13 March: hellebore walk

Monday, 13 March 2017

As I write the first part of this in the mid afternoon, the rain is not as fierce as it was this morning.  In my youth…maybe five years ago…I would have leapt out to do some work.  Now, I feel less like working in the drizzle.  I added last week’s one day of work to the time sheet and was shocked to see we’ve eight rain and windy bitter cold and even snow days off.  Meanwhile, I’m embarrassed to report that Dave and Melissa bundled up in rain gear and worked through almost ALL the weather.

My excuse today: The soil is boggy and the plants are all drenched.  What a wimp!

I did take a walk in the soft rain throughout the garden.

Skooter looked startled that I opened the front door.

hyacinth basket

looking south

soggy footing

lots of crocuses

Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick (contorted filbert)

way too much fried egg plant reseeded in the bogsy wood

narcissi, and monster shotweed

Slippery ground prevented the shotweed pulling and fern clipping from starting up.

pulmonaria (spotted dog)

hard to even imagine when we’ll be able to have a campfire

The swale path is a pond.

Looking north.  Water on the center path is over the top of my boots.

south gate

The top of the south gate represents a Chinook tribal canoe, the sort that used to ply the river when this very spot was river front, before the port parking lots and building sites were built on fill, in the early 1950s.

I do wish this water stood all year long.

coming round the west side

more pulmonaria

corydalis foliage

crocuses

As you can see, the chop and drop method looks pretty messy.  I look forward to the future three compost bins which will be made as soon as we get six more free pallets…from somewhere.  I have decided the bins will tuck in nicely next to the greenhouse.

They will replace the wonky tadpole pond set up…

I love my new stop the eye fence.

Euonymus ‘Wolong Ghost’ is seriously climbing the front of the house, which is vinyl clad.

As I had walked all around the garden, I had collected one flower from every hellebore.  I’m sorry to report that many had minuscule snails hiding inside, putting paid to the idea that a cold winter would mean fewer snails.

Here is the full collection of hellebore blossoms.

Skooter appeared.

The center one is last year’s birthday present from Our Kathleen.

Because my camera has been finding it hard to capture the glory of the corylopsis in bloom, I asked Allan to photograph it.

Corylopsis and crocus, my photo

He returned with these:

Corylopsis pauciflora

with some fill in flash

Smokey snoozed through all of it.

I’d like to read for the rest of the day in this most wonderful book:

I can already tell you I am going to be rating this book at 20 stars.  As a former housecleaner for 18 years, I find deep familiarity in the stories of doing housework for richer folk.  And as the protagonist, Mildred, talks with her best friend about race, I keep marveling in a furious way that 70 years after it was written, how very much about racism is still the same.  Read it; it is wonderful and it’s funny despite its serious topics.  Read about it here.

My reading hours are curtailed because tonight is the local Democrats meeting.  I know Mildred would want me to go.  Here are her thoughts on a meeting:

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6 March: reading and meeting

Monday, 6 March 2017

I woke to sunshine and thought we could work…until I took a look out the window.

view out the south cat door

Never mind.

Skooter, staying in.  (Allan’s photo)

Allan took some snowy garden photos:

I see a black spotty hellebore leaf that should be removed.

hypericum

When he went to the post office and dropped off three books at the library, he took more photos of the community building garden’s crocuses.

Meanwhile, I was reading.

It was difficult to leave the book for an early evening meeting of the Living Liberally Pacific County group.  I had only heard of Swallows and Amazons in the past year and was recently reminded of it by a mention on the Tootlepedal blog. 

At Adrift Hotel in Long Beach

Folks barbecuing nearby in icy wind.

determined to wrest all enjoyment from their vacation

into the meeting room we go

After another productive political meeting, Allan and I repaired upstairs to the [pickled fish] restaurant.

