19th June part 3 (Sisters on the Fly)

If you wade through a bit about gardening, you’ll get to the vintage trailers.  I have divided the day into three parts to give The Wiegardt Gallery its own entry.  Now, in the late afternoon, we moved on north to Marilyn’s garden in Surfside.  There we found, just as we did at Klipsan Beach Cottages earlier in the day, a big wind flop:  a giant Miscanthus laid out over the top of Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ and a blue globe thistle.

Oh, dear.

All I could do is trim the ends off; there is no amount of tying or staking that will make this grass be what it should be now.  All these problems are due to the very unusually strong winds we have had this June;  old timers agree that the wind has been extreme for this time of year, several days with 29 mph, not the usual thing for June.

The edges where we had to repair the garden after the round up damage  (not caused by us; we don’t use the stuff) are starting to look more natural.

Marilyn’s

Heading south again, we stopped at Oman Builders Supply to do some deadheading of the Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’; there are three big ones so I said “Let’s just get 20 deadheads off of each and that’ll be good enough,” and it was.

OBS garden

Brodiaea ‘Queen Fabiola’

I was anxious to get on to the piece de resistance of our day:  a look at the Sisters on the Fly vintage trailers at Andersen’s TV Park, where we had spend extra time making the gardens look perfect.

I had a few blue scaveoola plants to add to the pots by the front of the office, so that was our excuse.  Lorna was beaming with pleasure that the group had all checked in; as we approached, one of the sisters complimented her on the speech she had made about the history of the park (which was owned and developed by Lorna’s father).  Al told us that the trailers would look better the next day because some had just checked in and and they might not all be fully set up yet.  I knew our schedule might not permit us to come back Thursday or Friday.  I said we would look now and would go out the back door of the office “so it looks like we work here.”

It is probably a good thing that I am posting this about two days after the fact, because it turns out that the Sisters do not want people coming from outside to view the trailers….not to be unfriendly, but they have had hundreds of lookers when the word gets out.  The hubbub interferes with their pleasant vacation time, and the lookers want to see the insides of the trailers as well.  That would be fun as the insides are said to be highly decorative, but I would never dream of asking.

So…here is what we saw.  A big tent was set up next to Payson Hall where the group had had dinner.  We kept getting asked by various Sisters returning from their communal dinner “Are you looking for someone?” and I kept invoking the “We’re the gardeners!” clause.  I sort of felt like I shouldn’t be taking photos, like I was seriously intruding on a private place…but I just had to because I want to remember these cute RVs.  I could not stand and gawk but I can gawk now at the photos. Because I felt we were intruding and really should not walk right into the campsites, I used telephoto to get some decoration details to look at closely later

Note the painted branch trim.

Rod and Reel

Is glamping a term for “glamourous camping”?

blue swirl

The light was not perfect for photos, as often happens in the course of our day, but we made do.

entry to the blue swirly

red and white

silver

so very shiny

two or three to a site!

All the RV park guest restrooms had been turned into women’s for the occasion.

red and green

bloomers mansion?

Mission Keep Moving

very small

little red (and white) Corvette

two blues (love the “stone” wall)

cobalt blue

horsey

camp martini

camp martini

Just Breez’n Along

Daisy

I hope this one liked our field of red poppies near Payson Hall!

Adelita

sleek and silver

Wild Honey

Always saddle your own horse.

good and bad cowgirls

Blue Moon Ride

Trailer Trash Diva

I so wanted to get a good view of this mural but did not want to invade their space…

the shortest?

pink cowgirl

pennants

Most trailers are outlined with lights.  Park staffer Rob had plants to get some photos of them lit up and dusk; these might eventually appear on the Andersen’s website.

the lowest?

my favourite

My favourite was at the end of the park by the dunes.  I loved the quotations written all over it, similar to the way that I write gardening quotations right on my house.  It’s pretty punk rock, and the quotation “I aim to misbehave” is straight out of Joss Whedon’s Firefly.

Looks like the other sisters were invited to add their thoughts.

I wonder if that is some kind of chalkboard paint?

had to telephoto so I could read it later…

I had an excuse to walk all the way down to the end of the park…I wanted a photo of the excellent sign offering a tootsie pop to children who help clean up the beach.

beach trail

Just over the dune from Andersen’s RV Park, you’ll find the beach.  We hope Sisters on the Fly had a wonderful time there!

