31 July: Lily Time tour and the port gardens

Wednesday, 31 July 2019

Before work, I made a video walk through of the garden.  The one I tried to make yesterday had a spot on a lens, and I sounded terribly bored.  I still don’t sound very perky…but this is my best effort to capture Lily Time.

We then went on to a pleasantly all Ilwaco work day.

Mike’s garden

We mostly watered at Mike’s, along with a bit of escallonia pruning.

blue glob thistle and hydrangea in the back garden (Allan’s photo)

Between jobs, we photographed a garden that I had noticed the other day.

Spruce Street garden

It is wonderful.

looks like Salvia ‘Amistad’

Port of Ilwaco

Rain is forecast for tomorrow night so we watered just about half of the Howerton Avenue gardens.  We could not count on the rain for all the beds because Friday night is Art Walk and the gardens need to be tidied and refreshed.

I started trimming up the dead flowers of the santolinas and some of the lavenders.

east end

trimmed santolina

Euphorbia ‘Fen’s Ruby’, which hitched a ride in on some other plant, has run rampant in this garden.

It is feathery and cute, and nurseries still sell it; I find it to be a little horror and hope to get it mostly dug out…someday.

the fasciated toadflax

still fascinating

The Coho Charters lava rockscape

We had a coffee and treat break at the Ilwaco Bakery. That is turning into a pleasant weekly tradition.

the garden next door to the bakery (Allan’s photo)

I was thrilled to see that the “Fish Finder” finally has the names of the newer port businesses!

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

For years, it has had several businesses that were closed, and I felt that made the port look less than successful.  Another pole further down the port surely must have the names of other businesses such as the Don Nisbett Gallery.

Onward! We worked our way west.

Ilwaco pavilion garden

I was inspired to do some pruning for traffic sight lines in one of the gardens.

during

after

by the port office

Port Office, south wall

by Time Enough Books

We spent the last couple of hours weeding the boatyard garden.

Allan’s photo

Catananche (Allan’s photo)

 It was a pleasure to have an easy day.

 

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3 July: an all Ilwaco day

Wednesday, 3 July 2019…

was an all Ilwaco day, my favourite kind of work day.

Allan took almost all of the photos.

Mike’s garden

I watered while Allan cut more branches out of the dying conifers which are supposed to be dug out (by someone else)…soon.

We stopped at home to offload debris and had a visit with Marlene and her dogs as they walked by.

Port of Ilwaco

I pruned my way most of the way down the Howerton Avenue gardens, shearing back wax myrtles and trimming ceanothus for clear traffic sight lines, while Allan did most of the watering.

Fellow gardener Joseph and his daughter Bella passed by.

 The santolinas were the most admired and asked-about plant today. I got all the inquirers to smell the lemony foliage.

You can see the difference in how nice and round the regularly pruned santolinas are, vs. these that were not pruned for a couple of years:

 And we saw MaryBeth as she took a stroll past the gardens.

Port Office garden finally filling in

from above

view from port office deck

ceanothus pruning at Time Enough Books

Last week I wrote about how a young boy had apologized for “hurting the blue plant” in the west end garden bed (an eryngium).  Today the same plant was hurt, by someone else, we assume.

I finally got out my camera while we worked at the west end.

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

west end of marina

looking east

looking south

We got all the Howerton Avenue gardens done except for the two east end beds.  They will have to wait for next week.

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25 June: jab, work, reward

Tuesday, 25 June 2019

We started our day with a Shingrix jab at the local pharmacy.  The pharmacist said that sometimes the side effects are less with part two of the shot, and sometimes more.  It’s worth it if it prevents shingles, as I know from experience. He also said side effects other than arm pain would not start till tomorrow, and so we went to work.

Port of Ilwaco

I almost forgot to bring some more plants for the port office garden.  We went home and got some old standby Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’.

Allan’s photo

We got to see the Purly Shell dogs, Aria and my very good friend Jack…

….and got an update that my old stairmaster is happy in its new home.

I was ever so pleased to be able to weed and water the western and easternmost curbside gardens and CoHo Charters garden.

Phormium in bloom at the Skywater Gallery’s parking lot garden

before trimming the oxeye daisies

I got to pet this “pocket bulldog” pup.

