Monday, 16 July 2018
After a windy Sunday spent mostly blogging out the Markham/Grayland tour, we got back to work.
Ilwaco
Allan remembered that we needed to water some plants we had planted at the end of last week. Allan planted a Crambe maritima (sea kale) from the Master Gardeners sale in Grayland.
We are also trying out a Teucrium ‘Purple Tails’ from the Markham Farm garden.
Allan’s photo
The new rudbeckia clump was wilting. I was so glad Allan had remembered to check it. It got well soaked.
It was fine the next morning.
Long Beach
We pulled horsetail at the welcome sign and I wondered why, even though I did not fertilize them, in hopes they would not bolt up with no flowers till late in the summer, the cosmos are beautifully green…with only one flower so far.
At least the cosmos helps disguise the horsetail.
one cosmos flower so far, on the north side
the resident of the water timer box (Allan’s photo)
Before starting to water downtown, we called an emergency meeting with the powers that be about a matter that I am not going to write about. I try not to bring gardening problems to the city and have succeeded, with two exceptions, for twenty years. (Twenty years of Long Beach gardening, maybe even longer…I can hardly remember when I began.) Having passed the problem on, I am now able to put the matter out of my mind, but I also felt quite firmly that I can no longer imagine tottering on till I’m 70 or 80 (should I be so lucky) with the city job (planters, parks, beach approaches, parking lot berms). I have imagined for years that I could not give it up, and yet this week I feel mentally exhausted; I have hit a wall (one that maybe I will end up able to climb over after all).
I could give the city gardens up if only someone was coming along behind us eager to take the job on. It’s not my business to choose the person(s), but I sure would hope it would be someone with the focus (in my case gimlet eyed autistic focus on every little plant picture in town) to keep everything as perfect as possible. (We constantly fail at that.) Maybe it would be someone who dared plant even cooler plants, taking the risk they would be stolen. Maybe it would be someone who’d remove my personal favourite perennials and plant something with a tidier look.
I’ve promised the parks manager to keep going for two more years, if they can all stand me that long, and I keep my promises, usually. Are you the one who would like to take it on after that? (A week later: I may have just the person in mind, someone I have talked to who is a good ornamental and container gardener, and fit (because it’s a hard job) and who would actually want and love this job. I have no control over the city will hire when the time comes, but at least I can strongly recommend…)
Imagine being partially retired…I could keep up on reading other people’s blogs! Letting Long Beach go would immediately result in being half retired. That would be cool. The plan right now is two more years till then.
And yet I still hope to keep tottering along on the Ilwaco and the Shelburne gardens forever. Forever is a long time, and yet it is a word that people invoke so easily (example: “forever homes” for animals, when we all know that homes end when we die). So why can’t I imagine forever gardens at the port and the Shelburne? Maybe I will haunt them.
But enough of that. We watered the street trees and planters.
Someone decided to go barefoot.
dahlias in a planter
I like my mini-meadow look in each planter. It would be weird to see someone else’s probably much tidier approach. I will have to come to grips with that.
It’s tigridia time.
an agastache reseeded in the gutter!
Tigridia (held still because of wind); AKA Mexican Shell Flower
Allan’s photo
parsley, lavender, santolina, Oregano ‘Hopley’s Purple’
Oregano ‘Hopley’s Purple’
I now have Oregano ‘Hopley’s Purple’ in almost every planter. I love its angular shape.
A fellow came to me while I was watering and said how much he loved the planters. He was visiting from elsewhere. He insisted on shoving a tip into my hand, the hand that was holding the hose….paper money in a surprising amount. I said I water as a paid job but he would not take it back, so….I split it with Allan!
It was Allan’s turn to bucket water the four Fish Alley barrels. He found that someone had trashed one of them, stealing a clump of sedums and ripping up the santolina in the process (or maybe trying to steal the santolina itself?):
evidence: dropped sedum bits and soil
Color coordinated lilies (with Bensons sign) in Fifth Street Park
I finally got another clump of lilies on the other side of that little garden bed:
still in bud
in a planter: The new Cosmos ‘Xanthos’ compared in size with Cosmos ‘Sonata’
We checked on the parking lot berms. I had thought they would desperately need weeding, but only a goodly amount of the really quite pretty birds-foot trefoil was bothersome, so we were able to just drive on to the…
Shelburne Hotel
…where I watered, while Allan hurriedly removed a dahlia and planted a new sedum in one of the planters on the number four deck, before the guests arrived to check in.