I’d been wanting to try absinthe for some time, because I’m a fan of artemisias in the garden.  It is made from Artemisia absinthium, which you can read about here. [pickled fish] serves it “in the traditional way”, involved a decanter, a spigot, and the melting of a sugar cube.

absinthe: licorice, sweet, strong

delicious fennel sausage pizza

Upon departure, I was especially struck by the beauty of the planters in the foyer.  Perhaps the absinthe enhanced my appreciation.

some artemisia (but not absinthium)

Swallows and Amazons

During the day and into the night I read Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome.  How did I miss this 1930 classic as a child, especially since I had then sought out British children’s book authors (like Edith Nesbit and C.S. Lewis)?  As I read today, I occasionally felt verklempt about being old.

A few favourite bits from this delightful adventure of children camping on an island in the Lake District:

…….

……..

Oh, to have a mother as open to her children having adventures:

…………….

I have learned that the book is the first of a series.  I will be reading more of them.

public service announcement

Maggie Stuckey, author of one of my favourite kitchen gardening books, The Bountiful Container, is going to be speaking at all four Timberland libraries on the subject of vegetable gardening in containers.  While I would most like to attend the talk at our local Ilwaco branch, it conflicts with an ACLU training session, so we will go to the Ocean Park one.  Allan took this photo at the library today.

 

Thursday at Ocean Park, Saturday at Ilwaco

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16 March: lily planting rounds

Wednesday, 16 March 2016

The simple fact that I had four new kinds of oriental lilies, 9 bulbs each, inspired me to go to three north end jobs that I felt needed more of that wonderful flower. Weeding and deadheading happened, too.

On the way, we took a bouquet to our dear friend Jenna (Queen La De Da).

flowers on their way to Jenna

Our sweet Jenna

Our volunteer garden at the Post Office got one each of lilies.

I wish all the tulips in the post office bed would hurry up!

a quick weeding

Golden Sands Assisted Living…

…got two each of the lilies. Golden Sands garden is also slow to get started.  If my test results come back good and I don’t have to start a new round of medical things, I hope to add some mulch to it soon.  On the way up, we’d seen that the Planter Box now has the “cow fiber” mulch!  It is so hard to get it into this garden through the hallways…and Allan would have to do all the wheelbarrowing.  Just one yard would help.

NW quadrant.  As always, mulch would be good for this garden.

some early tulips by the dining room at Golden Sands

NE quadrant, Golden Sands, still so very drab

Marilyn’s garden

Marilyn’s got two each of the four lilies, or was it one each?  One. I think.

Allan’s photo

looking south at Marilyn’s

I went on a rampage against the Bad Aster in the driveway bed and had Allan dig out a big clump of Tradescantia that was infested it.  Tradescantia bores me anyway.  One small piece got saved and replanted on the other side of the driveway.

OUT with the aster-ridden spiderwort

view southwest from the street’ ferns are unfurling in foreground

Allan’s photo, sword fern

view west from the porch.

looking north

Marilyn’s daughter Nancy told me that not only do deer stroll this path daylily—so do coyotes…so Scooter is brought in at night.

Scooter grew up wild so likes to be outdoors.

Scooter rolling about in the garden.

Marilyn’s garden as we depart

Klipsan Beach Cottages

KBC got one each of the four lilies.

It was time to remove the winter signs as the garden is awake now.

by the garage

deep red tulips

more tulips

Narcissi

hellebores

primroses and pieris

sword fern unfurling

a delicate double primrose

Hellebore ‘Sparkling Diamond’

Podophyllum

Allan’s photo

rhododendron

gunnera in the swale garden (Allan’s photo)

The dappled woods around the A Frame garden holds the largest display of narcissi.

The A Frame garden

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Basket Case Greenhouse

I’m so bad at answering my phone that I had missed a message from Basket Case Fred last Friday saying the nursery was open with a new shipment of perennials.  I found the message while checking my phone looking for medical phone calls (none).  So we went over there to get some photos for their Facebook page and to buy just a few plants.

Me pondering the variegation colour of the Azara I had ordered

garden art

perennial greenhouse filling up

pansies and violas

That’s our friend with a goodly assortment of garden art.

more garden art

a little canned ham trailer with wings!

