2 June: Pam’s Seaside gardens

Thursday, 2 June 2016

I accompanied Allan on a grocery shopping trip to Warrenton, Oregon, solely to detour into Seaside and see Pam Fleming’s public gardens.  (Checking out the plant selection at Fred Meyer would be a bonus.)

Pam Fleming has been the public gardener for downtown Seaside for as long as I can remember, and every year her gardens get better.  The gardens run along both sides of Broadway from the main highway to the beach view turnaround.

Broadway in Seaside

We drove and looked at the first couple of blocks as I took photos from the passenger window.

 

Beach Books is where the walking tour begins which Pam gives every July.

Love that dusky Phygelius; I wonder if it is ‘Salmon Leap’.

Then a parking place opened up on the busy street and we decided to walk to the turnaround and back to get a close look at the gardens.  What a good decision!

One of Seaside’s well designed sit spots.

on the bridge

Allan paddled under this bridge last October.

I love gold and variegated foliage.

Nigella (love in a mist) (Allan’s photo)

Pam plants flowering tobacco and head-whirling type flowers in front of the Bridge Tender Tavern.

Nicotiana langsdorfii (a flowering tobacco)

a whirly spoon leafed osteospermum; she likes the kind with more of a color pattern but it has become hard to find.

Allan’s photo

I hope no tavern patron gets thrown into this pocket garden this year.

The Bridge Tender

As we strolled by a café with outdoor seating, a walker approaching said to two folks seated there, “Looks like the perfect life.”   “It’s our think tank,” said the sitters; “We’re solving the world’s problems.”  “How far have you gotten?”  “Not very far.”

Pam often plants culinary plants in front of restaurants, like this seafood place.

I spy parsley in the Dooger’s garden.  Maybe sage, rosemary, and thyme, too.

by Dooger’s

This is the “swinging tree” of a local girl who has swung from the branches for years.

I’d say put leatherleaf viburnum here except I don’t much like it!

When the business storefronts change hands, sometimes Pam’s planting scheme is thrown off; she might have plants from Mexico in front of a Mexican restaurant and then have it turn into a souvenir shop instead.

another culinary garden by the Pig ‘n’ Pancake, with golden lemon balm.  (I think.)

Lovage, I think, on the right.

The vigorous houttuynia was already in the gardens when she took them on.

Why don’t I ever remember to mass plant like she does? Looks so much better.

I just realized my own Primrose vialii may be petered out at home.

Unlike some people, when I see a plant that I want in a public garden (like the primrose above), I do NOT help myself.

As always, I envy the variety of street trees…not just boring old columnar pears like we have. Here: paperbark maple.

another sit spot

Forever is a long, long time.

a wintry window box

shop window (Allan’s photo)

There is alchemilla (lady’s mantle) looking frothy and glorious.

looks like Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’ blooming way early!

Sambucus ‘Black Lace’

Allan’s photo

I also envy the reliable sprinkler system in every pocket garden.

Last year, Pam told us her mulch of choice was bales of Gardner and Bloome soil building compost.

I was deeply smitten with this bed with its candelabra primroses.

I spy little statice. I’ve had helpful people pull them out as dandelions before they bloom.

Allan’s photo

almost to the turnaround

At first, I thought this kid might be one of Pam’s workers, till I realized he was playing hide and seek.

Now I had reached the turnaround.  Allan had walked back to get the van and come pick me up.

looking east

looking west

I found these two plaques deeply touching:

looking south

in full wind and weather…and irrigated

On the way back to the highway, one block over:

a big fluffy peony under a beach pine

some flying birds by a Seaside café

On the way north, we had a look at the garden of an ironworks shop in Gearhart.

Gearhart Ironworks

the ironworks garden

We accomplished our grocery shopping at Costco.  I miss the old, smaller store behind the Fred Meyer.  The big new one has lighting that makes me feel dizzy and disoriented.  I find myself thinking that I must visit an optometrist immediately:

too much glare, I feel like I am seeing double.

I prefer mood lighting while shopping.

Further toward home, I succumbed to the siren call of the Fred Meyer plant department.

petunias of interesting hues; I bought a yellowy-pinky one.

another unusual petunia

a haul of plants for my garden (Allan’s photo)

eastern view from the highest part of the 4 mile long Astoria Megler bridge over the Columbia river.

The only flaw in this excellent day (other than the lighting at Costco) was that I had not organized a visit with Pam herself.  I felt we would not have time to do that, shop, and get to our weekly dinner in time.  Oh, how wrong I was because we got home with two hours to spare.  I did spend it puttering with my new plants; however, visiting with Pam would have been better, and rare.

The Cove Restaurant

We were slightly late to our North Beach Garden Gang meeting because I found it hard to tear myself away from my new plants.

a tad bit late to the party

artful dinner salad

strawberry feta salad (Allan’s photo)

prawn scampi

ahi tuna

Dave, Melissa and me

Todd and Dave (Allan’s photo)

We usually stay until the serving staff start sweeping up and vacuuming.  Carmen made an amusing show of sweeping right by our table.

a hug from our Carmen

After dinner, the usual lingering in the parking lot:

The plant that got away?

