Sunday, 28 February 2016
After a long and delicious sleep during a blustery windstorm, we realized during brunch that the sun had come out and that it might be a good day to put in an afternoon of work. While Allan hooked up the trailer, I took a turn around the front garden.
Ribes speciosum
Ribes speciosum, closer. It has mean barberry-like thorns.
lily foliage emerging along with weeds that I don’t have time to pull.
Melianthus major and Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’
Melianthus major is budding, overhead…
and at eye level
A strong gusty wind blew up again just as I got in the van. I was ready to abort the beach approach mission and gardening in general. Allan said he would do the community building garden, so I agreed to help because it’s easy to bail out of a place so close to home.
Just as we parked and started to unload our tools, a passerby arrived (not someone we know) who wanted to chat and ask questions and chat some more, very close within my personal space (like looking over my shoulder while I was getting my gear out of the van). I’m kind of Aspergian about that. Thinking of my own comfort rather than contributing to the other person’s enjoyment, it seemed like a time to tactfully and pleasantly depart to go plant some lilies up at Golden Sands.
As we drove north, we had barely left Ilwaco when an earnest rain began. Now it seemed like a good time to get a little grocery shopping done.
parked by Sid’s Market
Weather being decidedly miserable
Allan returned to the vehicle with a grocery bag, saying that he was committed to returning home, having bought ice cream to go with some pie. I thought contentedly of my comfy chair and the several library books awaiting me on the living room table.
When we got into our driveway, the sun came out, and it seemed like a good time to go back to the community building, so we did.
Finally getting down to work, we accomplished a great deal in just three and a half hours. I especially wanted to get rid of a lot of the kinnikinnick, as it looks battered and dead after winter, and it is so hard to weed amongst its stems. The soil in all these beds is infested with quack grass and sorrel and, in some of the beds, bindweed and horsetail.
before
after some VERY hard work, with some Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ added.
The Sedum should be excellent here, drought tolerant, with interesting flowers, and every now and then it will be easy to remove and clean up, in order to get more of the accursed long white grass roots out of this area. Added some coppery coloured California poppy seeds, too.
before: an area heavy with kinnikinnick, with salal planted below at sidewalk level
another view of the same area….AND I got some of the salal out below!
North of the wheelchair ramp to the parking lot: I have a Fuchsia magellanica start at home that can fill in there where a big tatty clump of salal came OUT. And a lovely ornamental grass, low and goldy-red, that go into the bed above.
The garden beds have so much heather. Indeed, heather dominates every bed but the tiered bed in the lower parking lot and the shade bed by the front door.
As I weeded, something began to bother me along the sidewalk garden.
From the ramp south to the bus stop:
salal salal salal rhododendrons heathers mugo pines….
past the salal: rhodos heather mugo pines
other side of sign…mugo pines, heather rhodos and…what the heck is that huge salal doing in there?? and then heather and rhodos.
“Allan!!!!!” I called, “I have a big idea!!!”
While sitting on the wall, weeding, I had seen a rhododendron languishing hidden in the pines.
in the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines, a little lost rhodie.
A half an hour later, Allan had that huge clump of salal OUT, and I had dug up the little lost rhodie. (I think what happened is back when the garden was planted, a volunteer did not know how big the pines would get compared to that little rhododendron. As for the oddly places salal, who knows.)
Allan’s photo, before…
Goodbye, huge clump of salal!
A little lost heather had been consumed by the salal.
Allan said the salal runners had gone all the way to the bus stop under the heather and rhododendrons planted next to it. He teased the runners back out; they were several feet long.
What an improvement!
rhodo where the salal was
We will not let that salal come back, even though it will want to. (Allan mentioned that the area also has bindweed which was so hard to pull out of that big salal patch.) The humans will win. That’s something our Melissa says after a great battle with weeds or invasives: “Humans win!” I like to see nature win sometimes, but not when it comes to bindweed or salal or sorrel in a garden bed.
No more little lost rhododendron.
Meanwhile, I had removed two medium clumps of salal, below, that were all up in a rhodo’s business.
The rhodo was free, with good breathing room, when I was finished.
Hamamelis, planted by locals Ann and Butch Saari, matching the library door and arch
The last 20 minutes of the job took place in a strong cold wind and heavy rain.
I had coppiced some of the red twig dogwood and it seemed that a good home for the long and decorative red stems would be with Laila at Salt Hotel; she excels at incorporating branches and stems into floral displays. On the way there, a rainbow displayed itself over the port.
Rainbow over Jessie’s
fading rainbow over Salt
Allan’s photo
Allan’s photo, south side of Salt with pub on second floor
Of course, after delivering the dogwood stems, we could not resist warming up our cold selves in the Salt Pub.
hot toddy with a fresh ginger infusion made at the pub
the view
Desire
a new larger format menu, and at the next table, our friend Heather Ramsay, artist and owner of the NIVA green shop
the ever changing clouds
Heather and me
Allan and I split the burger, which was exceptional.
I think Allan’s photo is the most exceptional.
clouds going pink, 5:50 PM
6 PM
A Pink Poppy Bakery cupcake
delectable
6:25 PM
I love that there are books to borrow in a corner of the pub (from owner Julez’ mother’s collection). And that the telly is not turned on all the time. I much prefer a restaurant to not have a television on.
at the hotel desk
6:30 PM, on the way home for an evening of blogging and movie
Tonight, Interstellar or Jurassic World, DVDs borrowed from Ilwaco Timberland Library.
later, during Jurassic World (loved it!): Smokey displays how well healed his paw is.
Ginger’s Garden Diaries
from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago
1995 (age 70):
Feb 28: “Store” day. Watered houseplants. I planted a lot of the tiny trailing begonias that I started from seed into one of the terracotta planters and set it above the Floralight [indoor 3 tiered lighted plant tray]. I’m curious if they will grow and trail.
Our next blog post will be the expanded and illustrated version of Ginger’s Garden Diaries for February 1995, 97, and 98.
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Tangly Cottage Gardening 