Our friend Shadow jumped right into our van, because it used to be his van.

On the way home, we checked the boatyard garden.  The horsetail is coming up; I still think we can put off weeding it for another week.

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

home

Home, with daylight left, I planted two each of the lilies in my own back garden, along with two plants from Basket Case: Cornus ‘Hedgerows Gold’ and Symphytum variegata…a comfrey, raved about by Ken Druse, but…a comfrey so I’m a little filled with dread.

looking north from the bogsy woods

Allan mowed ours and Nora’s

I have left out considerable whining about having a really horribly bad time with my knee this afternoon.  It went completely “out” for awhile at the Basket Case and distracted me from my plant purchases.  Nevertheless, I got one (measly) bucket of the many weeds pulled at home.

I’m mystified by my other plant purchase, labeled Azara variegata.

I thought it was going to be like my Azara microphylla variegata.  But no, it is yellow in variegation.  So maybe it’s Azara integrifolia variegata…but that is still described as having white margins.  I have to Google some more about this one.

I uploaded photos to the Klipsan Beach Cottages page and the Basket Case page, took photos of my grandma’s old recipe cards for the grandma blog, wrote up this post, and now at 10 PM it is time for dinner and Survivor.  (If I had to cook dinner, too, this would be impossible, so thanks to Allan we eat.)

A couple of guest photos:

“The thrillium of the trillium” is Melissa’s caption (Sea Star Gardening) when she texted me this today.

Todd Wiegardt (Willapa Gardening) planted a new bed at his brother’s gallery.  Why didn’t we ever think of that?

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1998 (age 73):

March 16: 12:15-3:45.  Today I started digging out the rows of strawberries by the asparagus rows.  I trimmed the plants and heeled them into the 2 large square trays.  When I finish digging them I’ll start trimming up the strawberry patch and interplant these in the rows.

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17 Feb: drizzly work day

Wednesday, 17 February 2016

before work

the ornamental plum blooming

purple crocuses being subtle in the front garden

crocuses and double primrose

tulips and an Erysimum (probably ‘Winter Orchid’

I had hoped to work today and my hopes were realized, even though we started out in a brisk wind.  I figured it would be far less windy in the Klipsan Beach Cottages garden.

The Planter Box

On the way north, we took shelter from an intense rain at the Planter Box, seeking some early colour for the containers at The Anchorage Cottages.

Gorgeous hellebores were not what we were seeking.

front sales area display

Ah, three fragrant wallflowers would be just what I needed.

When we departed, the rain had increased and the Dark Sky app said it would continue for forty more minutes.  A drive north to look at the Oysterville garden and our friends hard at work would fill the time nicely.

Oysterville

Dave and Melissa (Sea Star Gardening) and Todd (Willapa Gardening) were hard at work in the garden, and I didn’t take many photos because I felt that I shouldn’t be a distraction to their work.

Allan’s photo: Todd with wheelbarrow

Dave and Melissa address a lovely pile of Soil Energy.

the water feature, with hellebores

the back border, with many shrubs recently added

Hamamelis and unfurling tree fern in the drizzly mist

new beech hedge in the making along the front

a guest named Mr Fox

We left without walking all around as I felt guilty about interrupting, although we were reassured by the garden owner that we could tour the garden any time, a privilege which we treasure.

Back we went to…

Klipsan Beach Cottages

…and by the time we got there, the rain was tapering off.

First, I had to go in the basement and greet Bella, whom I had not seen since around Christmas time.

my very good friend Bella

KBC fenced garden, east gate

I asked Allan to do the planting, starting with a fig tree from Dave and Melissa.

(Allan’s photos) From the circle a non fruiting fig had been removed.

The new fig had fruited well even in the pot.

He also planted for me a winter blooming honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima, which you can barely see by the clump of narcissi, and which I hope the deer will not eat.

Allan’s closeup of the intensely fragrant Lonicera.

