Real time announcement: On today, Wednesday, June 22nd, the Basket Case Greenhouse summer clearance sale begins with 40% off annuals, 25% off perennials, and $5 off baskets!
Wednesday, 15 June 2016
There is a big fuss on the internet lately about lilies being toxic to cats, even pollen that might fall on them. This does concern me, but…I have had cats coexisting with lilies for over thirty years with no problem. I hope my luck (and the cats’ luck) continues.
Going to work was required. At least I had a couple of nursery visits to anticipate.
The Red Barn Arena
Diane’s garden
The Basket Case Greenhouse
We picked up the bill to take to Long Beach city hall, and found some white bacopa to replace the ones missing at the welcome sign.
The Planter Box
I acquired a second heuchera for Long Beach city hall.
We headed up to Surfside for an hour of weeding at Marilyn’s garden.
Marilyn’s Garden
Garden Tour sneak peek
On the way south again, we stopped for half an hour at a friend’s home in Ocean Park. Her tiny garden will be on this year’s Music in the Gardens tour. I needed some sneak peek photos for the tour’s Facebook page.
I will be feeding some of these photos onto the page between now and tour day (July 16th). Blog readers get an advance look today.

This campanula will be done blooming by tour day. I recently bought one like it at The English Nursery in Seaview, and a cobalt blue version at The Planter Box.
The sneak peek trick is to get photo vignettes that don’t give away too much. The following photos gives a lot away; Allan helped our friend Debbie trim some errant kiwi off the side of the cottage.
You may recall that we had dinner there last winter and watched a documentary about Dead Moon.
Klipsan Beach Cottages
A little over an hour of weeding and deadheading got the KBC gardens looking pretty near perfect, our goal for every week.
Garden Tour Sneak Peek
The next sneak peek garden was conveniently located a few blocks south of Klipsan Beach Cottages. And across the street from the Lost Garden, leading me to reflect that I was grateful to now have the free time to run pleasant errands. However, the administration at our former job has not paid us for February, March, April or May despite submitting the earlier invoices twice…so I fear we are going to have to engage with them again eventually and I am not looking forward to that.
The particular garden at which I was going to sneakily peek is one that I greatly admired when it was on the tour several years ago. My peek at it today was particularly sneaky as I just took some photos from the street.
I look forward to seeing the hidden areas of this garden again on tour day. It is one of my top ten favourites of the tour gardens over the past ten years.
The Anchorage Cottages
Back to work in north Long Beach, Allan did a weeding project and I did the general grooming of the gardens at The Anchorage Cottages.
Allan’s project: weeding alongside the sport court under the grape arbour for the first time this year (oops).
Long Beach
We added more white bacopa back in to the welcome sign garden, and I had a revelation…The area where the whole stretch of plants is missing is right where I saw a guy reclining with a rucksack next to the planter last week. I thought it odd at the time that he would not have chosen a more private spot to nap.
The Depot Restaurant
We made the spontaneous decision to try to get in on the last burger night of the season at the Depot. The sign on the door said “closed” but as it was before eight, we barged in anyway, and they were kind enough to serve us.
home
Ginger’s Garden Diaries
from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago
1997 (age 73):
June 15: I heard Walt’s chain saw again cutting wood in his yard, then he went over next door and cut more but didn’t feel like going over there. I went out back and picked berries again (10 pkgs).
1998 (age 74):
June 15: 11:00 to 6:00 It took me until 3:00 to pick, rinse, hull, and slice strawberries. I put 5 pkgs in the freezer. After a short rest I went out again. I moved the various bowls over the the cover of the wood box so I could move the tomatoes out of the greenhouse. Now I’ll move out some seed trays to the greenhouse starting tomorrow?