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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20-23 March

Sunday, 20 March 2016

After attending the Quilt Show, I spent the day sorting through my photos from 2012-13 for the first memorial post for Mary Cat. It took a very long time as I deleted many the photo from my computer.  I certainly do not need every before and after photo of jobs we no longer do.

evening: my Todd birthday bouquet still looked fabulous.

Monday, 21 March 2016

I spent the day doing the same project of deleting photos and making the Mary memorial with photos from 2014-16.  It was cathartic, with the gratifying side effect of deleting about 4000 photos in all.

Allan helped out by unpacking my birthday plants for me….

Lovely Asphodeline.

and running errands…

Cow Wow! mulch in the rain at Jo’s, when he went to pick up mulch money.

deadheading at Long Beach City Hall

zombie bouquet and Renee O’Connor sidewalk tile

Smokey sat right next to me watching me make the blog post.

He sort of fell asleep.

Tuesday, 22 March 2016

Today was my appointment with a knee doctor in Astoria.

beautiful clouds on our way across the Astoria Megler bridge

Allan’s photo; he said I looked “small entering the big building.”

knee doctor exam room art

The kindly doctor said my right knee has severe degenerative arthritis and is collapsing, that it is genetic and not unusual to have one knee much worse than the other (the left one is pretty fine still).  There is no temporary fix so I need a complete knee replacement.  I was not surprised.  He said that he has replaced many the knee for women in their 50s.  I told him that friends advise me to go to Rebound in Portland (because the basket ball team gets treated there) and that I DO NOT WANT to because going to the city 2.5 hours a way would just add to my stress and anxiety.  (And I don’t care about basketball although I am sure the players get great medical care.) He said he is an excellent surgeon with much experience and the very best of knees on offer, so I will be glad to be able to have it done in Astoria.  I am hoping to wait till November, though, somehow hobbling through another gardening year, as I cannot afford to lose three months of income.  Yes, he says the recovery time will be THREE MONTHS of not gardening. (My mind reels.)  THREE.  Maybe because he will also be straightening my leg. When he said something about “soft tissue”, I tuned out.  I also will probably not look at the knee replacement youtube video he told me about.

Late November through late February would just be doable for NOT GARDENING.  I like to think that the doc was impressed with my pain tolerance.  At least he did not pressure me, but he did advise me to give them two months notice for when I decide, and to call him if I can’t take the pain anymore.  He seemed amused when I told him I have such a bad case of ostrich syndrome that I have not pursued the results of last week’s MRI, since “each day of ignorant bliss is precious.”  (Surely I’d have gotten a phone call if at death’s door?)

I am reassured because I know Mr. Tootlepedal got through a knee replacement and says he has a fine new knee and is bicycling many many miles (although all I want to do is walk a couple of miles again).  My first memories of my grandma include her being in knee pain daily (affected by cold weather, which mine is not) with her knees wrapped in ace bandages daily.  She would have been just about my present age.  Would that this technology of knee replacement had been available to her in the 1960s.

I would have liked for Allan and I to stay in Astoria for a nice lunch with a view on the riverfront.  Ideally followed by a long and vigorous walk on the River Walk (next year?).  With the weather too fine and the following three days having rain and wind predicted, I felt the pressure of work so back to the peninsula we went.

view from the bridge going back

Penttila’s Chapel

I had recently added Penttila’s Chapel (a mortuary, not a church) garden to the spring clean up list.  I’d been thinking of passing the job on to Sea Star Gardening (Dave and Melissa) until I realized the job still has sentiment for me.  Allan and I helped install the garden with Dan’s partner, Wayne (his choice of plants, mostly), while my mother’s body was in the mortuary.  Although that sounds macabre, if you knew my mother, you’d know she’d have gotten a kick out that.  However, when mortician Dan drove up, I did give him Dave and Mel’s card for his own personal garden clean up.

before

3.25 hours later

before

I think it very strange to have McDonald’s across the street from a mortuary/crematorium.  (When I moved here, there was no national chain restaurant on the peninsula, and McD’s is still the only one.)

after

Allan’s befores and afters:

lots of sorrel in amongst the beach strawberries

I would love to clip back that lithodora after it flowers.  I loathe that stuff!  However, cutting it back after it blooms would expose some plastic liner that Wayne installed and I forgot to ask Dan if I could remove the upper part of the liner.

before

after

I added some Flanders Field poppy seeds because they seem appropriate for remembrance; I hope they take.

before

I cannot erase this off the work board yet as we still need to weed on the right of the front garden.

