20 May: last planting time jobs

Friday, 20 May 2016

I awoke after five hours of sleep, thought briefly about the lost Golden Sands garden, and went back to sleep for two more hours.  The cycle of sleepless stress is finally broken.

Before work, Allan helped me place my mother’s birdbath in the front garden.  It will make a fine view from my writing desk.

Allan’s photo: Two round marks in the center are from yellow duckies that sat in the birdbath at Golden Sands…where it was only filled with water on the days we worked there, or by rain.

I found decorative glass pieces to put on those spots.

Mom’s birdbath under the Tetrapanax ‘Steroidal Giant’, from the window

On the front gate, we found a treasure:

Allan’s photo

Later, an email revealed it was from Patti of the Seaview garden.  She’d also given us some cool rusty stuff earlier in the week after Melissa’s birthday party.

rust from Patti (Allan’s photo)

At the library, I had a book to pick up: an interlibrary loan of book 4 of the Cazalet Chronicle.  We did some weeding along the sidewalk while we were there and I cast a stern eye on the clump of salal that wants to run to the right and interfere with the rhododendron.

I am sure its horrid roots are firmly entrenched under the sidewalk.  I want it gone.

I placed the Geranium ‘Rozanne’ (rescued from mowing in the Golden Sands lawn) atop the wall  and Allan planted it.  The ones that had not been mowed flat, he cut back hard to avoid them looking wilty to passersby.

placing Rozanne at the Community Building

Allan’s photo, a planting place for Rozanne

pulling bindweed

Long Beach

the welcome sign

after pulling some horsetail

Next on the Long Beach town list: weeding the big pop out.

It was a pleasantly cool day for comfy clothes.

after…just a little better. The rugosa roses are rambunctious. I regret planting them here.

We checked on all the planters on the Bolstad approach.  A Mental Health Walk was planned along there for Saturday, sponsored by NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness).

lots of sand in planters closest to the beach due to recent winds (Allan’s photo)

beach sand and verbascum (Allan’s photo)

This darling little dog was ignoring his guardian.  He came to us and Allan nabbed him and carried him back to her.

little dog on the loose (Allan’s photo)

I found some of the usual theft (which is one reason why the beach approach planters are especially challenging, the others being sand, salt, drought and wind).

one side: nice little golden thyme tucked in on the edge under the catmint

other side: matching thyme is gone, and the catmint is a small division to replace one that was stolen earlier.

Someone treats these planters as their own personal nursery of free plants.  I put golden thyme back on the shopping list, hoping the Basket Case still had some of the same cultivar.

Allan weeding

big footprints in the sand

a bit of weeding on the beach approach ground level

I realized with glee that our weeding job earlier this spring had been so effective that we could probably touch up the entire beach approach garden in just one day.  Soon, I hope.

rugosa roses

view looking east

the fairy door some good fairy added to a planter

am thrilled to see some of the poppy seeds that I planted have germinated

How beautiful thyme is when it is left alone to establish rather than being swiped.

To my delight, I found another fairy door in the garden.

telephoto so as not to disturb the occupants

rugosa roses that were cut back to the ground not long ago

reminder to self while parked near city hall: must remember to weed that tatty garden of not much up ahead on the corner

Jo’s Garden

We planted a plethora of painted sage in Jo’s garden.

Jo’s center courtyard

center courtyard daylily

northwest garden bed

The center of the shasta daisy patch is lower than the edges.  I think it because the Cow Wow! mulch got spread more thickly along the edge.

Plants respond to Cow Wow.  The center is lower.  Phlox is along the fence.

west garden bed

north side of house, looking east

center courtyard

guest cottage

painted sage (Salvia viridis) added to entry garden

salvias planting before (Allan’s photos)

and after

With all this planting of salvia viridis going on, I had better show new readers what it looks like:

Salvia viridis

I was relieved to see that the entry garden had begun to grow out of a mysterious problem of repeatedly dying foliage.  Jo was not at home till later today, but she texted me that she had figured it out.  She had sprayed with that anti-mosquito recipe that has been making the rounds on Facebook, with ingredients including mouthwash and epsom salts.  In the areas she sprayed, the plant leaves were burned.  Mystery solved!  Beware of where you spray that recipe (and note that Google will tell you it’s not very effective, anyway).

The big Annuals Planting Time is officially over for work, leaving only the rest of my annuals planting at home.

Basket Case Greenhouse

We couriered the cheque for plants from Long Beach over to the Basket Case Greenhouse.

in the perennial house

Geranium ‘Orion’, supposed to be even better than ‘Rozanne’

I recommend these echibeckias for long season of colour, even though they were not hardy for me. I was going to plant eight of them at Golden Sands! OH WELL!

With all the salvias out of the van, I actually had room to buy my two hanging baskets!

perusing the Blooming availability list, and remembering (finally) two hens and chickens for Diane’s little planter

I did get one golden thyme, then ran out of steam to go back to the beach approach and plant it.

World Kite Museum

We added Gardner and Bloome Soil Building Compost to improve the garden.

