16 July: evening in Aberdeen

Saturday, 16 July 2016

After a gloriously satisfying garden tour day, we spent a couple of hours in Aberdeen before the hour and a half drive home.  We parked at this intersection to go to our first destination.

downtown Aberdeen

Kurt Cobain Days were in session, with a grunge band playing in a lot next to this building and lots of folks in attendance.  Kudos to whoever cares for the hanging baskets.

Nirvana t shirts (Allan’s photo)

We visited the garden store which had been one of the ticket sellers for the tour.

Marshall’s Garden and Pet

I was smitten with the Dramm sprinklers.  The clerk told us how the works are different from other sprinklers and make them last indefinitely instead of the usual breaking down after a year.  (Allan remembers exactly what was said and may fill in here.)  I imagined how much better these colourful sprinklers would look on our sprinkler posts, but even on sale they were about $30 each and I felt I could only afford one.  Can you guess which colour I picked?

This trio of colours matches our house.

The shop carried ho-mis, our favourite hand tool.

the plant area (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Here is Mahonia ‘Soft Touch’, which I had recently acquired at the collectors’ plant sale at the Hardy Plant weekend.

a nice selection of heucheras

and hens and chicks

I wish I had bought that Fatshedera. I deluded myself into thinking I already had it…but that was at my former garden!

I did get myself another Rudbeckia. Not this one, ‘Little Goldstar’ instead. And an interesting climber, Hydrangea integrifolia.

Marshall’s would be a worthwhile detour if we still went to Seattle sometimes.

I wish my photo of this interesting historic postcard mural downtown had turned out better.  We were at a stoplight at the time.

Next, we explored Sucher and Sons Star Wars Shop.

Allan’s photo

A full sized speeder bike (Return of the Jedi) would be an awesome ornament for our bogsy wood.

This smaller model was still out of my price range.

Perhaps a Millenium Falcon? I used to have one, not quite this big, that fell by the wayside somehow during our move to the beach.

Allan’s photo

The store was packed with shoppers. (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Outdoors again, I admired the handsome tree grate.

Allan’s photo

…and realized this must be the shop owner’s vehicle.

The mural on the side of the building is what had brought our attention to the shop when we had visited Aberdeen in March for a medical appointment.

Allan’s photo

I searched Trip Advisor for a place to eat and found a well-reviewed Salvadoran restaurant.  (A lunch spot in Cosmopolis, called Luna Rana, had been recommended to us by one of the Master Gardeners: “Best potato salad at any restaurant, and the sandwiches are terrific.” It closed at four so we missed out on the tater salad.)

La Salvadorena, Allan’s photo

I would eat here frequently if I lived in Aberdeen.

We tried four different flavours of pupusa, which I have never had before and now want to eat daily.

My mouth waters remembering this tastiness. (Allan’s photo)

an excellent carne asada dinner

on the road again: a downtown Aberdeen farm stand I might frequent if I lived here

leaving Aberdeen

and…home again to pick up our mail at our little post office.

I’m left with many thoughts about why Aberdeen appeals to me so much.  It feels like a working class area without as much of a class divide as exists here at the beach. I’d like to live in a place that had so many avid gardeners but is still not a big city.

The unpretentious nature of the Aberdeen garden tour, the consistently excellent gardens, the perfect garden grooming and plant diversity, and the welcoming host of knowledgeable volunteers at each garden had given us such a good day.   I look forward to next year’s tour and hope that I can encourage more gardening friends to make the drive to attend, whether it is in Aberdeen or one of its neighbouring towns.

Buried here at the bottom of this extra post,  is this news:  I recently removed myself as administrator of  the Facebook page for the local Long Beach Peninsula garden tour because of creative differences.  That is a big change in my life, at least from April through July of each year.  Because creating a beautiful page had been so important to me for the past four or five years, I found an able person to pass the page on to so that I felt comfortable with the decision (rather than just abandoning it to an uncertain fate).  I wish them good gardens and continued success and we will buy tickets to attend their tour on any year that it does not conflict with the Aberdeen area tour.  

Never having been a believer in the “when one door closes, another always opens” theory, I was pleased that in this case it all worked out for the best with our discovery of the Aberdeen Master Gardener tour.  I can honestly say that even on tours in Seattle and Portland, it is rare to experience a tour where every garden is one that I find inspirational, beautiful, and satisfying.  So from a disheartening situation, a new door did open and I was glad to share in the previous seven posts the hidden gardens “behind the garden gate” that we otherwise would have missed.

Next: back to the workaday world as I long for time in my own garden (and Allan longs for time to go boating).

 

 

 

 

 

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