After (ish): At least I got the sword ferns cut.

finishing touches

lots of annoying little weeds, mostly sorrel, to haul off.

MaryBeth had stopped by while we were weeding and given me some garden decorations.  When told of the knee results, she commented that she had seen my right leg go out more and more sideways (the result of “collapsing”) in “the past two years”.  That’s what I had told the doc, and he had expressed surprise it could happen in just two years….apparently so.  Before that, I think limping around was the only evidence.  (“Are you limping?” I was often asked, as was my former partner Robert who had had polio as a child.)

lovely new tree baubles from MaryBeth

Allan found a beetle hanging out on the fence post, “with a spider and some tater bugs” and brought me this photo.  He said it was lady bug size (and then added, “No, a foot long.” I could not ID it, but, with help from a Facebook friend, I now know it is Calligrapha multipunctata – Common Willow Calligrapha (wonderful name).

Calligrapha multipunctata – Common Willow Calligrapha

Smokey and Frosty in the same chair

Wednesday, 23 March, 2016

I woke early, all anxious about perhaps having to cross the bridge during winter storms for 2X a week physical therapy after knee surgery in late November.  I called the doc’s office and was reassured I will be able to do the physical therapy at the PT place in Ilwaco.  So happy!

When I emerged into the living room, I found Smokey and Frosty cuddled up, and that made me even happier.

I woke them up.

A kind card came with a thoughtful and reassuring message from the vet who treated their mother, Mary, last week.

with Smokey sitting on the card.

Writing about the quilt show absorbed the stormy day, because I wanted to type out each of my favourite quilters’ description of their quilts.

Frosty and Smokey, making me happy

another day from the birthday bouquet

And now…to catch up on the Tootlepedal blog.  Here is an appropriate photo from the recent quilt show:

For those who are interested, I’ve published another set of old scrapbook pictures over on Grandma’s Scrapbooks.

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1997 (age 72):

March 20:  Took all the branches that were on the wood box off but couldn’t lift it.  I pulled it partway off.  There is a lot of small (kindling) branches on top of some old wood.  I’ll keep burning wood in shed as its easier to get to and it burns good.

March 21:  Worked 2 1/2 hours weeding strawberry rows.  That plant that spews its hard seeds is in bloom so I’d better get them pulled before they go to seed.  [She must mean shotweed.]

March 22:  5 hours.  Finished weeding regular strawberry bed.  I now need to cut off the runners and move the daughter plants back into the rows—then plant the new Raintree plants (100).  The berries over by the asparagus bed aren’t as weedy as the main bed.

March 23:  I’m surprised that I’m not stiff and sore from over 5 hours sitting on my stool while weeding berries.

1998 (age 73):

March 20:  Beautiful day!  Well I started planting tomatoes with card table set up and planted about 8 hours mostly tomatoes.  I have 8 1/2 flats full.  I used the 9 part square pots mostly new pots.  I’m hoping that planting in the 9 section pot will enable me to get the seedlings out without root damage when I repot them.  Tomorrow I have to figure out where to put all these trays.

March 21: It was raining all day so I continued planting veggie seeds, then I saw the “SEED” sign on a metal box in the closet and found more veggie seeds.  Most are old old seeds.  I’ll plant some but I think I’ll just throw them out in the fall as a cover crop.