I asked him to dig out a grass that was the wrong size for a bed, meant to get a before photo, turned around…and he had it done already!

after (Allan’s photo)

The grass had been outsized for the spot, as a photo from 2015 shows:

Nov 9, 2015; the grass is smothering two hebes and crowding a rose

Allan’s photo: It more than filled the wheelbarrow…

and is in a pot till someone decides on a better plan.

In the lawn edge border, the hellebores are not sizeable enough to be showy yet.

A closer look is rewarding.

a handsome upright form

a long established clump of primroses

apricot scented Hamamelis mollis just about done blooming

Pieris japonica; my grandma called it Andromeda.

narcissi and shiny rain washed calla lily leaves

Euphorbia characias wulfenii, old and kind of rangy.

We both tackled a lot of sword fern clipping, in the continuing light drizzle.

in the fenced garden, before

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

After.  Now the new growth will unfurl all bright green and fresh.

The pond garden, before

Mary taking Bella for a walk to the beach

and after

in the “swale” (Allan’s photos, before…)

and after

before

after

Now, in Steve and John’s bayside garden, the trimming would be so perfect that you would not see any stubs.  We don’t have time for that perfection at work; at home, it is well worth seeking.

The rain was pelting by the time we were done.

The ferns on the clam shed patio got a trim also.

In the rain: a pale pink flowering currant in bloom

We left a few ferns untrimmed, especially the ones where Allan has to climb over the pond edge; it was slippery.  Manager/owners Mary and Denny will probably get around to pruning the roses, a task she enjoys doing.  If not, we’ll do it next time.

By the greenhouse, after trimming back old floppy Melianthus major stems.  Tree peony leafing out.

It felt like we had been there for six hours and the fact that it was just a bit after three o clock surprised me greatly.

bidding farewell to Bella (Allan’s photo, just pre-belly rub)

Long Beach 

Although the rain and wind increased, we next went south to Long Beach and bought six violas from Dennis Co.  I like the smaller flowered violas rather than pansies as they hold up to rain better.

in a planter near Dennis Co (Allan’s photo)

same planter (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo, same planter, a well established clump

The Anchorage Cottages

Back north about 20 blocks to the Anchorage, we were greeted by Mitzu and Beth.

soggy, waggly Mitzu (Allan’s photo)

I planted the violas in the center courtyard, while Allan planted the three wallflowers near the office.

He planted them in a soldierly row.

I changed it.

Allan said to Beth, “I went to engineering school and she keeps trying to undo what I learned there.”

window box with buds of one of my favourite tulips, Tulipa sylvestris

Last week, I pruned all the green leaved stems out the Fuchsia magellanica ‘Aurea’ above, so it would not revert to all green.

We were pretty well drenched, and the wind had gotten strong and cold.  As I had expected, KBC had been out of the wind.  In fact, the rain there had felt so mild that we had not put on our bulky and harder to work in rain coats at all.  Now it was time to go home to some nice hot cups of tea.  From our south window, I could see the gale warning flags at the port.  We may have a day or two off.

Mary and Smokey.  Had they even left the chair?

Smokey’s foot looks so well healed that I think that tomorrow, he can go outside again.

the work board tonight

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

My mother’s diaries from two decades ago had entries corresponding to today:

1997 (age 72):

Feb 17:  A warm day with some misty rain.  Finally I got the begonia bulbs in trays in damp plant mix and under lights in shop.  Also put pineapple lily and amaryllis bulbs in pots in soil under the lights.

1998 (age 73):

Feb 17:  11:45-4:15!!  YES I DID!  I finished planting the bulbs from greenhouse.  Then I planted the polemoniums that I dug last fall thinking they were hostas.  I planted some daffodils that were “lost” into the old “window box”.  Planted 4 plants that I set on picnic table and forgot.  Also had 2 cords wood from Corey’s Firewood delivered.  Now I must saw up the tree branches so I can pile the new wood.

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10-11 Feb: hellebores and a project

From a sunnier day: I think I forgot to post this lovely crocus, the first of the large ones, back by the bogsy woods.