It takes an effort to get the tightly compacted mulch out of the bale.

Our friend Patty, the museum store manager and official Garden Waterer, came out to admire.

Ilwaco

In order to not have to water on Sunday, we drove around to all the Ilwaco planters and added just enough water to make them happy, without getting out the water trailer or the usual 20 buckets for bucket watering.  Thanks to rain this past week, they each needed just an empty Costco sized mixed nuts jar dipper full of water.

freshly planted not long ago

I did not plant any nasturtium seeds in the planters this year because last year, the deer feasted on them.

By the boatyard garden: someone had picked a bouquet and then abandoned it in a planter…which is not the meaning of the signs that read “please leave the flowers for everyone to enjoy”!

boatyard garden, looking south

north fence…once upon a time I had a garden along here, too.  It got dug up when new utility lines were installed.

east: the leaning tree garden and one little planter

center: Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

south end of boatyard garden

Salt Pub

After a brief time at home, I went out again to meet Our Kathleen for dinner at Salt Pub.  Allan stayed home because he was loading up his boat for a sailing adventure in Portland tomorrow.

Salt Hotel and Skookum Surf (surfing lessons)

I had just had time to pick a bouquet, something I try to do weekly for Salt because I value the place highly.

my delicious chili

Kathleen’s nachos

We had the baked to order cookie with ice cream for dessert; so good, and the end of such an eventful work week, that I forgot to take a photo.  We had been so deep in conversation that I had not even photographed the view of the port.

the moon over Salt after dinner

later, on my lap: Smokey and Frosty

Now for two days off in my garden.  I have a desire to not leave my property even for the Saturday Market.  Meanwhile, Allan will be off on a Saturday adventure.

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my  mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1995 (age 71):

May 20:  1:00-7:40 with time out to eat.  HOT  Spent almost all afternoon planting flower seed (finally).  I love doing this job outside so it doesn’t matter if I’m sloppy.  Then I spent the evening sorting my seeds into: Do now, do next, do later i.e. plant in fall, winter, etc.

1997 (age 73):

May 20:  ?-5:30  Dahlias were my #1 job for today but it was raining.  It cleared up in early afternoon so I went out and got all the dahlias planted!  Then I started pulling the bedraggled forget me nots, the yellow invasive plants and sweet woodruff.  I am going to plant some seeds in front to see how they do.

1998 (age 74):

May 20: cool-rainy.  I had the blahs today.  I really didn’t want to go out but I did around 2:00.  I potted some tomatoes and needed more room in the greenhouse so I dragged the “window box” begonias out.  (Don’t ask me how I managed that.)  I replaced the tubs of tulips with the begonia boxes.  Then it started raining.  I also moved several trays of tomatoes to the greenhouse to be repotted (maybe tomorrow).

 

 

 

 

 

 

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9 April, to work and market

Saturday, 9 April 2016

at home

from the front porch

our neighbour Onyx in Allan’s garden

This was a bad way to start the day:

NOOOOOOOOO.  My own precious unwatered plants.

I have been so busy this week, and so tired at the end of the day, that I had missed watering the plants on the table outside of Allan’s shed.  I asked him to back me up by remembering to water all plants in pots, as I am clearly incapable.  As I do before planting, I immersed these pots in water until the soil stopped bubbling.

back garden, picked some tulips to take to Salt Hotel.

Hardy fuchsias are blooming already.

My pink flowering currant is dying back!

Now why is that happening?  The escallonia right next to it looks a little peaky, too.  I had a pink flowering currant kick off all of a sudden in my old garden.  I’d rather something evergreen in this spot anyway…

Ilwaco

I felt exceedingly tired today and did not get as much work done as I had planned.  Allan redid one Ilwaco planter while I added some plants to four others, and we did just a bit of weeding and planting at the port instead of the large amount I had intended to do.

planter before

and after (Allan’s photo)

looking west from Howerton and Elizabeth

narcissi at Craft 3 bank (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

By the Ilwaco Pavilion, Narcissus ‘Baby Moon’ blooming three weeks earlier than they used to

gardens north of the port office

Tulip batalinii and a new Geum ‘Mai Tai’ at Time Enough Books

I asked Allan to rescue a plant from a curbside garden where we cannot water and replant it in the Time Enough curbside garden where we CAN water (from Port property to Port property, and besides, it is a special eryngium that I bought with me own money).

being rehomed, as it should have been much earlier

By this time I had completely run out of steam for work and even felt nappish, which is almost unheard of.

a busy day at the port (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Time Enough Books

Time Enough Books garden boat

ceanothus in full bloom

my bouquet from home (Allan’s photo)

delivering flowers to Salt, looking forward to dining there tonight

The Saturday Market, which begins its season on April 30th, had a small sneak preview today to coincide with the Clam Festival up in Long Beach.

Allan’s photo from the port balcony

Allan’s photo from high up on the port office balcony

Allan’s photo

a new plant booth

We saw many people carrying lilacs.

