rozanne’ that I brought. Rozanne (blooming from late spring to first frost) is related to Johnson (which blooms for about a month, if that), and if Johnson got mixed up with Rozanne, then Johnson could use Rozanne as a base to try to take over the whole planter again. I’ll wait to see how much JB sprouts back before I add Rozanne to this planter. Allan took all the photos here.

During our planter re-do, I had gotten a text that changed our dinner plans. We had been going to meet Dave and Melissa at El Compadre Mexican Restaurant for our weekly dinner. Instead, we were all invited to the home of Lynn, who until recently was our beloved server at the Cove. Our destination was next door to Gene’s garden, which you may remember from the 2013 local garden tour.
Here was Gene’s garden in 2013:
And here it is now, with the changes that Gene made since then:
Next door, pretty porch lights welcomed us to Lynn’s cottage. The cottage inside was every bit as perfectly beachy as the best Cannon Beach Cottage.





Chloe was much friendlier than Bitty (who warmed up to us eventually).
We dined with seven friends on a pizza assortment and snacks. With Dave and Melissa, we stayed till late, sharing thoughts and stories.
At home, I found it satisfying to erase “planter re-do” from the work board.