March 23:  It rained hard until late afternoon.  I moved some of the begonia trays so I could put some tomato trays under lights.  I also have them in bathroom fluorescent and on kitchen card table (with two heat pads under them).  I haven’t planted any flower seeds yet because I don’t know where to put them.

 

 

 

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29 May: Ilwaco to Andersen’s

Friday, 29 May 2015

Ilwaco

The day began with the new routine of bucket watering half of the Ilwaco city planters.

As you can see, it can be a long walk with a bucket between planters.

Eventually, I suppose we will return to Allan watering with the water trailer, but for now when we are so busy we just don’t have time for that; bucket watering saves over half an hour.

I do like this banner at city hall.

bucket watering the city hall planters

City Hall; as you can see, the weather remained grey and chilly.

The Depot Restaurant

There’s not much excitement in the Depot flower garden yet.  We went after the ever present bindweed.

today

strong foliage of Rodgersia coming up…over bindweed and the ajuga that has fallen out of my favour.

the new expansion

added a Sanguisorba ‘Dali Marble’, realized had put it too close to the Agastache ‘Golden Jubilee’.

Oh dear, well, it’s ok to have plants close together if you want a quick impact at a place of business.  I can shift them in the fall….

I bought flea medication for the cats at the Oceanside Animal Clinic next door and admired the cute motel across the street.

Seaview Motel has cute cottages and pretty little garden beds.

Long Beach

I had meant for us to get to the Long Beach welcome sign yesterday to pull the maddening scrim of horsetail.  Today, we did, knowing it will come back by next week.

back side, before: The feathery cosmos foliage might help camouflage the horsetail to the unknowing eye

after

front, before

after

Next, while Allan weeded at Veterans Field, I checked to see if the “dry” block of planters had been watered by the city crew.  They had, and very well indeed.

Thank you! Nice and damp soil.

We try not to plant anything tall right next to the hose connection because we have to twist our quick connect faucet and hose to get the water on.

I peeked down Sandpiper Mall at the exterior display of Home at the Beach, a charming shop that recently moved from 7th Street to this location.  I had no time to go inside today…much to do.

Home at the Beach

Todd called and then came by Veterans Field after picking up the tree peony I’d left for him in my driveway.  While he helped pull bindweed out of the Lewis and Clark Square garden, he regaled me with an excellent prank he had played at an Ilwaco cafe.  He had asked the proprietor and her helper if she knew anything about the boatyard garden because, he said, he had picked a huge armload of flowers there and a crazy lady had appeared and yelled at him that it was her garden and he should not be picking flowers!  The café ladies looked appropriately shocked when he said “I have the flowers in my car, do you want them?”  Then he broke down and confessed that he actually knows us and had helped us weed the boatyard garden a couple of times and was then informed that now they recognized him from Skyler’s blog.  Hmm.  I said “Kathleen will love this story!” (and I was right) and that he had provided some of the café patrons with a good dose of gossip.  We all got a great deal of enjoyment out of the story (and he had also brought us not just a funny tale but also two sweet treats).

I invited him to follow us to our next job so he could have a tour of….

Jo’s garden

I wondered if this rose by the entryway is Pink Grootendorst.  I think it might be because of the carnation-like fringed flowers.

Rosa ‘Pink Grootendorst’?

Allan just happened to have pulled out a rooted side piece that I do hope came from this rose and not the more aggressive rugosa rose.  (Although this is a rugosa, so far it does not seem to run like mad.)  If it takes, I will have one in my own garden to examine.

Allan’s project was to fix this…

Without necessary parts, he capped a hole in the ‘octopus’ that was leaking and will connect that sprinkler later.

Allan’s photo: touring Jo’s garden

While Allan worked on his project, fixing a broken sprinkler, I also took Todd to see the Boreas Inn garden.  Then Allan and I left Jo’s and went onward to….