From February 6

Wednesday, 10 February 2016

A hard rain followed by light drizzle gave us a day off. The forecast suggests five more days of rain will follow.  I looked at last year’s spreadsheet and saw that, except for one Long Beach day at the end of January, we did not begin work till February 10th, so we have not fallen behind yet.  And we had so very much more to do last year.   Sea Star Gardening has taken on our Boreas Inn and Casa Pacifica jobs and Andersen’s RV Park was a huge spring clean up job that we no longer have (since owner Lorna sold the place in July of 2015). We have one less private garden as well, and Todd now cares for his brother Eric’s Wiegardt Gallery, so we have eight fewer days of garden clean up to do in February and March.  That makes me happy.

Before enacting my plan of settling in with a book, I took a walk around the front garden.  (I wish Smokey could have joined me.  He is still having to stay inside while his paw heals.  He is not a happy cat.)

view from the porch

Geranium macrorrhizum is certainly blooming early…

Acanthus ‘Hollard’s Gold’ continuing to brighten the scene.

Allan’s box of succulents

double hellebores

single white hellebore

“black” hellebore

way in the back of Allan’s garden, a hellebore that escaped having its tatty old leaves trimmed

Hamamelis (witch hazel)

moved these from the back patio to front garden last weekend…

front path, looking east

last year’s allium head blown into the garden

last year’s alliums

Many hellebores need to be turned up to see their greatest beauty.  They’d be best dangling over a wall.

Crocus tommies are in a decline…soon to be followed by larger crocus.

In the front garden, with the dark foliage of a “black” hellebore emerging at lower right

Scrophularia variegata (variegated figwort sounds prettier) and hellebore.

Japanese maple in a pot not looking very lively.

Not happy about this great hellebore  being hidden behind the big pot.

Love the bright new foliage of the lamprocapnos and the promise of flower bus

What, you might ask, is Lamprocapnos?  It is the new name for Dicentra, I am sorry to say.  You can read all about the change here, where I also learned its common names aside from Bleeding Heart, including “Venus’s Car, Lady’s Locket, Lyre Flower, Tearing Hearts, Our Lady in a Boat, Chinese Pants”…

grape hyacinth and a fern that needs trimming, backed with Euonymous ‘Wolong Ghost’

Iris reticulata and some fine looking soil with good texture.  And a California poppu, lower right.

first narcissi in the front garden

Daphne buds backed with Azara microphylla variegata

For readers who’ve been enjoying the excerpts from my mother’s garden diaries of 20 some years ago, I’m sorry to say she did not make any entries for February 10th.

My plan for reading a book changed to reading and transcribing her diaries and scheduling them to appear, by month, at the end of each month of 2016.  I’ll continue to add pertinent posts to matching dates in my ongoing journal of the year.

Allan brought back this photo of one of the Ilwaco planters today.

“Look at the camera!” says Ed.  Ed and Jackson Strange came over for a minute but only Allan saw them; he was string trimming the lawn while I was indoors typing away.

Thursday, 11 February 2016

noon:  On this stormy day, I continued to be obsessed with transcribing my mother’s diaries, even though a gardening book arrived from the library that I am desperate to sit and read.  I am (surprisingly not frantically) concerned about being sent to a neurologist in March; as soon as my primary care RN invoked the words “possible brain tumor, benign or malignant”, I imagined going blind (as happened to a good friend and avid gardener, Mary F., who later died from her gioblastoma) and thought, “I must get these diaries set up NOW to publish once a month through 2016!”  Yesterday I completed transcibing them through May and hope to make much more progress today, while the gardening book by Dan Pearson taunts me from the other side of the room.  The monthly entry will include more illustrations and non-gardening posts than the daily share from her diary (which I am adding to my blog posts day by day).

I remember my mother getting many tests, including CAT scans, to try to get to the bottom of her dizziness (and migraines) and she never got a diagnosis that helped to cure her of the problem.  I find that mildly reassuring.  My primary care RNs other ideas were TIAs or “maybe just glucose” so…we shall see, as the results of assorted tests roll in.

