Now that the blog is 15 days behind, I am trying to catch up.
Sunday, 17 July 2016
Our sometime neighbour, Alicia (Nora’s grand daughter), visited for the weekend and in the course of cleaning up her patio, she gave me some fabulous garden items. The weather was too hot for gardening anyway so visiting was much more pleasant.
metal shelf
potting bench and pots, what a lucky day for me!
Allan cut down the laurel bush in front that was blocking the view of oncoming cars.
before
after; should make it easier to back out of the driveway
That laurel had reseeded itself there and had never been part of Nora’s plan. Back when she was younger, Nora had had a rose garden running down the side of the driveway in what is now all lawn.
I feel very much in love with Alicia’s mom’s dog, a Vizsla named Ruby.
Monday, 18 July 2016
Long Beach
We did the usual watering and grooming of the planters and the street tree pocket gardens.
carousel planter
cosmos and tigridia
Fun Rides new owners have already added a kicky new paint job.
Here’s a before photo that Allan took on July 14th.
I found a Zoltar fortune on the sidewalk.
Zoltar Speaks…to me?
Allan will be glad to know that his pet reseeded Eryngium has recovered from an encounter with the street sweeper.
finger blight: someone pulled out several plants in one planter, including this painted sage.
planter by the Herb ‘N Legend Smoke Shop
I pronounce the word “herb” with the “h”. Some pronounce it “‘erb”. Someone walking by the Herb N Legend smoke shop said “Let’s go into the ‘Erb ‘N Legend” and I suddenly realized, after all this time, that the name is a play on “Urban Legend.”
red and white planters in Veterans Field (Salvia ‘Hot Lips’, Calibrachoa ‘Vampire’, and alyssum) Allan’s photo
in Fish Alley: The remnants of the weekend’s sand sculpture (Allan’s photo)
Allan’s photo
Allan’s photo shows he noticed the eryngium. (We go in different directions to water.)
Allan’s photo
Allan got done watering before me and had time to tackle the weediest, most annoying tree-rooty bed in Fifth Street Park.
before
after
finger blight! He noticed someone had swiped a big stalk of lilies. We do notice!
We got the little popouts weeded north of city hall.
Before: I was pleased to see some poppies and bachelor buttons had germinated.
after
While we weeded, there was a ruckus on the roof of the Scoopers Ice Cream Shop. A large flock of small birds flew off in a great flapping of wings. Crows were attacking a hawk…and my telephoto shows what I could not see, that maybe the hawk had a crow in its talons. Avert your eyes if this will upset you.
two of several angry crows
This was a really brazen move.
The hawk was being bombarded by several crows.
Nature red in tooth and claw.
The hawk flew away, holding its prize, followed by five cawing crows.
We next went to the beach approach where we were able to weed the whole thing pretty well in less than two hours. All was well except for my annoyance that someone had felt entitled to shear more than half the flowers off of the lavenders to take home and make themselves a herbal pillow or whatever.
Bolstad beach approach (Allan’s photo)
rose hips and fairy door (Allan’s photo)
I intended for us to do some weeding at the Ilwaco boatyard at the end of the day but I was completely out of steam. We poked at the Ilwaco planters and decided they could wait till tomorrow for watering.
Tuesday, 19 July 2016
I took some photos in my own garden while Allan started work.
My new metal plant shelf makes for another layer of pots.
hypericum berries
Eryngium ‘Big Blue’
lilies. probably ‘Montego Bay’
more lilies
Lily ‘Conca D’Or’, much taller than me
Lily ‘Conca D’Or’
lilies
more lilies to come
lilies
Geranium ‘Rozanne’ swallowing Rosa rubrifolia
in the front garden
lily
Melianthus major ‘Antenow’s Blue’
at the J’s
My commute to join Allan at work was a short one: We had taken on a new job just across the street at the J’s house. Here are some befores and afters of what we accomplished.
before
after
before
after
before (Himalayan blackberries coming from next door)
after; we’ll cut more after the J’s have blackberry cobbler.
It is a good drought tolerant front yard, especially with the gold carex gone (it wanted more water than it was getting).
before: blackberry and bindweed that had crawled under the fence in back
after; Allan did all this.
Allan gathered up the pile of laurel from Alicia’s front yard and, with the J’s debris, dumped 500 pounds of brush at the dump.
He went on to water the Ilwaco planters while I got to go home and start writing the Aberdeen garden tour blog.
Allan’s photo: sweet pea success at the boatyard
and an interesting boat
end of the day (Allan’s photo)
the spectacular sunset (Allan’s photo)
Ginger’s Garden Diaries
from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago
1997 (age 73):
July 17: goofed off
July 18: 11:00 to 4:30 7:00 to 8:00 Picked berries. Started to use old hay from pile to mulch tomatoes but it had too many branches. Maybe I’ll use the “new” hay in garage. Cut back some of the big plant that had fallen over into ditch. Did some weeding in lower driveway. After dinner I weeded the pathway in veggie garden. By then I was exhausted.
July 19 HOT AGAIN I was going to plant some perennial seeds but it was too hot and did some watering. Worked in the garage sorting the stuff piled up under tarps not for sale during garage sales. I put the “Robert stuff” together along east wall. [She gave my spouse at the time, Robert, a lot of dad’s old tools and odd and ends.] I put my garden stuff (trays etc) on tables etc. I still have several boxes of pots etc in shed to be moved to garage (another day). I wish I could get the TVs back into the shop but they are too heavy even for Don to move.
1998 (age 74):
July 17: I went out before breakfast to pick raspberries. It was cool and stayed that way until I finished picking and then the sun came out. HOT. 78 degrees. I worked in the shade transplanting seedlings. Also watered tomatoes and the trays in the shop.
July 18: It was cool enough to be nice and comfortable working in the garage. In order to empty the table in the woodshed, I brought the boxes of canning jars to the garage. I sorted them so Bill Jr can put them up on shelves tomorrow. I straightened up the garage and got the things together for him to take to the shop. Then I checked the trays of plants in the shop and dumped the ones that haven’t germinated.
