1 March: Ilwaco projects

Wednesday, 1 March 2017

Because I believed the weather forecast (rain and wind) and the wind flag flying over the port office, I decided we had better do a project more sheltered than working at the port gardens.  They and the beach approach garden are the worst jobs in bad weather.

I called Peninsula Landscape Supply and learned they are back to their daily hours instead of limited winter hours.  So off we went to get a load of mulch.

steaming hot soil energy

Note: When the mulch is hot, wait for it to cool before planting new plants in it.

one cubic yard

Elijah Blue fescue at Peninsula Landscape Supply

J’s garden

Our first mulching project used a little over half a yard, at the J’s garden across the street.  There, when previous owner had planted a pretty little garden, she planted many of the shrubs humped up on mounds.  Strange.  Too hard to dig a hole? By now, years later, their roots were exposed.  I have been looking forward to fixing this.

Soil Energy (Allan’s photo)

bucket application

before

after

before (hydrangeas in the center, back, are so humped up they are falling sideways)

after

after

before

after

fluffed up rose beds by back patio

Norwood garden

We had enough mulch left to do the Norwood garden beds, two doors down from us.

Allan’s photos:

The soil in the narrow bed in the back had looked quite poor and grey when we weeded earlier this month.  Now the bed looks rich and happy.

then

now

happy Euonymous

Port of Ilwaco

As we had worked on the two mulching projects, I realized the weather forecast had been quite wrong.  We could have pleasantly done the spring clean up all along the port.  With a few hours left in the day, we decided to get as much done there as we could.

Allan clipping sword fern behind (north side) the port office building

before and after

south side port office, before

after some clipping and two buckets of mulch added

I especially love narcissi with strongly reflexed petals.

Just across a little lawn is the marina, and the tide was high.

We decided to get as many of the Howerton Avenue curbside gardens done as possible, concentrating on the most walked-by ones, especially ones with the larger ornamental grasses.

red twig dogwood at the old Shorebank building

Shorebank: crocuses and kinnikinnick

by Ilwaco pavilion, before

and after

“drive over garden” before

and after trimming the santolinas (four different cultivars)

Fort George Brewery (office), before

and after (Allan’s photos)

Art Port Gallery, before

after

by Art Port Gallery

We surprised ourselves by getting all of the garden beds done except for the west and east ends. While not enough to erase the job from the work board, we should be able to finish it in just a couple more hours.

Home after 5 PM: Skooter was waiting.

Allan’s photo

Skooter and Frosty

Skooter, Frosty…and Calvin!  (Allan’s photo)

Somehow Allan found the energy to nip across the street and mow the J’s little lawn.

before and after

Even though they are invasive, I cannot help loving the yellow ranunculus (lesser celandine) in the lawn.  It’s not the most evil creeping buttercup.  I asked Allan to mow around it.  It will go dormant in the summer.  Sometimes I am just weak about plants.  But it is a cutie.

I’d love another nice day tomorrow so we could finish the port and the boatyard gardens and have the first spring clean up done!

work board tonight

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1 April: beach approach, of course

Before we get back to the beach approach garden, here, at the special request of Our Kathleen, are some cropped and blurred (to disguise the business) photos of the planter that was dissed in the story at the end of yesterday’s post. This planter was, I was told, “a little bit better in 2015″  but before that was “terrible”, and was still “not very good”…

July 2014 (accidentally photographed with “Vibrant Color” setting)

August 2014

August 2014

October (!!) 2014

November 2014

Thank you to everyone who commented on yesterday’s post, both on the blog and on Facebook.  I especially felt moved by the comment from Pam, Seaside’s city gardener, about how “public and vulnerable” it is to do our job.  In fact, that brought a tear to me eye.  (“Are you CRYING now?”)  I was simply shocked to hear that Ann Lovejoy, to me a garden goddess above all, hears criticism of her volunteer maintained public gardens.  Reminds me of when a passerby last year lit into me about the beach approach being weedy, when we had quite simply had NO time to get out there to weed.  Speaking of the beach approach, now that we have passed on several of our private gardens to Sea Star Gardening and also no longer do Andersen’s RV Park (because it sold last year), we have had the time to get the beach approach weeded early-ish this year…or rather, we are TRYING to get it done.

Friday, 1 April 2016

at home

The UPS truck arrived with my Mary Rose rose, from Heirloom Roses, for kitty Mary’s grave.  I was so happy to see it but did not have time to plant it yet.

shipped much earlier than expected!