Allan’s photo

Blue Collar Eats: mighty tasty food

It’s a shame I wasn’t hungry for lunch yet.

Although when Allan suggested a purchase of mini donuts with cinnamon sugar, I did not decline.

Allan’s photo

When we dropped the work trailer off at home, I noticed my Davidia involucrata ‘Sonoma’ has flowers already.

Davidia ‘Sonoma’

We had a plant buying errand to run.  Because I was worried by the wilting of my lavender in a pot, we detoured through Long Beach to check on two similar lavenders that we’d recently put in a planter.  They were fine and got some water anyway.  Town was packed with people wall to wall; I was so tired I did not even think about how Clam Festival was going on with chowder tastings and so forth.  (Here’s a post about our day at the Clam Festival two years ago.)

Basket Case Greenhouse

We collected some plant ingredients for the Ilwaco and Long Beach jobs.

Recommended: Eryngiums ‘Jade Frost’ and ‘Sapphire Blue’, two of my favourite perennials.

several kinds of Agastaches (hyssops), which I adore

santolinas, excellent at the beach

gorgeous lavenders

I’m trying out Geranium ‘Orion’; it is supposed to be as long flowering and a better blue than ‘Rozanne’. The foliage is more delicate…

compared to good old ‘Rozanne’, which looks rather like creeping buttercup in leaf.

home again

While unloading plants, I was relieved to see that my wilted lavender had stood back up.

The Geum is still unhappy and will need to be cut back hard.

over the fence

Dutch iris and weeds I have no energy for today…

in the front garden

I have so many snails and so many weeds and yet just went inside to write this and to post some things to the Basket Case and Discover Ilwaco Facebook pages instead of weeding.  If it weren’t for plans to go to dinner, I might even have taken the highly unusual course of trying to nap.  I feel like the week has caught up with me, first the great purge and then the anesthesia and then two days of intensive beach approach weeding and then working in yesterday’s miserable cold wind.  (So glad for the market vendors that today was windless.)

reading

an excellent book that I read last week

A fascinating idea about geometric art being related to hallucinations and to ocular migraines.

I have had a few ocular migraines (blessedly without pain) and they look exactly like this, image taken from this youtube video:

The rest of the book, mostly about a passion for ferns and mosses and lichens, pleased me on every page. It was a birthday present from me to Allan, a Fern Man.

Salt Hotel Pub

poppies already blooming in the curbside garden to the east of Salt

along with a vibrant red tulip

We met Our Kathleen and J9 for dinner.

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

our view of the Port of Ilwaco

ham and smoked tuna melts

burger with bacon

ice cream and cookie with toasted caramel

Allan’s photo

Pink Poppy Bakery cheesecake with berries, including Starvation Alley organic cranberries

Allan’s photo

I can rarely remember being so tired.  Now that we are back home, it is time to put our feet up and watch a film highly recommended by Melissa: Moonrise Kingdom.

Meanwhile, I have a new post up over on the Grandma Scrapbooks blog.

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1995 (age 70):

April 9: Some of the tomatoes in the bathroom [under lights] are sprouting.

1998 (age 73):

April 9:  Worked again in garden area digging dandelions, weeding the rest of the asparagus row.  There still is a little raking to be done before Ron comes on Saturday (weather permitting) to till the whole garden area.  I also finished weeding bulkhead while watching for the mail to come.  I didn’t have to go to bed when I quit working today.

 

 

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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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17 March: flowers and kitty

I woke very early (for me), worried about our old cat Mary’s health.  She’s lost weight rapidly in the last week, and is no longer a round ball of kitty, and has lost interest in food. I would have had her in to the vet sooner had it not been for my own medical tests.  So I called Oceanside Animal Clinic and was fortunate to get an appointment in the afternoon.  Into the second bathroom I put Mary with food (with hopeful wishes she might eat) water and litter so that we could easily find her later, and we went to work for three hours.

This Irish cheese was on my breakfast patty, for St Patrick’s Day

The Depot Restaurant

We had a bit more mulching to do and four lily bulbs and a rosemary to plant at the Depot.

Depot north side window box

not much going on yet at the Depot flower garden; lots of lily sprouts at ground level though.

My theory about lilies at the Depot is that they fill the air with fragrance when diners get out of their cars in the evening.

Allan mulched the south side rosemary and ornamental grass bed with Gardner and Bloome.

Diane’s garden

I had a couple of violas and an Agastache ‘Cotton Candy’ for Diane’s pink and pastel garden.

the roadside garden

narcissi

more narcissi

Thalia, one of my favourite Narcissus

the container garden

right next door

soft wrinkly nose

And on the way to the Anchorage, a dog who often sits on a play structure had a wrinkly brow and his feet arranged just so.

Anchorage Cottages

I had an Agastache and a Symphytum variegata and some violas for the Anchorage garden.

Tulip sylvestris at The Anchorage

Long Beach

We had one hour left before kitty time, and used it to fill our buckets with soil energy at city works…

…and take it to do some mulching at Veterans Field.