Our day was not over; we went on to plant some sedums in the whiskey barrels in Fish Alley, but I will leave you to linger here over the lovely trailers.

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17 June: again mostly Andersen’s

I’m still running behind on blogging due to the caterpillar emergency evening, so here I continue to attempt to catch up.

Larry and Robert’s garden

Monday morning, the first item was to water Larry and Robert’s garden because we had planted a new little tree. We could not count on rain to keep the new plants happy, and in fact found a couple of perennials with thirst-wilted leaves. (The green Echinacea seems highly miffy when it comes to needing water.) Allan drive and I walked a bit later as I still had a few potted plants to water in my own garden. On the way, I looked over the fence to admire Judy’s Eryngium, nicknamed “LB”.

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’

Saliva patens on Larry’s front steps (from The Planter Box)

watering

The Depot Restaurant

We next checked on the Depot garden to see if those plants needed water. The Eryngiums had fallen over a bit.

but we were stakeless

The garden did need watering because the sprinkler system does not hit the new garden.

Planter Box and Basket Case

Next, The Planter Box…for some Dr Earth organic CATERPILLAR spray. We have to deal with them at a commercial job, whereas, as I have said, in my own garden I would let nature take its course. Look at all the glorious cosmos that Planter Box still has for sale:

glorious cosmos for sale at Planter Box

another great Planter Box annual: Salpiglossis

I bought some stunning Gazania there, and we then nipped over to The Basket Case to get a different kind of Gazania. There we saw a sign welcoming the Sisters on the Fly club, and Fred told us that he’d gotten an email from Lorna of Andersen’s RV letting him know that the club was collecting “something blue” on this trip. He and Nancy had put a collection of blue flowering plants at the front of the center greenhouse. Very clever. Geranium ‘Rozanne’, Lithodora, Salvia ‘Queen Victoria’. With this knowledge, we bought some Queen Victoria to add to the Payson Hall planters because the rest of our day would be spent at Andersen’s.

Once upon a time, I had several old nonfunctioning wheelbarrows planted with flowers, and I then “went off” the idea, but seeing how great the Basket Case wheelbarrows look, I will try again the next time one becomes not work worthy.

planted with Nancy’s magic touch

Andersen’s RV Park

At Andersen’s, we stopped at the road box to add Gazania. The reseeding nasturtiums are being slow and not putting on any show so far.

workin’ on the road box

a Gazania ‘Stars and Stripes mix’ from Planter Box

It is always a trick to plant this planter because nothing in it can be too tall or signs will be blocked.

for example…

We finished the detailed weeding of the picket fence and west gardens. Meanwhile staffer Rob was appreciating the flowers by taking some photos which are slated for the Andersen’s website.

with a macro lens

We brought some coils of fishing rope which had been left in the bogsy woods by David Maki, the son of the former owner of our house, Shirley Maki. Some of it has gone to decorate at Queen La De Da’s, some hangs on our fence, and now some is at Andersen’s artistically enhancing two big planters.

Al starts uncoiling rope

pot number one

It took three staffers to coil the rope around; it is quite stiff, and I was impressed that they managed it!

having at pot number two

finished

We got the weeding done and Payson Hall deadheaded but not before a big storm moved in. It rained so hard I felt like I was breathing rain, and we did not even have our raincoats with us as had not expected it til Tuesday.

Payson Hall planters all refreshed

I was, in fact, thrilled because the rain meant that we did not have to drive far north to Surfside to water Marilyn’s in the late evening. I could only hope (because the Peninsula is long enough that the weather differs) that it also rained reasonably hard up there, although the sky looked suspiciously light in that direction.

The group leaders of the Sisters on the Fly and a few other trailers had already arrived. There will be many trailers by Wednesday evening and we must get back to see them. (Payson will need deadheading again anyway for such a special event; the women will be dining there.) Here is a sampling. They were even cuter before the rain came and some of the decor got put away.

Rod and Reel

two cuties

another cutie

We have the pleasure of knowing that the gardens are just about as perfect as we can get them for this fun group and we look forward to stopping by later this week to see all of the painted and decorated vintage trailers.

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