Before work, I simply had to take some photos of our own garden.  I wish I had time to explore all of it.  I only get quick looks nowadays and am sure I’m missing something wonderful off in a corner.

Acanthus ‘Hollard’s Gold’

center bed back garden

center bed, looking southwest

tulips

tulips and muscari

Tulips and Leycesteria ‘Golden Lanterns’

I have to time to deal with the horsetail!

garden boat ‘Ann Lovejoy’

east side front garden

front garden, Lamprocapnos spectabilis ‘Alba’ and Tulip ‘Exotic Emperor’

front path looking east

I said to Allan that I felt like picking a bouquet of tulips and taking them to yesterday’s insulting Shopkeeper for shopkeeper’s sick relative.  Allan said “Don’t!”, just like City Hall folks had said when I commented that I felt like doing that.  What happened to kill ’em with kindess?  I picked tulips anyway but instead took them to a local business where we are always treated well.

a bouquet for Salt’s weekend

While I delivered the flowers, Allan popped one perennial into the Time Enough Books garden.

Geum ‘Mai Tai’ (Allan’s photo)

We planted a few plants in the Ilwaco planters and then back to…

Long Beach

The Bolstad beach approach garden

before, with a head start from yesterday (Allan’s photo)

Bolstad beach approach today, before, 12:15 AM

before: our goal is that planter with the light pole and banner

All of the “during” photos are Allan’s today.

before (Allan’s photo)

It has not been weeded since July, but most of the weeds came in the fall and winter.

Allan’s photo

Our neighbour Jared walked by with a friend from Ohio and with the two dogs, Rudder and Yarrow.  As he often does, Rudder ignored me…

…but he did let me pet him on the way back and even gently wagged his tail.

in the thick of it

Allan’s photo

I apologize for no photos of Allan swinging the pick to get the roses out from the streetside edge.  My ever so comfy clothes (free, passed on from a friend, my favourite clothing price) have no good camera pocket so I only take photos of before and after out here.  Why, why, why are pants made without pocketses?  So just picture him swinging the heavy yellow handled pick all day long, kind of like this guy, with pick instead of hammer:

John Henry

Allan’s photo

planter goal achieved! (Allan’s photo)

4 PM: beginning the next section!!

A distraction: a sirening police car went tearing out to the beach, a gazillion miles per hour it seemed, and later this procession came back.

a bad day for someone being escorted off the beach

an Anemone blanda saved from the weeds by Allan

Allan’s tools (minus the giant pick)

Because we had gotten one fourth of the section done yesterday,  and because the next section did not have as many roses, we got to the end of the next section also, all in seven hours today!  A section that takes 3.5 instead of 5-6 hours is a joy.

end of today’s second section.

How I cursed the kinnikinnick around thatrock as I whacked at it with the pick and clipped with the loppers.  It is ugly after this winter, or maybe from last summer’s drought, when, by the way, this whole stretch got NO water.  It does not cover the ground well enough to blanket our weeds and therefore does not deserve to be called a ground cover.  Many bad words were said to it.

Bad words cease when people walk by (unless I know them well).

Three deer went by; this poor critter looks mangy.

‘Twas a sad day for us when the deer discovered our species tulips in this garden.

Dogs to pet are a big treat for me at this job.

Me, the pick, and an enraged attack on kinnikinnick.

As Melissa says: “Humans win!” (briefly)

I have poppy seeds; my energy was gone so they did not get planted today.

after, 7:30 PM

today’s progress

finishing at sunset

telephoto of the buoy which is our goal

We were too exhausted to dump the debris, which is lightweight (roses pulled from along the edges), so we just took it home with us.

We are this far.

at home

dusk: Tulips close their petals

Erythronium

The work board: only five of 12.5 sections left!

To those with an eye for detail:  I’ve started calling the approach 12.5 sections instead of 13 because one area is shorter.

Tomorrow: more of the same, but guess who comes to help us?

guest photo: J9’s cat has found the catnip!

photo by Jeannine Grey

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1998 (age 73)

April 1:  Cool and gray but dry.  I planned to work on strawberries but the front beds are choked with two persistent weeds so I worked all afternoon in the tam area.  [former juniper tam bed turned to flower bed]  I weeded about a five foot wide area along the front and into the ditch in about four hours bending over and using my stool. MaryAnn came over to visit about half an hour and Darryl stopped by to talk.