Allan’s photos, before

after

And then…

Kitty intermission

Allan’s photos: Mary on her way to the vet

At the vet with one of the office cats

My friend Bette was there with her kitty (and note the very good dog, also)

and I got to meet a wiggly waggly puppy.

Dr Kelly (perfect name for St Patrick’s Day) checks Mary’s gums

Mary is probably 16.  Maybe a bit younger.  She needed to stay for blood tests and rehydrating and some vitamins and so forth so we left her there with a sense of deep foreboding as with a cat her age we feared kidney failure.

Long Beach again

We deadheaded the Long Beach welcome sign.

I’d been weepy to myself at bedtime last night (2 AM) about waiting for my own tests and about Mary being poorly.  Now I focused on getting more mulch onto Veterans Field garden beds and a small area of Fifth Street Park.

vet field corner garden, mulched

and more on the curved bed

leftover five buckets went to Fifth Street: Allan’s photos, before

after

Allan sheared some tatty schizostylus (before)

after

I planted two leftover lily bulbs and (in a planter) two Agastache ‘Cotton Candy’.

Tulip ‘Lilac Wonder’

Greigii tulip foliage

more short early tulips

impressed that these primroses are still in full bloom

Fifth Street Park, still too much darned weedy little alliums

These four kinds of lilies are now all planted here and there.

I felt potentially weepy about Mary.  At almost five, I called Dr. Kelly as she had requested and she expressed amazement that all Mary’s blood work came back perfect!  No kidney failure, good electrolytes, good liver function….so now Mary stays overnight for more hydration and maybe an X Ray tomorrow.  Her blood work was exceptional for an old kitty.  I felt much better, although she is “still a very sick kitty”.

We drove to city hall to do a bit of deadheading there.

On the way, in the little popout, we were pleased to see the tulips had NOT been eaten by deer after all.

Allan’s photo

City Hall garden

tulip (Allan’s photo)

Then, home, because we had an event to attend in the evening.  The event happened to be my 61st birthday.  We both changed into St Patrick’s Day green shirts and headed to the

Salt Hotel Pub

where our usual North Beach Garden Gang meeting included the full roster:  Allan and me and Melissa and Dave and Todd and Ed Strange.  It’s hard to get Ed out to one of our meetings so we were pleased he could attend.  I’m shy about inviting people to my birthday, so had stuck with just the usual Thursday line up.  Allan had asked if he should invite lots of people.  With all that has been going on lately, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and wanted to keep it small.  Maybe at 65 I’ll have a big big party!

Todd arrived with a crate full of the flower arrangements for which he is renowned.  Since we all looked at each one with great attention and pleasure, I’ll share lots of the details with you.  All are from his garden and woods.

Melissa, Todd, Allan

The trailing accent that looks like an evergreen branch is actually Elk Horn Moss that only grows in old growth cedar (I think he said) woods around here, and there is some like that where he lives on Willapa Bay.

The yellow puffs are Kerria Japonica

 

Todd, Allan, Dave

Podophylum ‘Spotty Dotty” (Allan’s photo)

Our Ed arrives!  (Allan’s photo)

our view, other than flowers

garden talk!  (Allan’s photo)

more garden talk (Allan’s photo)

We talked about plants and looked at plant pictures on our phones.

for example, from Todd’s phone: Corydalis ‘Blue Heron’

food arrives

food and flowers (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Madeline of Pink Poppy Bakery (our favourite baker) was in Ireland for a vacation, so Allan had turned to the Cottage Bakery to make a garden themed cake.  They did a wonderful job. Allan had coordinated with Dave and Melissa for them to pick the cake up today, thus making it a complete surprise.

Julez brings the cake!

birthday song

It was an extra boon that Heather from Niva Green (in dark shirt, with a halo behind her) had come to Salt that evening and was able to join our party.   It was extra cool that one of my presents was a gift certificate to NIVA green, my favourite shop ever.  And another was, all the way from Plant Delights Nursery via Dave and Melissa, five (FIVE!) Asphodeline lutea, a plant which I have been lusting after for quite some time.  I have just ONE in Long Beach and have longed for more.  Todd says this one is a cultivar with an extra good yellow flower.

sweet 61, not really 16

garden theme cake

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

our Melissa (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s arty floaty photo

We left three of the little bouquets for Salt’s Laila and Julez to enjoy and sent one home with Dave and Mel.  (Ed had already left to walk his dog, Jackson.)  I went downstairs to ask Julez to just save the flower containers for Todd and then I waited outside among the greenery in the courtyard.

out of the wind, amongst the greenery, sitting on a bench, looking at the half moon way above

It’s been a long day, and I have a few more presents to open, from Klipsan Beach Cottages and Allan and my dear far away Montana Mary, so I will leave you now.

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1998 (age 73):

March 17: Happy Birthday to Skyler.  Today I puttered around with paperwork and didn’t get out till almost 1:30.  I worked again digging out the strawberry plants.  When I got over to the asparagus bed those berry plants were nicer—probably nicer soil there.  As I dug the plants I also weeded the asparagus area which was overgrown with dandelions, etc.