Later: I got June, July and August and one year of September transcribed.  I am a fast (if not accurate) four finger typist.  Still, how do people sit at a desk all day?

Transcribing the month my father died was a poignant experience.

Here is my mom’s entry from 21 years ago today:

1995 (age 70):

Feb 11: Supposed to be below freezing by tomorrow so: Finally I spread mulch on as many flower beds as I could before I ran out of mulch and strength.  (I got very dizzy and nauseated.)  I used all 5 bags of shredded leaves from last fall and recent shredding.  The stuff in old burn barrel was all composted below 1/3 of pile.

 

 

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29 January: flowers in sunshine

Friday, 29 January 2016

I’m still keeping Smokey in his convalescent room (the large bathroom); now I’m putting his mum, Mary, in there to keep him company during the day and they both seem content.  He has been a very good boy about letting me put ointment in his wound twice a day.  Just a slight meow of protest.  In the evening, we close the cat door and mother and son can emerge to join the household.

I paused while writing this as was sick to death of iPhoto crashing every time I click info on a photo.  In the Apple Support Community, I got help:

I had to Google again to find out how to GET to the resources, and then with much trepidation dragged the two Google things to my trash.  I still seem to be able to Google and to navigate the web, even though iPhoto now sternly informs me in the info box that my computer is “not connected to the internet”.  But it is.  And I can get info on the date a photo was taken without a complete iPhoto crash.  And I hope stays that way.  I figure if I save the instructions here, I’ll be able to find them if trouble brews later.

Back to January 29th!  The lovely afternoon enabled me to weed a large area of the front garden’s east bed and to enjoy brightly illuminated flowers.

two sorts of hellebore

a single hellebore

Melianthus major and Crocos tommasianus

Crocus tommasianus

crocuses lavender and yellow

 

Iris reticulata

Iris reticulata

more hellebores

front path looking east

Frosty in the garden

I missed having my best cat friend, Smokey, quietly following me around, and I am sure he misses going outside.  We hope the vet will give him the all clear after ten healing days have passed.

Meanwhile, Allan took a two mile walk around town, first onto the beginning to the Discover Trail that begins at the wast end of town:

and then down to the boatyard and port to pick some trash out of the gardens.

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26 March: a dent in the list

Thursday, 26 March 2015

A beautiful warm sunny day began with my taking a photo of one of the spider azaleas that I got for Steve and John to make sure that they wanted it. (They might already have one in their vast collection.)

Smokey agreed it’s a cool plant.

As I understand it, all azaleas are really rhododendrons.

By the time we got to our first project, getting some mulch from Peninsula Landscape Supply, I’d had an email back that they would love to have it, so I should have followed my instinct and carried it along with us.  We’ll be back up that way to get more mulch in two or three days, depending on weather.  Any excuse to see their fabulous garden!

Peninsula Landscape Supply

Colleen on her way to load our mulch (Allan’s photo)

the acquisition of a yard of Soil Energy

Peninsula Landscape Supply pond (Allan’s photo)

a pretty grouping in a container by the pond

I quite like this new line of mossy birdhouses and planters.

I toyed with the idea of getting this lighted tree for evening when we have campfires!

I’m also thinking this might be our liquid fertilizer of choice this year for planters; still pondering.  I want an organic one, and fish fertilizer does not work well in a sprayer. We hear this one was developed for pot farmers.

Marilyn’s Garden

My mission today was to get several things erased from the work list.  First, mulching Marilyn’s garden; second, planting poppy seeds there.  Note that it would probably be better that all poppies and sweet peas were already planted, but it hasn’t happened yet.  March 17th is supposed to be sweet pea planting day, which also happens to be my birthday and as you know, I skived off the the Sylvia Beach Hotel.  Renowned Cannon Beach gardener June Kroft says it is ok to plan sweet peas later at the coast.  But I digress.