Tomorrow: back to the watering rounds.

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Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1998 (age 74):

June 2: HOT in afternoon!!  Noon to six  I finally got those tulip bulbs (from the tubs and pots) planted in the garden area next to the onion and asparagus bed.  Boy I’m glad to have it done.  Then I planted seedlings into pots—the next move will be to plant them into the various bowls.  The next main job is to start planting the perennials that are on the picnic table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Westbrook garden, 22 June

Here’s our tour of  Helen Westbrook’s beautiful Mill Pond Village garden last Saturday, a garden I discovered on the July 2012 Astoria garden tour and then saw again in March on one of the last days of winter.

view from our parking spot, SW corner of townhouse

approaching the entrance (Hebe)

just as beautiful as I remembered

I’m going to give you every view, because why should you not enjoy it to the fullest?

One of my favourite features of this garden is the dry creek bed or swale which captures winter water runoff.

looking east over the swale

I find this so very pleasing.

To the right, above, you can see a bit of the Sambucus ‘Black Lace’.  Helen said she had recently pruned it and brought some of the flowers into the house and said they did not smell very nice.

Sambucus ‘Black Lace’

looking west over the swale

seating by the swale

barrel planter

arbour into the center to the garden

arbour detail

a little wishing well

Below, you can see how shrubs have grown in the last year and provide a privacy screen for the porch of the neighbour to the north.  The garden itself is on an unbuilt lot between the two townhouses.

view looking west

shrub screen

By now Helen had emerged from her house.  We wondered together whether or not it was normal for the Physocarpus ‘Coppertina’ (?I think it is that one) to be showing both white and copper flowers.

two colours

a fragrant rugosa rose in the hedge

Looking from the hedge toward Helen’s porch

a comfy bench

blue table

to the west of the table, a solar powered water feature

Helen says even a passing cloud will make it turn off, but it would still be attractive.

bicycle basket

That combination of sedums and ferns is unusual and most attractive.

I marveled to Helen at the detail in her groundcovers; even without being on a garden tour this year, she has attended carefully to creating small vignettes which I know take attention to maintain.

shells and moss and stones

a little jug

a tiny clearing for stones

and precious jewels.

This makes me want a smaller garden so I can attend to such details, but Allan has time for effects like this in his shady fern garden.

Anton memorial

Anton was a golden labrador who was friends with all the residents of Mill Pond Village.  Helen described him as bringing neighbours together.  He died recently and his ashes were shared among his human friends, and some are buried here.

There must be a gardening bond among many of the residents as almost all have little curbside gardens (which were featured on the Astoria Garden Tour several years ago).

a floriferous porch

along a shady walkway

If Loren of Futureworld sees this post, I hope he will tell me if the hosta above is more interesting than the ones he described earlier this year.

on a corner

lawn between townhouses

At the end of the long lawn is the Astoria Riverwalk along the Columbia River, and in summer the adorable trolley goes by.

It was such a treat to see Helen’s garden again and we would have liked to walk all around the village and see the little gardens and the houses that are built right by the old mill pond itself, but we had nurseries to get to…so perhaps we will make another visit in late summer.

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19 June: work, part one

Wednesday was the kind of day I like, where we accomplished much and also had some fun.  I’m dividing the post into sections because of three quite different subjects.  Nicer for search engines.  Should have done that with Ciscoe so people did not have to wade through my quiet day at home to get to the exciting Ciscoe visit.

We first went to the Peninsula Sanitation office at the Port to discuss with Diane where three new Ilwaco street planters should go, mainly for ease of bucket watering.  (That is, fairly close to some other ones would be good: less walking.)  Then we stopped by her garden by The red Barn because she felt, correctly, that a couple of new blueberry bushes would benefit from fertilizer.  Here is a record of how the new roadside garden is coming along…slowly.  I think I will add some small inexpensive Dianthus along the sides next time we go.

needs more!

A sort of strawberry plant (which I thought was a cross with potentilla) that takes over, and that I keep pulling out, turned out to have very sweet little strawberries that Diane and Larry love, so they are “in” now and will no longer be pulled except when they go into the center of the garden.

used to be too much of a good thing

yummy

Next: The Basket Case to get some sedums because of a tiny Long Beach crisis:  The night before, when watering the Fish Alley whiskey barrels, I realized I had added NO annuals around the center Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’.  Oops.  While last summer, sunbinis looked awesome there, I want something more drought tolerant, so sedums and some attractive variegated thyme or golden marjoram would do nicely.  I was questioning whether or not grey and gold looked good together when Fred showed me Nancy’s recent sedum planting.

good together

another sedum planting by Nancy

I took a photo of their ‘Black Lace’ elderberry.  Fred wants you to know they are out of it this year but will have more next year.

