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
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

tulips

tulips and muscari

I have to time to deal with the horsetail!

garden boat ‘Ann Lovejoy’



east side front garden
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)
All of the “during” photos are Allan’s today.

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



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.

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.
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.



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.
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!
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.
Read Full Post »