The Planter Box

….Where we found Todd just finishing a shopping errand, so we had a look at the cosmos in the back greenhouse.  To his apparent amusement, I bought two more flats…after all my rejoicing that annuals planting time was over.  I could not resist, as there were some new varieties, ‘Antiquity’ and ‘Happy Ring’, both of which I very much liked last year, and ‘Rubenza’, which I think might be a shorter one.  (Just Googled…three feet tall, so shorter than ‘Sensation’, with deep red flowers.  Now I want more!)

Cosmos ‘Antiquity’ last year

The Planter Box is the place to get a wide assortment of vegetable starts.

The Planter Box has all sorts of veg starts for sale now.

Andersen’s RV Park

We put in some weeding time at Andersen’s.  I weeding the picket fence garden and then helped Allan with the garden behind the office.  He took some before and after photos:

across from the back office door (before)

after

the garden right behind the office, before

after

before

after: This bed is challenging, always, as it is infested with couch grass.

I started weeding further along the bed behind the house, an area where mostly the staff walks, not guests, so it is always the last to get done.

Allan’s photos: still much to do.

We were not going to get done today.

At the far end of the above garden, one of my favourites is coming into bloom:

Baptisia australis (Allan’s photo); the rugosa rose will swallow it if we do not do some editing soon.

the buds of Baptisia australis (false indigo), Allan’s photo

The poppy field is beginning to bloom.  (Allan’s photo)

foxglove (Allan’s photo)

The foxgloves around the park always remind Lorna of her mother; her parents started the park in the late 1960s and she took over in 1988 and has run it since then.

Lorna also loves the old bearded iris.

Because real estate is “hot” on the Peninsula right now, I had many poignant thoughts about possibly leaving this garden if it sells.  I know I keep saying I want fewer gardens in order to actually get caught up.  And yet…the sweet peas are coming on  at Andersen’s…and I do adore some of the plantings.

office back door garden

This is the only garden where I have Halmiocistus wintonensis.

Halmiocistus wintonensis…a handsome once-a-year-bloomer

The picket fence garden, with sweet peas a couple of inches tall…sigh…

Penttilas Chapel by the Sea

On the way home, we spent a couple of hours at the difficult end of the funeral home garden in Long Beach, getting velvet grass out of the groundcover of kinnickkinnick.  Many of the grass roots remain.  I am thinking the groundcover should come out for easier weeding.  Along the sidewalk, a bed of lavender infested with thick white grass roots in tight soil was a challenge to weed.  Allan’s before and after photos:

before

after

after: no time before dark to finish the most obscure corner

before

after (with some creeping buttercup left behind due to lack of time

This is not even the sort of job I would take on, were it not that the larger driveway garden is so very much more to my taste.

driveway garden has interesting plants (last week)

Even though there were some weeds left, I was able to cross Penttila off the “projects” list and now consider it a regular maintenance job.  Now there is just one big project left: the thirteen sections of the beach approach garden, and fertilizing my own back garden at home….which I have a feeling might not happen this year except for individual needy plants.

I suppose I need to add “plant cosmos!” again.

We are taking a three day weekend.  Or rather I am, as Allan would like to get the community building garden weeded, after a boating adventure on Saturday.

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26 May: weeding and reading

Tuesday, 26 May 2015

With many annuals already planted, we were able to make a dent in the weeding side of the work board list.

Mike’s Garden

Mayor Mike’s garden is a few blocks east of us.  If it were to the west, we would see the weeds on our way to the post office and would keep up with it better.  As it was, I was surprised at how weedy it had gotten.  Al;l the photos are after we got done…

Mike’s garden, looking south

red Oriental poppy

Geranium ‘Rozanne’

looking south

tall white allium (Mt Everrest, I believe)

Pulmonaria and boxwood

Red Barn Arena and Diane’s Garden

We tried to polish off the last two little annuals jobs, going up Sandridge Road to plant some Blue Denim diascias in three of the Red Barn planters.  I just like to use this one because of the name, since blue denim goes well with horses and riders and barrel racers, it seems.

Allan planting at the Red Barn

Diascia is not as hardy here as the tag implies.