Before: I found a massive influx of bad aster in one of Marilyn’s garden beds…From where???

after, cleared, mulched, poppy seeds in (and aster roots still lurking in the clumps of other perennials)

before

 

before, the main border

Goldie kept me company.

after: Allan did almost all the mulching; I did weeding and seeding.

Allan’s photos: before

almost done

after

Klipsan Beach Cottages

Next, I wished to get the sweet peas and a few poppy seeds planted at Klipsan Beach Cottages.  We checked on Oman Builders Supply garden on the way but I completely forgot to photograph it.  It felt odd not to have to check on the Wiegardt garden; Eric’s brother Todd has that garden now.  It felt odd…and GREAT because much as we love the Wiegardt Gallery, and we do, we are trying to cut back.  I am looking forward to seeing the changes Todd makes as he will have more time to devote to that one than we did.  I apologize for leaving behind the dratted Geranium ‘A.T. Johnson’ and the bad aster that had appeared from wherever the heck it appears from.  But again, I digress.

The bay tree was blooming above blueberry bushes in bloom at KBC.

I worked in the fenced garden, weeding and de-bad-astering along the fence (where the heck does that damn aster come from everywhere?) and then planting sweet peas.  Allan ranged all over the grounds deadheading narcissi.

Allan’s photo: rag tag narcissi deadheads (before)

after

Allan’s photo: narcissi in the A Frame garden

Allan’s photo

Clematis on a deer fence gate

Pieris in bloom

Pieris with the clematis arbour in background

the lawn border and fountain

hellebores in the lawn border

double white hellebore

hellebore

Japanese maple and deer fern by the pond

new bench by the pond

pulmonaria next to the new bench

The adorableness of Arisarum proboscideum (mouseplant)

You have to look under the leaves to see the cunning little mice.

exciting! Cardiocrinum giganteum in the fenced garden

Also exciting: tree peony bud

driveway garden

driveway garden, Tulip ‘Lilac Wonder’

fullblown rose in March

Timmy…or maybe Sarah

the fenced garden

 

Since I administrate the Klipsan Beach Cottages Facebook page, among many many more, I was pleased to see a recent guest leave this excellent review.

The Cove Restaurant

The Cove is at the Peninsula Golf Course.  Co Owner Jim was taking two dogs for a ride in a golf cart.

Allan’s photo; he said the dog to the left wanted to shake hands.

The dog on the right is 16!! Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo…so cute!

Since we are both now OVER SIXTY years old, I thought it would be just fine to knock off early for our Thursday night meal at the Cove.    It was on my mind that narcissi need deadheading at the Port…but driving all the way down and back seemed more wasteful then letting those deadheads wait till tomorrow.  I clearly am still not back into high gear.

We rarely dine this early in the evening!

We saw Todd there, come to have dinner with some friends.  (Todd, you are now officially blog fodder!)   It was a treat to have a brief chat with him and we look forward to some good garden talk in the future.

ahi tuna

the most amazing Tom Kha Gai

Allan had Lomo Saltado, a Peruvian style stir fry which was simply delectable.

Susie of the Boreas saw me “check in” to the Cove on Facebook (a good way to promote local businesses as long as you don’t have “friends” who will break into your house while you are dining) and could not resist showing up to join us for some ahi tuna.  We had such a good time we ended up staying till after seven (which is about the time we usually used to arrive).

When we got home, I had the pleasure of reducing the work list; since returning from my trip to the Sylvia Beach Hotel, I’ve been able to erase Andersen’s, Long Beach, and KBC from the sweet pea list, Marilyn and KBC from the poppy seed list, and mulching Marilyn’s from the projects list!

Next up: The Boreas Inn sweet peas and poppies

I thought my birthday celebration was completely over, but no!  Mary of KBC gave me a lovely purple scarf from the Deux Chapeaux gift shop.  My cat Mary (no relation) agreed to model it for you:

The cats are sticking close to my computer spot since I came back from a five night absence.

 I thought the sentiments of their card were exceptionally inspirational:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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