Wednesday, 21 June 2017
From my breakfasting window, I noticed something that was striking in person but hard to photograph:
three echoes of blue, two levels of catmint and ceanothus in the background
one of my new (last year) roses, Westerland
We started with a visit to the port office to check on the hanging baskets, and that’s when we learned that there was another marine wind advisory, so the baskets continued to hang in a sheltered spot for one more day.
on the desk at the port office
wind warning (Allan’s photo)
port office curbside gardens
We drove by the boatyard garden for a second time just to record how it is looking.
ceanothus blooming in the boatyard garden
The scrim of horsetail will be addressed next week.
a boat coming in
Allan’s photo
Allan’s photo
We just learned from a gardener whose spouse owned the Aallotar for many years that “Aallotar is a character from the Finnish epic Kalevala. I think it means something like female wave spirit.” I did indeed Google it and found “water nymph” and “lady of the waves”. Fascinating! I would love to hear many stories about this boat.
I do know that it was built many decades ago by the Kola brothers in this old boathouse, located on the meander line.
The old Kola boathouse.
We were pushed around by 25 mph wind gusts all day. It is a good thing that I have The Deadliest Catch to which to compare our small potatoes wind misery.
Our work is not this hard.
The Depot Restaurant
north side of dining deck
Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’ and Phygelius ‘Cherry Ripe’
Rodgersia flower (Allan’s photo)
I’d been watching every week for caterpillars on the Leycesteria on the south side of the deck. Today, they had arrived, so we cut the whole thing down because that is just unappetizing to see when dining. For years, the shrub grew here with no problems, till the caterpillars discovered it a maybe four years ago.
Allan’s photo
ornamental grasses enclosing the deck (Allan’s photo)
The Red Barn Arena
Disney, with her son peeking through the garden
Amy and her barrel racing horse
Disney
later
This time, I was not snubbed by Disney’s son.
Red Barn garden (Allan’s photo)
Allan’s photo
wind damage (Allan’s photo)
A crow was in the barn harassing a swallow’s nest and being harassed in return by terribly upset swallows.
Allan’s photo
Delosperma ‘Fire Spinner’ in a planter by the entrance (Allan’s photo)
We did a brief deadheading of the planters next door at Diane’s garden and then went to
Long Beach…
where we loaded up some buckets of Soil Energy mulch at the city works yard.
Again the killdeer mother was upset that we were near her babies and pretended to have a broken wing.
brave mama
Allan’s photo
I think after awhile she figures out we are ok.
mother and child (Allan’s photo)
decreasing mulch pile
Our mission was more weeding and mulching on the Bolstad beach approach. Almost photos from here on are Allan’s:
in a beach approach planter
planter weeding
in the parking lot
before
weeding
The garden had not been mulched for years and much sand has blown in.
other folks working
at end of first trip, picked up our cheque at city hall
We weeded the little popouts at last. Whoever had put a pot inside some rearranged rocks for the past two years and taken care of a cluster of annuals had abandoned the project…
So we re arranged the rocks more or less as they used to be.
I never was able to find out who had temporarily adopted this little pop out.
the next li’l popout
These do not get any supplemental water at all. We used to hose water them from a faucet underground…and maybe should make more an effort with them again.
little popout number three, before weeding. with a tree trying to resprout (now a shrub of sorts)
I asked Allan to finally cut out the saddest little mugo pine in li’l popout number four.
so much better!
We weeded in Veterans Field where I fumed mightily because someone had clipped the tops off all but one of the elephant garlic. I had planted them as a shout out to the Friday farmers market that takes place here. Many bad words were said after looking around to make sure no one but Allan could hear. For this public gardening frustration I quit many good, peaceful private garden jobs!
fuming
I fumed and thought about planting chives along the front of this problematic garden. It was thrown together in haste when the triangular corner bed was made to house a memorial plaque; the plaque then was put somewhere else and the garden has remained a sort of thrown together bunch of plants. It needs to be better planted with sturdier edging plants that can withstand abuse…and maybe with many more elephant garlic, of which I have an endless supply. Maybe chives along the edge, for the farmers market feel. Maybe some rosemary, too.
New Fun Rides have been added a block south.
We finished with a 7 PM collection of more buckets of mulch and more fluffing of the beach approach.
I made the mistake of giving one seagull just one corner of a cookie.
Within seconds, all of these gulls arrived.
At the works yard, we had also collected two buckets of plain old dirt from the debris pile and used it to fill in the trench where the bricks came out at the Norwood garden. That got us done with a nine hour work day.
for the 