 

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13 March: another storm

Sunday, 13 March 2016

We knew the storm was coming.  I just hoped the power would stay on so I could work on my Grandma blog, with which I am obsessed.  I so wanted to get to the end of the series of posts today from her old photo albums.

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SEATTLE WA
837 AM PDT SUN MAR 13 2016
…HIGH WIND WARNING NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 PM PDT THIS EVENING…

* TIMING…THE STORM IS MOVING FASTER AND WINDS ARE EXPECTED TO
BEGIN RISING SOONER…AROUND MID MORNING. THE STRONGEST WINDS
ARE NOW EXPECTED DURING THE LATE MORNING THROUGH EARLY
AFTERNOON.

The wind did indeed roar, with 66 mph gusts in Ocean Park (on our little Peninsula north of Astoria), 87 mph in Naselle,  and with the power out from Ocean Park to Oysterville.  Our power stayed on and I kept blogging, along with a long tech call to Dotster to find out why my ancient website had disappeared.  (Verification email had been sent to ancient address even though all the sales pitch and billing emails find me at my current address.)  I had to spend some time on customer support with a pleasant fellow with an Indian accent, and it was most enjoyable and beautiful to listen to, even in the very few moments when I had to ask him to repeat something.  I gave him top rating in the customer survey that followed the successful call.  (And the website is back up.)

At four, the wind began to die, the sun came out, and I took a few garden photos.

afternoon front porch view

tiny branches and lichen blown almost to the front porch

through the arbour

‘Twas still to windy to go into the bogsy woods…plus I had on my slippers!

tulips unbowed and unbroken

more water in the bogsy woods and garden edges

our inelegant chairs, comfy and easy to move around

looking north toward the house

scree garden and the good ship ‘Ann Lovejoy’

the heather I got from Pam Fleming, in full flower

Even though I “don’t do heathers”, I like that one in a pot because it looks like a little conifer.

I’ve lost four of my marbles.

Then back to blogging. I was so busy I missed a rainbow.

At 6, I had actually reached a point where I could have been satisfied to stop for the day.  As prearranged, we met our friend J9 for dinner at Salt.

Allan’s photo

Allan caught another rainbow.

“Captain’s Cocoa” for Allan, with Capt Morgan Rum

view from our table

looking south to Cape Disappointment (which had 72 mph wind earlier in the day)

delicious tuna melt for me

delicious burger for J9: “As good as the Cove or the Bridgewater” she announced, which is high praise around these parts.

J9 got a lesson in using certain functions on her iPad.

Home again, I thought of a more complete ending for the last entry of the  Grandma photo album posts, and added it, and now I have all the scrapbook and photo album posts set to publish once a week through next fall.  Because I am eager to get them out into the world, I will probably post them much more often than once a week. At least the tribute is now ready to go (somewhat unproofread and untidied) with or without me, for all two of my Grandma blog followers.  It is a sense of accomplishment indeed.  I’ve been focused on the project to the detriment of reading books and my favourite blogs, and of having civil household conversation  (“Please don’t talk to me right now!!“), so I am sure we are all relieved to have it more or less done, even the cats (as I have not been providing much lap time).

Tomorrow: Two tests, including the answer to the interesting question of Am I claustrophobic, which should be answered by having an MRI.  I’ve seen it on Dr. House, so I’m only a little bit anxious.  I kind of want to tell them that if I am losing my marbles for real, I don’t want to know about it.  Then I hope to have a nice meal in Astoria to make the trip more fun.

Here’s a preview photo from the Grandma blog:

my mother, Ginger, in her mother’s garden in the 1940s

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s diaries of two decades ago

1998 (age 73):

March 13:  12:00-4:30  The best day’s work so far.  I finished potting the DG perennials then I started taking the dahlias out of the bags.  I spread them out into low boxes with peat moss.  I only got about half done so will continue to work in it tomorrow to finish.

Then it’s time to start some of my seeds—next week.

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9-10 March: big storm

Wednesday, 9 March 2016

The wind forecast had been dire.

Marine Weather Forecast!
Storm Warning! Hurricane Force Winds!
STORM WARNING NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM PST THIS EVENING…
…HURRICANE FORCE WIND WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM TO 11 PM PST
THIS EVENING…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PORTLAND HAS ISSUED A HURRICANE
FORCE WIND WARNING…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM TO 11 PM PST
THIS EVENING. THIS IS IN ADDITION TO THE STORM WARNING WHICH IS IN
EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM PST THIS EVENING.”

This time, the storm hit with the force predicted.

Naselle is up the river from us.  The other towns are the Oregon coast; they got it worse than we did and had a power outage from Astoria to Tillamook. Amazingly, our power and internet stayed on.  The gusts were 96.7 mph on Megler Mountain at the east end of the Astoria Megler bridge.