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25 March: beach approach

Friday, 25 March 2016

I honestly thought it was going to be a stormy day, rainy and 45 degrees.  That’s what Siri told me last night at 1 AM.  She was mistaken.

We intended to begin the day by deadheading the Ilwaco planters, but it was Food Bank day and the streets were all parked up.

Allan managed to find parking to deadhead one planter.

 We spent the rest of the work day in Long Beach, thinking to do the Ilwaco planters on the way home.

street tree after deadheading.  some snail damage.

another street tree

Narcissi are my favourite flower.

Allan pulled some hardy geranium, not sure which one but similar to macrorrhizum in having a tidy habit, and we popped it into the garden at Penttila’s.  I found still more masses of damnable quack grass roots, of course.

Geraniums about to come out, to allow for more variety in this planter. (Allan’s photo)

Mission accomplished (Allan’s photo); room for some annuals.

“Skyler giveth and Skyler taketh away.” I do move plants around a lot.

Penttila’s mortuary, two days ago

today

in a garden on our way to the next project..

Our mission for the rest of the day: To get one more section of the Bolstad beach approach garden weeded.

the long narrow Bolstad garden (right next to the name)

before (Allan’s photo)

1:20 PM

By 3:20 we were only halfway done with the section (one of 13); worrisome

Our neighbours, Jared and Jessika, operate the Starvation Alley organic cranberry juice tasting room by the Long Beach arch.  Jessika ran by with her two dogs.

Rudder and Yarrow

One of the (few) pleasures of this job is all the cute dogs that walk by.

By six o clock, I did not think we were going to make it to the end of the section (the next planter).  My knee hurt like the dickens and Allan was moaning and groaning a bit, too.  Not only were we weeding but also clipping back, attacking with the pick, and trying to pull out rugosa roses right along the edge.  By 6:30, I was sure we were going to have to leave the last two square feet undone and was debating whether or not I could honestly erase the section from the work board.  Then, with a last burst of desperate energy and with the low evening sun in my eyes, we did it!

The final five minutes had some excitement when the extremely heavy pick fell of the planter and landed an inch from my toes.  That would have hurt.

really scary, must be much more careful in future and not get punchy and careless

7:02 PM

It is normal for one section of this beach approach garden to take six hours for two people.  That makes the entire job about 156 hours of work.  That is rather appalling!  We used to sometimes get assorted friends to help.  No matter who helped us (and we have had at least five different people give it a go), it never cut the time by one third so it’s faster to just do it ourselves.  Allan just reminded me that our helpers all liked to take a break, too…We just soldier on with complete focus and forget to take a ten minute break somewhere along the way (other than perhaps a necessary trip to the restroom).

after: state of collapse on the planter bench (Allan’s photo)

after, into the setting sun

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

rose debris to be dumped at city works

was able to legitimately erase one section of the beach approach

Work board lower right: Postcards is a future project for the Grandma Scrapbooks blog (sharing her old ones from 100 years ago).

I don’t think I can stand doing the beach approach day after day till done as in past years.  It requires so much standing still in one place, murder on my “collapsing” knee.  Tomorrow, we’ll do some deadheading rounds and then on the next work day, try to polish off a berm section which at least has more variety than the approach garden.  Tomorrow’s should begin with deadheading the Ilwaco planters and port gardens as we were too tired and sore to do it on the way home tonight.  But first, if only we can get up in time, we are going to caucus for Bernie Sanders.

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1997 (age 72):

March 25: Worked only 2 hours to exhaustion.  Yesterday Don said he would come out to help chip so I cleaned up the patio and in front of the wood box and piled it high on the pile.  He’s going to be shocked at the size of the pile.  I can’t find the chipper instructions.  My Dutch Garden new begonias are starting to grow.

1998 (age 73):

March 25:   1:00 to 4:45.  Today I moved all the pots of perennials from the greenhouse to tables etc outside where they’ll get rained on.  Then I washed all the white begonia baskets.  That was a big job!  Also cleaned Tabby’s “sand box”.  Tomato seeds planted on 3/20 and 3/21 are coming up!

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24 March: mortuary garden

I expected another stormy day off and instead woke to sunshine.  Hoping for nothing worse than a few showers, we decided to finish the mortuary garden (Penttila’s Chapel).

our Ilwaco Post Office garden

at the post office

 

On the way, we stopped in at our accountant’s office to sign our tax return.