I had the strongest urge to get myself one.  “Why?” said Allan.  That’s why:

Allan’s photo

I need more santolinas all the way through the bed above.

Allan’s photo

Last time we worked in these beds, a boy said to Allan that he was sorry he hurt the eryngium last year!  (Not calling it by name, of course.)

Brodiaea ‘Rudy’ (Allan’s photo)

I am thrilled that I have finally produced a garden at the Freedom Market, even if it is all “weeds” (appropriately).

It is a cannabis store, AKA “weed”…well, you get it.

looking east down Howerton

west end of the marina

We moved to the east end of Howerton for more watering and tidying.

crack in the sidewalk

California poppies

the fasciated toadflax

trimming the sea thrift

the ever annoying Euphorbia ‘Fen’s Ruby’; don’t plant it! (We didn’t it, it hitched in on something else.) Allan’s photo

The new bakery has tidied its parking lot garden.  It is but a food truck now, with rave reviews for the cinnamon rolls, but will eventually be a sit down bakery with breads and pain au chocolat, the sort of pastries we cannot get around here.

looking east

looking west

santolina, lavenders, eryngium

It felt fantastic to have (almost) the whole stretch of Howerton watered yesterday and today.

We had arranged to meet Alicia after work at the almost brand new Waterline pub at At the Helm Hotel.

nearby, my favourite bed

Allan’s photo

sword ferns that we had trimmed at the entrance

At the Helm Hotel

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

our view from the pub

Before our meal, Allan trimmed one more sword fern that was bringing down the tone outside our pub window.

We feasted. I wanted to try out several things to get photos for the Discover Ilwaco Facebook page.

appetizers

Allan’s photo

Cobb salad

a tasty stew

We had a good long meal and a good long gabfest and ended the day by pulling the spent oxeye daisies out of the curb in front of the J’s cottage.

Allan’s photo

Yesterday, Skooter had been helping Alicia garden next door.  We had not seen him last night, but sometimes he comes in after we go to sleep.  We had not seen him today, either.  Guess where we found him at midnight?  Locked in Alicia’s garage.  He had snuck in when she put the wheelbarrow away.  He had much to say about it.  It is now the first place we will look if he is gone for more than half a day.

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24 June: Red Barn, Diane’s, Long Beach, Ilwaco

Monday, 24 June 2019

at the post office

I had been worrying (as is my wont) for several days about the effects of our second Shingrix shot, scheduled for tomorrow.  The first shot of the shingles vaccine had knocked us, and especially Allan, out of commission for a few days.  The timing for the second one was certainly not ideal, but with a nationwide shortage we had to get it when it was offered.  So we jammed as much work into today as we could.

The Red Barn

We weeded and watered, and I doted on Cosmo the barn cat.

Allan’s photo

Cosmo hopped into the van, atop the pile of different weights of clothing for constantly changing weather.

Allan’s photo

The Tootlepedal blog has been inspiring me to do more flower close ups.

Diane’s garden

I did not pull the fireweed in the roadside garden (rosebay willowherb) because it is so pretty.

It is always a thrill to work on the roadside garden.

penstemon

Diane’s pea patch, better than any kitchen garden thing I’ve grown

The raised box garden is filling in.

When I grew Caribbean Cocktail nasturtiums last year, the flowers were all maroon and cream combos.

It has some of that this year…

…but also this orange, which is most definitely not supposed to be in Diane’s garden.

It is good that a vast sweep of reseeded California poppies stayed cream and not orange, but I fear they may have buried some perennials.

Allan’s photo

Brodiaea ‘Rudy’

Long Beach

We watered the planters and the 18 street tree gardens.

traveling sharpener

agastache

a meadowy tree garden

a Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ that escaped the Chelsea chop.

I know it is now officially Hylotelephium telephium ‘Autumn Joy‘ but…please.

As I watered, some folks were herding their two children toward a van. Each carried a kite they had made at the kite museum. The little boy, maybe 7 or 8 years of age, wailed, “Why do we have to go HOME? Why do we have to go FRICKING HOME? I don’t want to go HOOOME!”  He leaned his head against the van and wept.  In 1991 I felt the same while vacationing here.  And look what happened.