101 mph off of Seaside, Oregon

In a drenching rain, we went out to gather some greenery for our dear friend Jenna who needed it to decorate for an “enchanted forest” child’s party in Portland the next day.  We each got completely drenched twice on this mission.

wet!

Allan’s photo: Ten minutes outside = soaked through.

branches gathered for Jenna (Allan’s photo)

some restio fronds for Jenna

After  delivering the flowers and greenery to Jenna, Allan went to the port to see what could be seen.

Ilwaco pavilion

 

the hurricane flags over the port office

He climbed to the port office second story deck and hung on to take a video of the water splashing on the docks.  You can see it here on our youtube channel….

And then we settled in for the day.  With the internet  slow, I occupied myself sorting and fixing up 400 old photos of my grandma’s that I had copied for future blog entries on the story of her life (on my Grandma blog).

I did venture out before dusk to record the weather.  The storm did not hit with full force till after dark.  It was already disconcertingly loud.

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This video doesn’t exist

I worried and fretted because Melissa and Dave (Sea Star Gardening) had gone to Portland for the day to pick up plants.  The last couple of predicted storms had not lived up to the warnings and so they thought this one wouldn’t either.  (I am way more of a scaredycat.)  The result was a long and harrowing drive home and I was so glad to get their text at about ten PM saying they had finally made it.  They’d been turned back because a tree falling on a vehicle had caused a fatality and closed Highway 26 just before it intersects with the coast highway; they made it through a dark curving country road between Highway 26 and Astoria through the tiny town of Jewell.

I would have found this much too exciting a drive on circuitous 202 and over the bridge in a storm.

Thursday, 10 March 2016

With coldness and frequent torrential downpours, we stayed home other than Allan’s few errands.  I had a walk round between rainstorms to see how the garden had fared.

Allan’s whirligigs down

The shed lost some roofing.

little branches all the way up

a spear into the ground by the greenhouse

lichen blown all the way from the bogsy wood

grape hyacinth in the center bed

I did not notice then that way back by the bogsy woods, a duck couple was exploring the big rain puddle.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t have disturbed them.

by the fire circle

on the west side

a large spear into the lawn

would have been deadly

east side of bogsy wood

a fallen branch reaching all through the grove

tulips in the garden boat “Ann Lovejoy”

I’m pleased no trees fell on the garden…

just small debris everywhere.

With remaining wind and rain, I decided that the clean up can wait for a better day. 

No one wanted to go out.

 
After a day of working on the Grandma photo blog (me) and errands and whatnot (Allan), we headed out to Salt Hotel for our lovely weekly garden gang meeting.  On the way, Allan told me that he had picked up two wheelbarrowfuls of twigs and branches off of the lawn in the afternoon.  He had been a hardier soul than I.

Salt Hotel

Allan’s photo

Salt Pub (Allan’s photo)

A Scottish Sea Breeze (with grapefruit simple syrup)

Allan’s photo

 

I tried the pub stew for the first time, owner Laila’s recipe…delicious…

nachos (Allan’s photo)

and a salad with Starvation Alley Farms organic cranberries for health.

We heard about the harrowing storm-ridden drive from Portland that Dave and Mel had yesterday.  I would have been weeping.  They handled it well.  It did take over four hours for what would usually be about a two hour drive.

We expect more stormy weather for three days, at least, and except for yet another doctor appointment tomorrow, I hope to finish the Grandma photo blog entries.  

“When she died her family would remember her and she would live on in their memories for seventy years at most, and then she would be forgotten. She would become one of the ninety billion people on this planet that had lived and died before her. The end.

At forty-four, I feel the current of that river pulling at me. I am one of six and a half billion people currently taking their turn at being alive on this planet. One of billions trying to make sense of their lives, their heartbreaks, their regrets, their greatest loves, their bad knees, and their beloved children sitting in front of them who will one day be part of the billions who have come before and have long since been forgotten.

This is unfathomable. And it’s the truest thing I know.”  -Melanie Gideon, The Slippery Year

And I am trying to make my mother memorable, as well.

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1998 (age 73):

March 10: I ran out of wood on the porch so I brought some of the new wood from the driveway.  However the 2 pieces were too wet from rain and wouldn’t burn.

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28 Feb: surprise work day

Sunday, 28 February 2016

After a long and delicious sleep during a blustery windstorm, we realized during brunch that the sun had come out and that it might be a good day to put in an afternoon of work.  While Allan hooked up the trailer, I took a turn around the front garden.

Ribes speciosum

Ribes speciosum, closer.  It has mean barberry-like thorns.

lily foliage emerging along with weeds that I don’t have time to pull.

Melianthus major and Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’

Melianthus major is budding, overhead…

and at eye level

A strong gusty wind blew up again just as I got in the van.  I was ready to abort the beach approach mission and gardening in general.  Allan said he would do the community building garden, so I agreed to help because it’s easy to bail out of a place so close to home.