Jennifer’s office: tulips

and accounting mascot, Helen

At Pentilla’s, I did a bit more detwigging of the dead bits on the coral bark maple.

before

after

I felt lightheaded enough while pruning to finally get the nerve to call the neurologist’s office for my test results…only to find, through a series of phone calls to his office and the hospital, that he had not been sent the results.  NOW he has them but his office is closed tomorrow, so perhaps I will hear on Monday.Oh, good, three more days that I can indulge in Ostrich Syndrome. If the results are good, he’ll tell me on the phone.  If bad, we have to go to Aberdeen again.  (During the worst of the lightheadedness, which did pass, I thought, well, I’m already at the mortuary, that’s convenient!)

Our main focus today was the north side of the front garden.

Allan’s photo, during a rain squall

kinnikinnick full of quack grass and creeping buttercup

The kinnikinnick is a horrible ground cover as its stems are loose and sprawling, giving plenty of room for weeds to come through, and its humped up centers are treacherous foot catchers.  There are ground covers that I think do the job much better: Geranium macrrorhizum and epimediums come to mind, and since we yanked a bunch of kinnikinick today, I think I will bring starts of something better to add to this garden.

Why the kinnikinick is so bad:

matts of white quack grass roots all tangled up with the kinnikinnick roots; horrible!

Allan’s photos: before

after

I got out huge mats of the white grass roots; this involved a lot of standing in one place and eventually my knee hurt like blazes.

After.  I threw in some poppy seeds.

lots of heavy and horrible weed roots

With some time left in the day, we deadheaded at Long Beach City Hall…

City Hall Garden

poeticus narcissi

trilliums and hellebore

after more deadheading at Culbertson Park

We got rained on hard thrice during the day, including when we went to city works to get some buckets of mulch for one of the parks.

Lightness around the edges always gives us hope.

more park mulching accomplished

Allan’s photo: Camassia

Allan’s photo: tulip

Allan’s photo: under a street tree

Allan’s photo with the Long Beach chop sticks; good one!!

Allan’s photo

Tulip ‘Portland’ (Allan’s photo)

primroses still going strong

While working with pain, I tried not to think of the doctor’s word “collapsing” about my knee.  As the upcoming total knee replacement, and how it affects gardening, weighed on my mind, I remembered the ridicule of a (former) friend toward a former neighbour (also a gardener by trade) who sought Facebook sympathy for his hip replacement.   I thought to myself weakly at the time that anyone, no matter how unlikeable, might validly seek sympathy for such an event, but did not speak up.  However…My narrative flow here is not about getting sympathy; it is about the interesting (to some) chronicle of the progression of age on the full time gardener.  So I might go on about my knee on occasion, and that is just the way it will be.

I am reading a good book called Being Mortal by Atul Gawande in which he quotes Philip Roth:  “Old age is not a battle. Old age is a massacre.”  For my grandma, knee pain was chronic from her mid 50s on.  The massacre of extreme debilitation came at about age 78; for my father, at 79 and for my mother, at 85.  Both mum and grandma had a son or daughter or granddaughter to help them live pretty well from 75 on when they began to weaken.  Childless, I wonder how that will go for me.  Many of my friends are childless; if we were together, we could help each other, perhaps.

Upon our arrival back home, the beauty of the garden was cheering, as was my greeting from Smokey:

Fritillaria meleagris alba

Tulip ‘Green Star’

another kind of frit, I think?

Tulip ‘Portland’

Dutch iris and Ribes speciosum

Tulip sylvestris

Arisarum proboscideum are blooming under its leaves.

common name, Mouseplant, with flowers like little mice diving into the ground

Allan’s photo

gold foliage in Allan’s garden

In the back garden, I picked a bouquet to take to Salt Pub.

back garden

Tulips

Tulips, with Smokey and Onyx

I must find time to weed the horsetail.

by the bogsy woods

Pulmonaria, corydalis, and Smokey

Corydalis

our neighbour Onyx

debating whether to cut that golden Hypericum to new growth at base

The Ann Lovejoy

Frosty

Fuchsia magellanica is already blooming!

Then we were off to Salt Hotel to meet Dave and Melissa for our weekly garden club meeting.

a bouquet for Laila

a nerve-soothing Gibson

our view

I had a Black Forest Ham melt in honor of having been working on a blog about my grandma’s recipes; she loved a ham dinner.

