I think that unless I get a weekday off, I will start saving the week’s photos (before and after work) of our garden for a Sunday update. That may change if I start taking a different (or no) day off.
3 April
I found, on a real estate site, a photo of our house when it was for sale in 2010. (I was checking comparable values and oddly, even though it is manufactured and thus depreciates, our house is holding more value than some historic houses on the street!)
I want to use this as the basis of a series of photos of the garden progress, but already had forgotten the photo angle to use when I took this:
6 April
First, a bunch of photos from right by where we park our car when we go to and from work.
I love the very small cupped narcissi. I also have realized this week that I love the apricot coloured cups on the ones that Nancy and Lorna picked out for their gardens. I did not think I would. Some of them are the ones that are supposed to be pink. Next year I am going to order lots of them.
This Erythronium is precious to me because it came from my mother’s garden.
I am going to give a clump of the fritillaries to Judy.
In the back garden, the boat is coming on with tulips. I put up a sweet pea tee pee around which I planted the ‘Alan Titchmarsh’ sweet peas that my friend Sheila kindly shared with me. The wind has blown it over, but more wind is predicted for tonight so I will put it upright later. I remember the optimistic moment when I put it in place earlier this week and thought “I don’t need to lash this to the boat because the big winds are over.” No.
Later, that view would have included the two red gale warning flags flying over the Port Office.
My favourite ornamental grass, Stipa gigantea, is already putting out some fronds. I have more than nine of them in the back garden.
Today
The day began with rain, so I started reading Mr. Tootlepedal’s Blog (April 2011). Then out came the sun and I began to feel guilty, so after finishing the month of April in the borders (UK), I went outside with the intention of pulling one bucket of weeds, just one. I soon came back in and started reading May, because my hands got so cold. The sun peeked out again, and guilt drove me back outside, and then the rain came and I came back in to my reading. Here’s what I saw in our garden today:
Hmm, Allan had a measuring tape next to his garden bed.
He is planning to make a new grid on which to record his plants (on paper) and has driven in screws a foot apart for future reference.
I found a tragedy in my front garden bed: a very precious and expensive Allium bud rotted off (and the one on the right looks iffy, like it might be rotting):
I love the emerging spears of Baptisia australis:
and white bleeding heart:
And the new leaves on Pieris:
One of my favourite tulips, ‘Leo’, is coming back and a good thing too because I did not get any more of it.
I like all the different cultivars of Muscari and try to add new ones every year.
But I was horrifed to see Geranium ‘A.T. Johnson’ making its way into the garden…and this photo is after I yanked half of it out. I used to love it, but its extreme vigor has worn out its welcome.
But the rains came so I got back to my reading. My achievement: only 7/8 of a five gallon bucket of weeds pulled.
Speaking of wearing out one’s welcome, which I felt I was doing by stopping daily by Olde Towne café to photograph their progress in reopening in a new location, I am pleased to say that the news is that they are opening on Tuesday. So the heart of Ilwaco is almost back.
Postscript: Food
Reading the Tootlepedal blog often makes me crave tea and biscuits, and Mr. T. often writes of his friend Dropscone, a former baker who makes a delicacy called Drop Scones. (Oddly enough.) I forwarded the recipe to Allan (via email to the next room in the house) and he did try to make them. They are similar to pancakes and did not look quite like Dropscone’s results but were tasty anyway.
The next night, he made scones which turned out looking better, and tasted good, but the drop scones were just delicious.