Sambucus ‘Black Lace’

greenhouse kitty

From there, we checked on Golden Sands and planted a few plant donations.  The gardens are looking bright and cheerful almost by default, because the lovely rains have kept them wet enough.  A close look would reveal much creeping sorrel, only some of which we had time to pull.  The gardens look excellent if you squint a bit while looking at them.

SW quadrant

NW quadrant

NE quadrant

SE quadrant

There’s a bit too much blue scabiosa, but that is often the effect when planting a garden with free plants.

Next, onward to Klipsan Beach Cottages.  We had been there just five days before, as I am trying to get their weekly visit shifted to Wednesdays or Thursdays rather than at the panicked running out of time end of the week.  I was not sure what we would find to do, but three big projects appeared.

The Thalictrum ‘Elin’ had flopped open in the rain and this year’s unseasonable strong June winds.  It has never done that to us before. String, and a line running over to the fence to help support it, made it look better.  I hope it works.

a hopeful fix

As soon as that was done, I saw the path to Denny’s little water feature had almost disappeared.  I started and Allan finished making it a clear view again.

Denny was most pleased!

the water feature in question

While Allan was working on that path, I started clipping out of control honeysuckle and climbing Cecile Brunner rose at the main fenced garden entrance.

before

Allan got on a ladder and clipped the crazy uppity canes on the top while I checked the rest of the gardens for any other problems (found none!) and the entrance now looks much better.

all nice and tidy

through the gate

That’s brought us to halfway though our day.  Next, we go to the Wiegardt Gallery and this time I’ll take you inside, as soon as I have time to write up the entry!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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planting at home: done

We enjoyed our well earned day off by, of course, working in the garden.  (In the evening, Allan rewarded himself further with a brief motorcycle ride while I had to endure two tedious hours of billing…thus avoiding a complete day off of work.)

My main mission at home was to get all my plants and seeds in the ground, and Allan’s was to mow the lawn and do some weeding in his garden beds.

I’m not very good at growing things from seed, but I tried these:

beans and sunflowers

I like beans with gorgeous colours as I rarely get around to harvesting and eating them.  Also planted some Nigella ‘Chocolate Sundae’.  It looks lovely but I think I should have planted it earlier.  I misplaced the packet.  I also lost and found a packet of Cosmos…and have lost it again.  Same for some Nasturtium…but I certainly do not need any more nasturtium here.  It has reseeded far too freely and I am pulling some out in the mixed borders as last year it got too smothery.

I ran out of fence to plant beans on, and have some lovely long bamboo poles.  Despite my laying them out, and hinting, all Allan did was TELL me how to make a bean teepee, instead of making one for me.

He did switch all the smelly compost from one compost bin to another so that he could move the old one and set up a new rotating bin that we got for free.

Before planting anything, I did two enjoyable weeding and editing projects.  I wonder how well the difference shows:

before, front garden (east side)

after

Well, that is not at all clear, is it?  I had to switch angles for the after photo or my shadow would have been all over it.  This section is much more impressive:

before

after removing loads of wild impatiens

Also removed one stepping stone to fit in a variegated Jacob’s Ladder.

I had two visitors:

Gracie from across the street

Gracie is a good old girl who sometimes gets in trouble here for chasing cats through a garden bed.  She responds obediently to “Go home!” when need be.

Phoenix and Gracie

Phoenix from next door is more of a rascal….a tailwagger who won’t let me near him.

the elusive Phoenix

Phoenix’s own yard is across the fence to the east.  He hightailed it to the back of the garden and suddenly was on his side.  I KNEW he had found a place to sneak under.  Today we were able to find it, as there was a pile of green debris and he had dragged some of it under with him, so we blocked the spot with a board.  It looked too small;  he must be able to make himself very flat.

I got my plants into the ground and now the only plants left (till I buy more) are the three artichokes for Leanne!  and an Erysimum ‘Fragrant Star’ that I am adding to an Ilwaco planter, switching it for ‘Apricot Twist’, whose tag reveals it may stop blooming in June.  Fragrant star is supposed to be an all summer bloomer.

just three!

We even had time to put out some decorative touches:

little birdhouses behind Fragrant Star

wall of china

We think it is safe to hang the plates in the wind tunnel between the house and the shop…but I have one nail that has no plate.  I wonder where I put that plate…

Allan’s mom’s pot with water

at last I put my flock of chickens out!

An early evening walk through the garden revealed these good things:

Hebe ‘Quicksilver’

shows actual size

a planted table

Siberian Iris

another iris

Allium albopilosum

Sambucus ‘Black Lace’

Sambucus ‘Sutherland Gold’

Sambucus laciniata

looking south

It would have been the perfect gardening day had I not needed to go inside before dark to work on billing.

I am hoping that starting next weekend we can get two days a week off.  This would be quite extravagant, and perhaps financially unwise, but if I have twenty or fewer years left as an active gardener (I would hope for more but am basing my estimate on my mother’s life), I need to spend more of it in my own garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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