I almost forgot to take a photo of Melissa’s crab cakes.

Mel backs off from her dinner so I can take a photo.

Just in time!

We do enjoy our meetings! (Allan’s photo)

With Penttila’s erased from the workboard, nothing but bad weather and deadheading and doctors can keep us from the beach approach and berms.

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1997 (age 72):

March 24:  Don brought another check which makes more than 12 grand [for selling toy trains that had belonged to her husband, who had died in 1995].  He followed me over to the Texaco station down the road and I discovered they don’t have that thing on the hose that makes it so hard to put gas in the car so I should be able to pump my own gas!  Got gas for chipper, too.

1998 (age 73):

March 24:  Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower seeds are up in 3 days!

 

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17 March: flowers and kitty

I woke very early (for me), worried about our old cat Mary’s health.  She’s lost weight rapidly in the last week, and is no longer a round ball of kitty, and has lost interest in food. I would have had her in to the vet sooner had it not been for my own medical tests.  So I called Oceanside Animal Clinic and was fortunate to get an appointment in the afternoon.  Into the second bathroom I put Mary with food (with hopeful wishes she might eat) water and litter so that we could easily find her later, and we went to work for three hours.

This Irish cheese was on my breakfast patty, for St Patrick’s Day

The Depot Restaurant

We had a bit more mulching to do and four lily bulbs and a rosemary to plant at the Depot.

Depot north side window box

not much going on yet at the Depot flower garden; lots of lily sprouts at ground level though.

My theory about lilies at the Depot is that they fill the air with fragrance when diners get out of their cars in the evening.

Allan mulched the south side rosemary and ornamental grass bed with Gardner and Bloome.

Diane’s garden

I had a couple of violas and an Agastache ‘Cotton Candy’ for Diane’s pink and pastel garden.

the roadside garden

narcissi

more narcissi

Thalia, one of my favourite Narcissus

the container garden

right next door

soft wrinkly nose

And on the way to the Anchorage, a dog who often sits on a play structure had a wrinkly brow and his feet arranged just so.

Anchorage Cottages

I had an Agastache and a Symphytum variegata and some violas for the Anchorage garden.

Tulip sylvestris at The Anchorage

Long Beach

We had one hour left before kitty time, and used it to fill our buckets with soil energy at city works…

…and take it to do some mulching at Veterans Field.

Allan’s photos, before

after

And then…

Kitty intermission

Allan’s photos: Mary on her way to the vet

At the vet with one of the office cats

My friend Bette was there with her kitty (and note the very good dog, also)

and I got to meet a wiggly waggly puppy.

Dr Kelly (perfect name for St Patrick’s Day) checks Mary’s gums

Mary is probably 16.  Maybe a bit younger.  She needed to stay for blood tests and rehydrating and some vitamins and so forth so we left her there with a sense of deep foreboding as with a cat her age we feared kidney failure.

Long Beach again

We deadheaded the Long Beach welcome sign.

I’d been weepy to myself at bedtime last night (2 AM) about waiting for my own tests and about Mary being poorly.  Now I focused on getting more mulch onto Veterans Field garden beds and a small area of Fifth Street Park.

vet field corner garden, mulched

and more on the curved bed

leftover five buckets went to Fifth Street: Allan’s photos, before

after

Allan sheared some tatty schizostylus (before)

after

I planted two leftover lily bulbs and (in a planter) two Agastache ‘Cotton Candy’.

Tulip ‘Lilac Wonder’

Greigii tulip foliage

more short early tulips

impressed that these primroses are still in full bloom

Fifth Street Park, still too much darned weedy little alliums

These four kinds of lilies are now all planted here and there.

I felt potentially weepy about Mary.  At almost five, I called Dr. Kelly as she had requested and she expressed amazement that all Mary’s blood work came back perfect!  No kidney failure, good electrolytes, good liver function….so now Mary stays overnight for more hydration and maybe an X Ray tomorrow.  Her blood work was exceptional for an old kitty.  I felt much better, although she is “still a very sick kitty”.

We drove to city hall to do a bit of deadheading there.

On the way, in the little popout, we were pleased to see the tulips had NOT been eaten by deer after all.

