Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Sometimes we amaze even ourselves with what we can get done in one day.
We were driven by two things: First, I planned to take Thursday off to spend with Carol. Second, a storm was due on the weekend, with rain at last, and I needed to plan out the watering schedule around that nebulous forecast. We began with our regular Wednesday round, the long version that includes going all the way to northern Surfside for Marilyn’s garden.
On the way north we stopped at The Planter Box to get a few plants for a needy Ilwaco planter.
I settled on some gazanias and a blue statice and a little curly allium for the planter, and we were off to our northern round.
Our work schedule now is pretty much the same every week and is usually only four days long, three of them about nine hours long and one just eight hours. This week had included even more time off. The three day weekends are marvelous; I keep repeating my thought that we’ll do this as long as we can afford to. The moment of truth will come with getting through the winter with less income from fewer fall cleanups and bulb plantings. That’s what we’ll get for embracing time over money and quitting several jobs. We’ve also embraced joy over money and kept a couple of the lower paying jobs while quitting higher paying ones, because we want the ones that bring the most joy to people, like…
Golden Sands Assisted Living
We did not add the usual supplemental water today, as I am counting on a big rain; we just filled the birdbaths and did some weeding and deadheading.
These four courtyard garden beds lack style, as they were thrown together with free “passalong” plants. I’m trying to give them a little more structure and still have the cottage garden feeling, without having money to spend on, say, a boxwood edging. So far, about all that I have succeeded at is making Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ be a repeater on the front of each quadrant.
I’m also pleased with the way the flowers are reseeding into the center lawn, that I would like to see turned to a wildflower meadow instead of grass (with as little work as possible!)
I am always entertained, even though it’s inconvenient for bringing in soil amendments, by wheelbarrowing through two lengthy hallways to get to the courtyard. It is a clever design for an assisted living place to have an internal daylight courtyard for a garden. It would be perfect for an Alzheimer’s facility (which this is not).
On the way to Marilyn’s, we shopped at Jack’s Country Store for some spray paint for my bathtub water feature. It has a great selection of colours, more than any of the other local stores.
Marilyn’s garden

Looking north down the path. That ever increasing volunteer patch of montbretia (right) has got to go.
Klipsan Beach Cottages
We did our usual hour midsummer hour or so of deadheading and weeding.

Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ in its prime. It was cut back by half in June to get smaller, less splayed flowers.

Allan was sad that the podophyllum was down in the lawn border. (They go dormant in summer, or so Google tells me.)

a bed of hydrangeas and ferns (My favourite hydrangea, Izu No Hana, is in the background in glorious blue and white.)
The Anchorage Cottages
I had a brainstorm that it was still early enough to water the Long Beach planters. If it rains just a little bit on Friday, it might keep us from watering but it would not be enough. If we could fertilize the planters today while they are still faintly damp from Monday, the fertilizer would “take” better, and if it does not rain, a watering today would hold them through till Monday. (Our schedule is complicated this week because I am taking Thursday, our usual Long Beach day, off.)
But first, we had time to squeeze in the deadheading at
The Depot Restaurant
Long Beach planters
We had a couple of hours before our dinner engagement, so we focused primarily on getting all the planters fertilized.
We even had time to weed and deadhead Veterans Field and Long Beach city hall gardens.
The Cove Restaurant
You might think that if we meet Dave and Melissa at the Cove, it must be Thursday. This week, we switched our traditional meal to Noodle Night Wednesday because of my social plans for tomorrow.
Everyone was duly impressed that Carol and I have been friends for 38 years.
Ilwaco
The workday was not quite done. In the dark, we planted four plants in the Ilwaco planter where previously plants mysteriously died (an unsolved mystery; the soil still smells sweet and good).
The only Thursday task that we did not get done in advance was deadheading the Long Beach welcome sign, and it had looked pretty much ok on a driveby, so I am set for a fun day tomorrow with Carol.