Just as we parked and started to unload our tools, a passerby arrived (not someone we know) who wanted to chat and ask questions and chat some more, very close within my personal space (like looking over my shoulder while I was getting my gear out of the van).  I’m kind of Aspergian about that.  Thinking of my own comfort rather than contributing to the other person’s enjoyment, it seemed like a time to tactfully and pleasantly depart to go plant some lilies up at Golden Sands.

As we drove north, we had barely left Ilwaco when an earnest rain began.  Now it seemed like a good time to get a little grocery shopping done.

parked by Sid’s Market

Weather being decidedly miserable

Allan returned to the vehicle with a grocery bag, saying that he was committed to returning home, having bought ice cream to go with some pie.  I thought contentedly of my comfy chair and the several library books awaiting me on the living room table.

When we got into our driveway, the sun came out, and it seemed like a good time to go back to the community building, so we did.

Finally getting down to work, we accomplished a great deal in just three and a half hours.  I especially wanted to get rid of a lot of the kinnikinnick, as it looks battered and dead after winter, and it is so hard to weed amongst its stems.  The soil in all these beds is infested with quack grass and sorrel and, in some of the beds, bindweed and horsetail.

before

after some VERY hard work, with some Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ added.

The Sedum should be excellent here, drought tolerant, with interesting flowers, and every now and then it will be easy to remove and clean up, in order to get more of the accursed long white grass roots out of this area.  Added some coppery coloured California poppy seeds, too.

before: an area heavy with kinnikinnick, with salal planted below at sidewalk level

another view of the same area….AND I got some of the salal out below!

North of the wheelchair ramp to the parking lot: I have a Fuchsia magellanica start at home that can fill in there where a big tatty clump of salal came OUT.  And a lovely ornamental grass, low and goldy-red, that go into the bed above.

The garden beds have so much heather.  Indeed, heather dominates every bed but the tiered bed in the lower parking lot and the shade bed by the front door.

As I weeded, something began to bother me along the sidewalk garden.

From the ramp south to the bus stop:

salal salal salal rhododendrons heathers mugo pines….

past the salal: rhodos heather mugo pines

other side of sign…mugo pines, heather rhodos and…what the heck is that huge salal doing in there?? and then heather and rhodos.

“Allan!!!!!” I called, “I have a big idea!!!”

While sitting on the wall, weeding, I had seen a rhododendron languishing hidden in the pines.

in the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines, a little lost rhodie.

A half an hour later, Allan had that huge clump of salal OUT, and I had dug up the little lost rhodie.  (I think what happened is back when the garden was planted, a volunteer did not know how big the pines would get compared to that little rhododendron.  As for the oddly places salal, who knows.)

Allan’s photo, before…

Goodbye, huge clump of salal!

Allan’s photo, after, with the rhodie relocated

A little lost heather had been consumed by the salal.

Allan said the salal runners had gone all the way to the bus stop under the  heather and rhododendrons planted next to it.  He teased the runners back out; they were several feet long.

What an improvement!

rhodo where the salal was

We will not let that salal come back, even though it will want to.  (Allan mentioned that the area also has bindweed which was so hard to pull out of that big salal patch.)  The humans will win.  That’s something our Melissa says after a great battle with weeds or invasives:  “Humans win!”  I like to see nature win sometimes, but not when it comes to bindweed or salal or sorrel in a garden bed.

No more little lost rhododendron.

Meanwhile, I had removed two medium clumps of salal, below, that were all up in a rhodo’s business.

The rhodo was free, with good breathing room, when I was finished.

Hamamelis, planted by locals Ann and Butch Saari, matching the library door and arch

The last 20 minutes of the job took place in a strong cold wind and heavy rain.

I had coppiced some of the red twig dogwood and it seemed that a good home for the long and decorative red stems would be with Laila at Salt Hotel; she excels at incorporating branches and stems into floral displays.  On the way there, a rainbow displayed itself over the port.

Rainbow over Jessie’s

fading rainbow over Salt

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo, south side of Salt with pub on second floor

Of course, after delivering the dogwood stems, we could not resist warming up our cold selves in the Salt Pub.

hot toddy with a fresh ginger infusion made at the pub

the view

Desire

a new larger format menu, and at the next table, our friend Heather Ramsay, artist and owner of the NIVA green shop

the ever changing clouds

Heather and me

Allan and I split the burger, which was exceptional.

I think Allan’s photo is the most exceptional.

clouds going pink, 5:50 PM

6 PM

A Pink Poppy Bakery cupcake

delectable

6:25 PM

I love that there are books to borrow in a corner of the pub (from owner Julez’ mother’s collection). And that the telly is not turned on all the time.  I much prefer a restaurant to not have a television on.

at the hotel desk

6:30 PM, on the way home for an evening of blogging and movie

Tonight, Interstellar or Jurassic World, DVDs borrowed from Ilwaco Timberland Library.

later, during Jurassic World (loved it!): Smokey displays how well healed his paw is.

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1995 (age 70):

Feb 28:  “Store” day.  Watered houseplants.  I planted a lot of the tiny trailing begonias that I started from seed into one of the terracotta planters and set it above the Floralight [indoor 3 tiered lighted plant tray].  I’m curious if they will grow and trail.