Allan’s photo

City Hall garden

tulip (Allan’s photo)

Then, home, because we had an event to attend in the evening.  The event happened to be my 61st birthday.  We both changed into St Patrick’s Day green shirts and headed to the

Salt Hotel Pub

where our usual North Beach Garden Gang meeting included the full roster:  Allan and me and Melissa and Dave and Todd and Ed Strange.  It’s hard to get Ed out to one of our meetings so we were pleased he could attend.  I’m shy about inviting people to my birthday, so had stuck with just the usual Thursday line up.  Allan had asked if he should invite lots of people.  With all that has been going on lately, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and wanted to keep it small.  Maybe at 65 I’ll have a big big party!

Todd arrived with a crate full of the flower arrangements for which he is renowned.  Since we all looked at each one with great attention and pleasure, I’ll share lots of the details with you.  All are from his garden and woods.

Melissa, Todd, Allan

The trailing accent that looks like an evergreen branch is actually Elk Horn Moss that only grows in old growth cedar (I think he said) woods around here, and there is some like that where he lives on Willapa Bay.

The yellow puffs are Kerria Japonica

 

Todd, Allan, Dave

Podophylum ‘Spotty Dotty” (Allan’s photo)

Our Ed arrives!  (Allan’s photo)

our view, other than flowers

garden talk!  (Allan’s photo)

more garden talk (Allan’s photo)

We talked about plants and looked at plant pictures on our phones.

for example, from Todd’s phone: Corydalis ‘Blue Heron’

food arrives

food and flowers (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Madeline of Pink Poppy Bakery (our favourite baker) was in Ireland for a vacation, so Allan had turned to the Cottage Bakery to make a garden themed cake.  They did a wonderful job. Allan had coordinated with Dave and Melissa for them to pick the cake up today, thus making it a complete surprise.

Julez brings the cake!

birthday song

It was an extra boon that Heather from Niva Green (in dark shirt, with a halo behind her) had come to Salt that evening and was able to join our party.   It was extra cool that one of my presents was a gift certificate to NIVA green, my favourite shop ever.  And another was, all the way from Plant Delights Nursery via Dave and Melissa, five (FIVE!) Asphodeline lutea, a plant which I have been lusting after for quite some time.  I have just ONE in Long Beach and have longed for more.  Todd says this one is a cultivar with an extra good yellow flower.

sweet 61, not really 16

garden theme cake

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

our Melissa (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s arty floaty photo

We left three of the little bouquets for Salt’s Laila and Julez to enjoy and sent one home with Dave and Mel.  (Ed had already left to walk his dog, Jackson.)  I went downstairs to ask Julez to just save the flower containers for Todd and then I waited outside among the greenery in the courtyard.

out of the wind, amongst the greenery, sitting on a bench, looking at the half moon way above

It’s been a long day, and I have a few more presents to open, from Klipsan Beach Cottages and Allan and my dear far away Montana Mary, so I will leave you now.

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1998 (age 73):

March 17: Happy Birthday to Skyler.  Today I puttered around with paperwork and didn’t get out till almost 1:30.  I worked again digging out the strawberry plants.  When I got over to the asparagus bed those berry plants were nicer—probably nicer soil there.  As I dug the plants I also weeded the asparagus area which was overgrown with dandelions, etc.

 

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16 March: lily planting rounds

Wednesday, 16 March 2016

The simple fact that I had four new kinds of oriental lilies, 9 bulbs each, inspired me to go to three north end jobs that I felt needed more of that wonderful flower. Weeding and deadheading happened, too.

On the way, we took a bouquet to our dear friend Jenna (Queen La De Da).

flowers on their way to Jenna

Our sweet Jenna

Our volunteer garden at the Post Office got one each of lilies.

I wish all the tulips in the post office bed would hurry up!

a quick weeding

Golden Sands Assisted Living…

…got two each of the lilies. Golden Sands garden is also slow to get started.  If my test results come back good and I don’t have to start a new round of medical things, I hope to add some mulch to it soon.  On the way up, we’d seen that the Planter Box now has the “cow fiber” mulch!  It is so hard to get it into this garden through the hallways…and Allan would have to do all the wheelbarrowing.  Just one yard would help.

NW quadrant.  As always, mulch would be good for this garden.

some early tulips by the dining room at Golden Sands

NE quadrant, Golden Sands, still so very drab

Marilyn’s garden

Marilyn’s got two each of the four lilies, or was it one each?  One. I think.