The plants were a bit leggy, Next time around, I will probably sheer them for more compact blooming.

At Diane’s next door, we were able to add a couple of annuals and some hardy fuchsias.  We could not finish the job because her new little bicycle planter was not yet set out for us to plant.

Zaluzianskya (night scented phlox) should add a surprising sweetness to this container garden by the back porch at dusk.

We next swung quickly by the Basket Case Greenhouse to pick up a few perennials for our next job,

The Boreas Inn garden

When we edged the Boreas beds last Friday, I felt that the garden beds cried out for some more plants.  Our rather brief stop today resulted in about ten more perennials in the ground.  Allan took all the photos here.

added one more Salvia ‘Hot Lips’

Allium albopilosum

Allium multibulbosum nigrum and ‘Mount Everest’

green santolina

Driving through Long Beach on the way to our last job of the day, I saw a tall single blade of grass sneering at me from atop a shrublet in one of the Long Beach planters.  This could not stand! We circled the block, parked, and Allan went across and got it, and also found a dandelion.

All I did was point and watch from the van.

Penttila’s Chapel by the Sea

We finally got back to Penttila’s Chapel, after doing a spring clean up way back on March 2.  Many small weeds awaited us.

before

after

before, south side

after

 

before

after

before

after

I cannot cross this weeding job off the work list yet, unfortunately, because a bed at the north end of the property still has lots of grass among the kinnickkinnick groundcover.

I hope we can get to this next week.

Working at the mortuary garden always makes me think of my mother, who died the week we first helped install this garden in September 2010 and whose body was actually at the mortuary during the day we, by arrangements made before her death, helped plant the garden.  Of course, today I pondered death for awhile, and was reminded that last week I finished an excellent memoir with the best chapter on mourning that I’ve ever read. More on this at the end of this post.

We saw a pretty bird nearby as we were packing up to go home.

a pretty little goldfinch

Allan’s photo

On the last homestretch in Ilwaco, we used the last of our burble water to quench the thirst of seven of the Ilwaco planters.

We are trying to rotate through watering them a few a day, since right now we don’t have time for one big watering session every three days.

bonus book report: The Stations of Solitude by Alice Koller

You may recall that I was smitten with Alice Koller’s An Unknown Woman.  Last week, I read her second memoir…at bedtimes, not all at once.  I would give it twenty stars if I could instead of the five star Goodreads rating.  I love it so much, I just have to share some passages.

I appreciate and agree with her non-ownership attitude about her dogs:

On learning to co-exist peacefully and welcomingly with snakes and other critters, in a woodland home near Washington DC.

Her description of bloodroot is of special interest since Todd gave me a bloodroot plant for my birthday.

 

 

Of course, the theme of the book is solitude, a subject dear to me:

In the chapter on “Colliding” (conflict with others):

I certainly have experienced that!

The chapter on Mourning is the best exploration of that subject I have ever read.  Her first dog, Logos, and her father, are her two most mourned loved ones.  If you don’t take seriously the love for a dog, or if it would pain you to read of mourning by someone who does not believe in an afterlife, I don’t recommend it.

I won’t share the passages from it here because it would make you so sad, whether or not you mourn.  Seek the book out if you might find the chapter on mourning to be helpful and cathartic.  I just read my favourite parts of that chapter all again  and it is much too intense to share even brief passages from it in a (mostly) gardening journal even in a book review of a deeply beloved book.

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2 March: an unexpected project

Monday, 2 March 2015

Just when I’d been rejoicing to have three fewer jobs (one of which I had just finalized quitting over the weekend!), I got a call from a former client, Dan from Penttila’s mortuary.  He asked if we could do a clean up on the garden.  How could I resist?  We had helped install it in 2010, coincidentally at the same time my mother died.  Dan had been so helpful and thoughtful with all the arrangements, so I told him that even though my new policy is to (try to) say no to all extra work, we would make an exception for him.  Besides, we are fond of him and his partner Wayne, and used to garden for them when they owned Anthony’s Home Court, a resort just north of Long Beach.