Our next blog post will be the expanded and illustrated version of Ginger’s Garden Diaries for February 1995, 97, and 98.

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27-28 January: 3 meals, 4 clinics

Wednesday, 27 January 2016

There will be some garden photos further down as a reward for making it through the rest of this post.  Or just scroll till you see a crocus.

A Tuesday doctor visit, long avoided, turned out to be just over an hour of talking with a kind doc who makes me laugh. I had remembered that about her, so to see her especially, we went to the Naselle Clinic, half an hour away. Wednesday featured a different sort of clinic.  Poor Smokey had a nasty abscess on one of his paws (I will spare you the photo of THAT) and had to go to the vet.  We did have the pleasure there of seeing Devery with a darling dog friend of hers.  The vet said Smokey was a very good boy even when she was lancing the wound.   

Devery (Allan’s photo)

 

Devery’s friend

 

one of the office cats

 I then had my own appointment for several knee x rays at the local hospital (associated with the Naselle Clinic).  One knee does look awfully off kilter. I realized that, having cut jobs down to just the ones I love, I rarely have to do things I do not want to do.  How fortunate, or how spoiled.  The round of doctor appointments will change that, as my primary care wants me to see several, including a neurologist to track down the source of dizziness (for which some terrifying possibilities were suggested, along with some not so scary ones, all of which I am doing my best not to dwell on).

waiting room: I will have to become accustomed to more noise during this time with loud tvs and classic rock radios.

I was simply smitten with the delightful personality of the X Ray technician.  Anyone in the medical field who can make me laugh is so helpful.

The Ocean Beach Hospital is not as big and fancy as the one across the river, yet it has a huge advantage for me: not having to cross the bridge.

I appreciate their well cared for greenery…

and I find their lighthouse mural oddly comforting.

I resolve that this round of doctor visits will be educational and interesting.

At home, Allan helped me drag a comfy chair into the large bathroom so I could sit with Smokey most of the afternoon, reading the latest in the excellent Dog Lover’s Mystery Series by Susan Conant.

Sire and Damn…top rating!

I enjoyed this description of why protagonist Holly Winter has so many dog people as Facebook friends.  I feel the same way about my network of gardening friends.

Below: I might feel this way about guests sometimes, but of course never about you.

After an unpleasant incident damages a kitchen cupboard, Holly’s spouse, Steve, behaves much the way Allan would:

I agree with Holly’s assessment.

In the evening, we were invited to join our good friends Fred and Nancy from The Basket Case Greenhouse for burger night at the Depot Restaurant.

Depot entrance in the rain (Allan’s photo)

on the Depot Restaurant grille (Allan’s photo)

We’ve missed Fred and Nancy over the non gardening winter and had a good catch up.

Thursday, 28 January 2016

After my third clinic visit, this time to have a copious amount of blood drawn (which I am happy to say is NOT one of my many phobias, and also that I got another clinician who made me laugh and who understood my reference to Doc Martin’s blood phobia), our reward for skipping breakfast was brunch at the 42nd Street Café.  I now get to wait until late February for my next doctor visit; I have a feeling all the many tests are going to slowly continue on through early spring.

42nd Street Café in Seaview

42nd Street: We hit the quiet time between breakfast and lunch

My favourite Peninsula breakfast: the 42nd Street Russian scramble

Allan’s French toast

We departed as the luncheon folks began to trickle in.

An errand in Ilwaco gave me the chance to look at one of our planters.

The rosemary looks less silly from this angle.

A quick tour of our front garden revealed many signs of spring.

Crocus tommasianus at the base of tetrapanax 

hellebore, crocus, and Scrophularia variegata

Iris unguicularis almost done

Ranunculus ficaria (lesser celandine)

more crocus tommies and some tiny spears of narcissi

Crocus tommies in a brief ray of sunshine

I love the crocus, the texture of the soil, and the promising spears of bulbs

In Allan’s garden, hellebores and Acanthus ‘Hollard’s Gold’

crocus tommies and Melianthus

I have only once before had Melianthus major come this far through winter so unscathed.

In the evening, we had our weekly meeting of the North Beach Garden Gang.  With the Cove Restaurant no longer serving dinner, we chose Salt Hotel Pub as our new place.

Allan’s photo, Salt Hotel

up the stairs to the pub

With a marina view table at the window and tasty sandwiches on offer, Salt Pub met with all of our approval.  We mentioned to its co-owner, Julez, that another regular party at the Cove was also on the loose.  Julez texted that fellow (a mutual friend) immediately saying “Hear you are looking for a Thursday night hangout” and within twenty minutes the former Cove regular and his spouse were seated at the next table.

Julez behind the bar

Allan’s ham melt

Melissa, Dave, and I had the smoked tuna melt.

At home, I was pleased to find Mary and Smokey cuddled up in his convalescent room. (I had bunged her in there to keep her son company.)

Mary and Smokey

 

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