Allan’s photo

looking south at Marilyn’s

I went on a rampage against the Bad Aster in the driveway bed and had Allan dig out a big clump of Tradescantia that was infested it.  Tradescantia bores me anyway.  One small piece got saved and replanted on the other side of the driveway.

OUT with the aster-ridden spiderwort

view southwest from the street’ ferns are unfurling in foreground

Allan’s photo, sword fern

view west from the porch.

looking north

Marilyn’s daughter Nancy told me that not only do deer stroll this path daylily—so do coyotes…so Scooter is brought in at night.

Scooter grew up wild so likes to be outdoors.

Scooter rolling about in the garden.

Marilyn’s garden as we depart

Klipsan Beach Cottages

KBC got one each of the four lilies.

It was time to remove the winter signs as the garden is awake now.

by the garage

deep red tulips

more tulips

Narcissi

hellebores

primroses and pieris

sword fern unfurling

a delicate double primrose

Hellebore ‘Sparkling Diamond’

Podophyllum

Allan’s photo

rhododendron

gunnera in the swale garden (Allan’s photo)

The dappled woods around the A Frame garden holds the largest display of narcissi.

The A Frame garden

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Basket Case Greenhouse

I’m so bad at answering my phone that I had missed a message from Basket Case Fred last Friday saying the nursery was open with a new shipment of perennials.  I found the message while checking my phone looking for medical phone calls (none).  So we went over there to get some photos for their Facebook page and to buy just a few plants.

Me pondering the variegation colour of the Azara I had ordered

garden art

perennial greenhouse filling up

pansies and violas

That’s our friend with a goodly assortment of garden art.

more garden art

a little canned ham trailer with wings!

Our friend Shadow jumped right into our van, because it used to be his van.

On the way home, we checked the boatyard garden.  The horsetail is coming up; I still think we can put off weeding it for another week.

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

home

Home, with daylight left, I planted two each of the lilies in my own back garden, along with two plants from Basket Case: Cornus ‘Hedgerows Gold’ and Symphytum variegata…a comfrey, raved about by Ken Druse, but…a comfrey so I’m a little filled with dread.

looking north from the bogsy woods

Allan mowed ours and Nora’s

I have left out considerable whining about having a really horribly bad time with my knee this afternoon.  It went completely “out” for awhile at the Basket Case and distracted me from my plant purchases.  Nevertheless, I got one (measly) bucket of the many weeds pulled at home.

I’m mystified by my other plant purchase, labeled Azara variegata.

I thought it was going to be like my Azara microphylla variegata.  But no, it is yellow in variegation.  So maybe it’s Azara integrifolia variegata…but that is still described as having white margins.  I have to Google some more about this one.

I uploaded photos to the Klipsan Beach Cottages page and the Basket Case page, took photos of my grandma’s old recipe cards for the grandma blog, wrote up this post, and now at 10 PM it is time for dinner and Survivor.  (If I had to cook dinner, too, this would be impossible, so thanks to Allan we eat.)

A couple of guest photos:

“The thrillium of the trillium” is Melissa’s caption (Sea Star Gardening) when she texted me this today.

Todd Wiegardt (Willapa Gardening) planted a new bed at his brother’s gallery.  Why didn’t we ever think of that?

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1998 (age 73):

March 16: 12:15-3:45.  Today I started digging out the rows of strawberries by the asparagus rows.  I trimmed the plants and heeled them into the 2 large square trays.  When I finish digging them I’ll start trimming up the strawberry patch and interplant these in the rows.

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11-12 March: a little work

Friday, 11 March 2016

I went to see yet another doctor, a new one who was kind and funny.  Another round of tests will be forthcoming, but not till he sees the results of this coming week’s tests!  This is what I get for avoiding doctors; I knew it would catch up to me someday.  (Fortunately, so far, all results have been good.)

In the afternoon, we realized the weather was good so we hurried out to do four hours of work.

The Anchorage Cottages

Allan’s photos:

tidying up planters and pots and garden beds

windblown hyacinth and Tulip ‘Gavota’

Tulip ‘Gavota’ (right) goes well with red brick.

Zaluzianskya capensis is blooming startlingly early.

window box came through the storm

trilliums on a north wall

Long Beach

We did the whole town of Long Beach deadheading walk in a light rain.  We each did half of the planters and street tree gardens.

I should have moved my weed bucket for a better photo.

Remarkably, Tulip sylvestris held up to yesterday’s “hurricane”.

As did some of the narcissi.