Allan’s photo
The dahlia got rehomed in the garden.
Sedum ‘Double Martini’, Cosmos ‘Xanthos’, “society garlic”, purple alyssum (Allan’s photo)…and one dahlia that is tall enough to stay here
The new nandina on the center deck is doing well. (Allan’s photo)
The faucet that would make watering easier is not working yet; Allan schlepped water up the stairs in a bucket and then watered part of the outdoor garden.
We love to see guests photographing the garden. (Allan’s photo)
lilies and Nicotiana ‘Fragrant Cloud’ (Allan’s photo)
I cut the pollen off of the lilies that are next to the path and planted an astilbe and a fuchsia where we had taken a cordyline down last week. Allan did a project at the north entrance to the restaurant:
This odd little nook had the native blackberry in it, often reaching out to where people walk.
In clearing it out, he found a plastic tub full of mud and water, and a broken pottery jar.
stinky old mud his foot would sink into
We will figure out a plant for in here.
Ilwaco
Allan watered the planters and street trees with the water trailer while I watered the boatyard with a nice new long hose that had appeared there. Only had to use three hoses instead of four! I even had time to do some weeding after watering.
Out of the ceanothus came my usual audience, my little feathered friend.
coming closer
The bird repeatedly sharpens? its little beak on the metal fence.
I’m not sure what that means.
Allan found that deer had been enjoying some planter nasturtiums.
Tuesday, 17 July 2018
I had big plans for this all Ilwaco day: weed and tidy at Mike’s garden, shear the shrubs at Coho Charters (Allan), water all the curbside gardens (mostly me) and weed at the boatyard (both of us).
Mike’s garden
Escallonia ‘Iveyi’
front garden needed more water
Allan tidied the path:
before
after
front garden, designed by “The Elves Did It” gardening business, years ago
I am trying to get the boxwood to be a solid hedge instead of little square clipped shapes.
Port of Ilwaco
At the port, I watered the east end curbside garden and did some weeding while Allan started shearing Coho’s escallonias. Someone had accidentally driven over the end of our hose while Allan was attaching two hoses to reach the east curbside bed. We now no longer had two hoses that would hook together today, so we took Captain Butch of Coho up on his offer to use his water instead. The job was much easier by hooking our one hose up to his long hose, so I think the parking lot hose days are over for good.
As I was about to go on drag my hose to the other curbside gardens, a misty rain appeared and all of a sudden I just hit a wall and walked the two blocks home, putting everything else off till later in the week. Allan kept shearing the three big escallonias.
before
after
before
after
before
during
after
one of the future Coho Charters captains
home
On my way home, I got to pet my neighbour, Rudder.
Good old Rudder snoozing in his front garden.
Puttering at home revitalized me. I ran sprinklers and planted some of my new plants.
from The Pot Shed in Grayland
two more from the Pot Shed
a new sarracenia from the Master Gardener sale joins two others in a new container
It is almost the peak of lily time, most definitely the best time in my garden.
right: Sanguisorba ‘Lilac Squirrel’
Even though the mist had ceased, overnight we had enough light rain to make a puddle in the street (but not enough to fill the rain barrels).
Read Full Post »
Js front garden
Allan’s photo
a handsome Berberis darwinii next door
a passerby (Allan’s photo)
lilies emerging (Allan’s photo)
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
before
after
After: I want hardy fuchsias there instead.
not very showy yet
Muscari ‘Helena’
Tulipa sylvestris
Allan’s smoked salmon reuben
David Jensen office, before and after:
Removing some weedy catmint from a bed by the Don Nisbett art gallery; I put some small, clean pieces back in:
The good mulch (Gardner and Bloome Soil Conditioner and/or Harvest Supreme) that we added to the Time Enough Books curbside garden has been well worthwhile. The garden is full of poppy seedlings, and the plants are now much more vigorous than before.