Allan’s Long Beach photos:

red hardy gladiolus

tree water hook up

tThe city crew had cleaned out this blocked one.

a tater bug convention

bindweed on a lily, before untwining

Ilwaco

While I dragged hose and watered along the port, Allan bucket watered the Ilwaco trees and planters.  The amount of watering we do of gardens that were not planned with any irrigation is pretty ridiculous.

The weather had been perfect all day.  Not too hot, not too cold, not too windy.  It could only have been more perfect had it poured rain all night so we did not have to water.

I love my santolinas. I must shear these wax myrtles soon.

Eremurus (Foxtail Lily)

my favourite bed

Dragging hose down the port definitely gets one’s heart rate up.

Our Jenna (Queen La De Da) was painting Don’s gallery.

The port office garden still looks too empty. I resolved to remember to bring some more plants for it.

I fretted over the western and easternmost beds which had not been watered for awhile.  We did not have time.

Allan’s photos: Peninsula Sanitation has been diligent in watering in between our visits which helps keep it healthy and bright.

The boatyard had been string trimmed inside the fence, even sparing some flowers that had reseeded.

We finished with Allan watering at the post office and me watering at the fire station.

fire station garden

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16 May: cosmos in Ilwaco

loading the van

We started by planting cosmos at our volunteer garden at the Ilwaco post office and were pleased to have a visit from our good friend Mitzu.

She was shivering from the cold.  I had actually had to put on my raincoat.

Planting in the rain is so much easier than having to water everything in.

How we plant with the ho-mi:

Next, I planted cosmos at the fire station (another volunteer project) while Allan tackled this annoying weed along the west wall.

No, I don’t mean the Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’.

Ilwaco Fire Station, SW corner

We returned home for more cosmos (having already used more than I had planned) and planted some, along with tidying up, at the J’s across the street.

Allan pulled all the dead crocus foliage.

We like the flowers at the curb and hope that no one kills them.

Allan’s photo

A few blocks east, we did some planting and weeding at Mike’s garden, where the cherry blossoms are anointing a parked car….

Allan’s photos

and filling up the front garden.

Tulip going over:

Allan’s photo

Allan took on the raking of the front path.

I am thrilled that the boxwoods are finally growing into a proper hedge, which we will shear in June.

The north side of the house seems to have an afterthought of a garden when all the rest of it was so formally designed by Carol Jones (“The Elves Did It”, a former Peninsula business).

I planted some rosemary, thinking that it might make a low hedge.  It should get enough light because the house is a double wide, like ours, low to the ground.

We went on to the Howerton Avenue curbside beds at the port, planting a few extra clumps of plain old eryngiums with root balls too big to pot them up for my sale.

Allan’s photo

At the port office garden, which still looks terribly young, I planted some cosmos, even though I am concerned about a 30 mph wind predicted for tomorrow.

Allan’s photos

I can’t keep waiting for perfect weather.

Here is what it looked like in November 2017.

Allan’s photo

As an experiment, because Don Nisbett and Jenna give this little bed supplemental watering, we planted some cosmos in the bed east of their gallery.

We redid it last autumn and it looks rather bare.

Looking west, the mature beds are burgeoning.

At home, I worked for awhile on my plant sale plants.

The sarrecenia by the pond is blooming.

Allan’s photos

Frosty found a bed in the bags in which Rita Nicely had brought us some pots.

Allan’s photo

I will be so glad when the plant sale is over.  The garden is a right old mess.

Allan’s photo, drizzly rain

I remembered to go to the back corner of the garden and look at the little white flowered rhododendron.

My Davidia flowers are now falling.

The work board tonight:

I asked on the Rainyside Gardeners group for the ID of a weed that I find in many of our gardens.

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1 May: weeds and seeds at the Port of Ilwaco

Wednesday, 1 May 2019

Before work, Allan checked on the J’s new rose.

Calendula reflected in our van window:

Port of Ilwaco

Today’s mission: To weed all the rest of the gardens we care for along the Port.  (There is one that we skip, that is all escallonias with horrible landscape fabric showing all around them.  One of these days when I have time, I will cut the landscape fabric out of there and then will start to weed around the escallonias.  At the moment—no time for that.)

I still could not step up and down off the curb without yowling in pain from my calf.  However, I had remembered the compression stockings that I wore last time I had this injury.  They did help keep my muscle, tendon, or whatever the heck is hurting me from jumping around so much (even though they are a bugger to put on).