Allan’s photo:  We did have extensive narcissi deadheading through the town.

Allan’s photo: after

Allan’s photos, before

and after

These three year old ‘Gavota’ tulips came back.  I love them toning with that sign.

Tulips are blooming ridiculously early.

Windblown tulips in Fifth Street Park

City Hall looked great on a driveby as most of its narcissi are on the north side; Veterans field is more exposed and needed lots of deadheading.

Vet field corner, Allan’s photo, before, lots of little grassy weeds to pull as well

Port of Ilwaco

At almost dusk, we just needed to check the garden on the south side of the Port Office.

Port of Ilwaco office building

I found an unclipped sword fern!

the narcissi all shredded to mush what a shame

fog and rain

A hot toddy at Salt Pub tempted me but I resisted, as I wanted to get back to working on the Grandma Blog.…which after ten posts has all of two followers.  All the doctor appointments and tests have given me a sense of urgency.

end of the workday

Saturday, 12 March 2016

I worked obsessively on the Grandma blog, having now progressed into telling her life story with old photos starting around 1915.

Allan took a long walk through town to get the mail and a DVD from the library and to deadhead a planter of narcissi that had looked bad when we drove through town yesterday evening at dusk.  His photos:

new at Ilwaco City Hall

Iris reticulata at the community building

Allan picked this zombie bridal bouquet from the Ilwaco planters.

Shortly after he returned, a series of hailstorms passed through.

dramatic noisy weather

(Susie, if you are reading this, that jade plant to the left is from cuttings I got out of your yard debris pile!)

Tomorrow’s forecast looks dire again, and I’m hoping the power stays on because if it does, I might be able to finish the photo history part of the grandma blog.

For crying out loud!  If the power goes off, there’ll be tears before bedtime.  Allan reminds me that there was a big storm like this a year ago in March when I was at the Sylvia Beach Hotel:

High Wind Warning in effect from Sunday, 10:00 AM PST until Sunday, 9:00 PM PST. Source: U.S. National Weather Service
…HIGH WIND WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 11 AM TO 10 PM PDT SUNDAY FOR
THE SOUTH WASHINGTON COAST…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PORTLAND HAS UPGRADED THE HIGH
WIND WATCH TO A HIGH WIND WARNING…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 11 AM
TO 10 PM PDT SUNDAY.

* WINDS: SOUTH TO SOUTHWEST WINDS PEAKING WITH GUSTS TO 60
MPH…EXCEPT WITH GUSTS TO 70 MPH BEACHES AND HEADLANDS.

* TIMING: DEVELOPING AFTER 11 AM SUNDAY. STRONGEST WINDS BETWEEN 1
PM AND 6 PM SUNDAY.

* LOCATIONS INCLUDE: RAYMOND…LONG BEACH…OCEAN PARK

* IMPACTS: WINDS OF THIS MAGNITUDE CAN CAUSE LARGE TREES OR LIMBS
TO FALL…ESPECIALLY WITH SATURATED SOIL. FALLING TREES OR LIMBS
CAN BE DEADLY. POWER DISRUPTIONS ARE LIKELY. TRAVEL MAY BECOME
HAZARDOUS AT TIMES…ESPECIALLY FOR TRUCKS…TRAILERS…AND
OTHER HIGH PROFILE VEHICLES.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…

A HIGH WIND WARNING MEANS A HAZARDOUS HIGH WIND EVENT IS EXPECTED
OR OCCURRING. SUSTAINED WIND SPEEDS OF AT LEAST 40 MPH OR GUSTS
OF 58 MPH OR MORE CAN LEAD TO PROPERTY DAMAGE.

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

my mother’s garden diaries from two decades ago

1997 (age 72):

March 11:  Started growing tomato seeds in the 3 new Park Star trays and the 6 APS-40 trays.  I got most of the tomato seeds planted before I got tired.

March 12:  Dr Elledge appt as follow up on diabetes.  Got various lab tests.  Made appt for physical on Friday.

1998 (age 73):

March 11:  I brought wood in from behind shop.  I moved two pallets to the wood pile area to be ready when I have energy to start stacking the new wood.  I also potted the Park Seed begonia bulbs (12).

March 12:  12:30-4:15  A nice warm day, a new record, 68.  I worked at round table potting the Dutch Gardens perennials plants.  I put them in greenhouse but didn’t turn the lights on.  I still have many more to plant and hope to get out earlier tomorrow.

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