We had planned to spend the day pruning the Long Beach berms and perhaps clipping ferns over at the Yett Cottage.  I added Penttila’s to the work list, just to have the pleasure of erasing it later.

the work list of first spring clean-ups

in our front garden

at the Ilwaco post office

variegated tulip foliage at the post office

We had an errand to run on our way to work, by choice:  We had decided to give a framed boat photograph to the new owners of the Portside Café, because we so admire how they are improving the little breakfast and lunch spot.  We chatted with new owners Laurie and Debbie who told us how they are providing delicious fresh food, for example, replacing processed frozen hash browns with real baby red potatoes.

They are going to add to their decorating theme by redoing the plain table tops with some nautical charts.

inside the Portside before the table transformation

Portside Café

a dining counter with terrarium and view

schmoozing at the Portside (Allan’s photo)

On the way out, I was amused to see some narcissi blooming on the edge of the vacant lot to the south, because I know that happened when a planter was vandalized and dumped out last summer.  That annoying event resulted in this pretty vignette.

“wild” daffodils

a glimpse of the boatyard garden, one block south, then on to work

Penttila’s Chapel by the Sea

before

I had one other reason for taking on the Penttila’s clean up:  Every time we drove by there, which is almost every work day, I itched to cut back the four sword ferns which had not been done for two years.

sword fern, before

before

before: two more sword ferns that had been making me twitchy.

The Santolina ‘Lemon Fizz’ had half reverted to green.

All the santolinas needed cutting back.

I did not completely realize how much creeping sorrel and little weed grasses were in the garden till we got right down to it after doing all the clipping.  The weeding needed to be carefully done around many California poppy seedlings.

weeds

I got panicky partway through, thinking about Jo’s garden and Casa Pacifica that still need their first clean up, and worrying, and thinking fond thoughts of partial retirement, and disliking not being caught up.  I know that we did not get every little weed because we just plain ran out of time.  It did look pretty spiffing afterwards.

after

after

after…I added some ‘Dusky Rose’, ‘Buttercream’ and other mixed colour California poppy seeds.

after

after

the dry stream

I wish the dry stream was edged with blue Geranium ‘Rozanne’ instead of the loathed (by me) lithodora, which is just starting to bloom so I couldn’t cut its tatty self back.  It does have the benefit of covering the plastic liner which otherwise would show along the edge of the rocks.

after

It was just after three, the garden looked pretty good, and my anxiety was mounting when we departed for the Long Beach parking lot berms.

Long Beach

At Penttila’s, the weather had been such that it was a jacket on, off, and then on again sort of day.  When we got out of the van at the south berm garden, I was horrified to feel an icy cold and misery-producing strong wind had kicked up.

Stipa gigantea waiting to be cut back.

rugosa roses needing pruning

santolina awaiting the clippers

tatty spirea ready for the chop

The soil was so cold that it would have been unpleasant to weed, and we did not have time.  The weeds felt like they would have come out easily.  I hope to get back to them before the soil turns dry and rock hard, as last year’s mid-June weeding was a misery.  Speaking of misery, the cutting wind went right through four layers of shirts and jacket.

23 mph and so cold

my piles of debris

Allan’s berm project, before (Allan’s photos)

and after trimming a Phormium

On the way home, even though the sun was in my eyes as we passed Penttila’s Chapel.  I reflected how pleasant it was to see the ferns cut back.

Penttila’s garden will no longer bug me on a drive by!

I was ever so glad to be home and indoors.

view to the north from my nice warm living room

The first clean up list is short now!

But the Projects list is growing.

As I closed the curtains, I reflected on how much I already miss the early darkness of winter and the cozy feeling of night closing in with nothing to do but read or watch a favourite show or a movie.  Another Kate Llewellyn book arrived today from Australia…

not enough reading time these days

Next: a slide show of Long Beach’s Fifth Street Park

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