Fortunately, there is plenty of weeding to do all around the edges of the curbside beds, or I could take one step up and just stay in the middle and weed the length of a bed.  Allan has to do the four sections covered with large river rock (dating from before our time).  I simply cannot walk on that without knee pain. I wonder if anyone who landscapes a whole bed with river rock ever thinks ahead to how hard it will be to weed.  The one with landscape fabric underneath is the worst, of course.

We watered the At the Helm Hotel curbside where I had planted seeds recently and, because of the dry and windy weather, we also watered six of the other beds.  At this time of year, we do not have time to start up the whole watering regimen and we are not best pleased at the extreme dry weather with no rain in the forecast.  It is worrisome, with the longterm forecast of a dry summer.

Without any more whinging (or just a bit), here are today’s photos.

I kept planting seeds, even though with no rain, I have little confidence in the results.

We cannot water every day!

We can only hope.

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

helianthemum

Eschscholzia californica

proof that the California poppies have not all reverted to orange

the drive-over garden

Allan’s photo

some rocks I cannot walk on

Santolina ‘Lemon Fizz’ reverting to green

Allan’s photo

Armeria (sea thrift) Allan’s photo

Irony (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

joy

Allan’s photo

Tulip linifolia

at Time Enough Books

Here is better photo recently taken by Purly Shell.

photo courtesy Purly Shell Fiber Arts

by Time Enough Books (Allan’s photo)

I got Allan to pull out some tired old elagrostis (weeping love grass).

ceanothus

a helper at Salt Hotel

For some reason, it has fallen on Allan to strim the edge of the sidewalk by the Freedom Market.

before

after

west end, looking east

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo, the little funny hat of a California poppy seed pod, already

 

the west end

By now, we had weeded and sometimes watered from the Pavilion to the west end.  We were utterly exhausted and yet simply had to go back to weed the long bed at the east end and the lava rock bed by CoHo Charters.

finishing at 7 PM

Even though I had planned to do all Long Beach on Thursday and Friday, we still had not made it to the Ilwaco fire station or one of the curbside gardens that we had hoped to do today.

 

 

 

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29 March: Js, port and Shelburne

Friday, 29 March 2019

We weeded and mowed the pocket lawn at the Js across the street.  I planted some sweet peas along the white picket fence by the front gate, just because I have extra seeds.

Js front garden

Allan’s photo

a handsome Berberis darwinii next door

a passerby (Allan’s photo)

At the Ilwaco Post Office, I planted some sweet peas along the fence. I have never succeeded in growing them here, but I live in hope.

lilies emerging (Allan’s photo)

At the port, we worked our way from the east to the west end, planting poppies in some of the curbside beds (me), and weeding and deadheading (Allan).  He took all the photos at the port.  By poppies, I mean California poppy, Eschscholzia californica, in assorted colours—Buttercream, Copper Pot, Tropical Sunset, Dusky Rose, Rose Chiffon, Pink Champagne, Jelly Beans, Alba, Bridal Bouquet, Appleblossom Chiffon.

CoHo Charters curbside bed

Dave Jensen architecture office and the Tuna Club

At the Helm hotel (not open yet)

At the Helm curbside

by Ilwaco Pavilion

so far not much picking this year

Time Enough Books curbside

one of the Purly Shell pups (about six months old)

Time Enough Books

before

after

Time Enough Books entryway

photo especially for Tony Tomeo

Muscari paradoxum, which I adore

We went to The Shelburne Hotel for the rest of the workday.  I had really wanted to spend all day there, but it seemed important to get the California poppies planted at the port before the rain returns.

Allan tackled the annoying Ranunculus ficaria in the back garden, bagging it up for disposal.

before

after

And in the limited time we had, he also went after some of the montbretia that is trying to return.

I took out more of a run of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ in the front garden, in an area where it is partly shaded and turned sad and mildewy by late summer.

After: I want hardy fuchsias there instead.

not very showy yet

Muscari ‘Helena’

Tulipa sylvestris

We had our dinner in the pub.

Allan’s smoked salmon reuben

And now for two days off (maybe Monday, too, if a predicted rain storm arrives).  I intend to not leave my property, and Allan has a boating plan for one of the days.

 

 

 

 

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