September 19, 2012
Oh, I am so hard to please about the weather. Today was too darn hot. Tomorrow a big rain storm is supposed to come, and then a rain and wind storm on Sunday. I resolved not to complain that I was sweltering today because a cold and windy summer day is far worse. But…it was hot. All of 74.8 degrees F.
As we got ready to go to work, I noticed a good example of Cosmos ‘Seashells’ in the garden. I couldn’t get much of it (my favourite cosmos cultivar) this year so wanted some good photos. A friend of mine decided he just had to be in the photo shoot.
Cosmos ‘Seashells’
Smokey has on his BirdsBeSafe collar. He usually does not look this sinister.
Cosmos ‘Seashells’
We did our usual compost buckert switch stop at Olde Towne…where more out of town bicycle tourists were enjoying the great ambience.
Olde Towne Café
And then went to Seaview to have a look at a couple of landscaping needs at the Sou’wester Lodge. Oh what memories it brought back to be there because for my first year on the Peninsula, that is where I lived.
Sou’wester in snow, Dec. ’92
Now under new ownership, The Sou’wester has a plants for sale area by the front door.
To the north of the front door, the garden I planted years ago has turned to an area of large shrubs and trees.
part of my old garden
In the almost twenty years since I left there, many of the garden beds around the cabins have turned back to plain lawn, as one would expect, but some plants remain including the rose Felicité et Perpetué. I did not take as many pictures as I should have because of having an interesting time talking with new owner Thandi Rosenbaum.
I had not been back into the big historic lodge since President’s Day weekend of 1994. It was wonderful to be there again and brought back memories good and bad, but all worth having.
I had forgotten much, like what the fireplace looked like, even though I must have cleaned the hearth many times.
We looked at the four nightly rental apartments on the second floor of the lodge. The “honeymoon suite” has a different lace curtain hanging over the sleeping nook but has the same magical feeling.
Lacy sleeping area…On the second floor.
The Sou’wester is known for its vintage trailer accommodations and Thandi has commissioned some trailer art.
trailer paintings in apartment three
I have always loved the way the light falls through the windows of the lodge.
probably in apartment two
I think two is the one with the lacy bed…one the one with a red rug…and three and four the two west facing ones. It has been a long time!
This window of number four faces the second story porch.
I took this photo from the same window in December 1992.
I love the postcards over the bed in one of the apartments.
postcard art
The view from apartment four made me think about how now I would know better than to plant that beech under the power lines. I NOW remember that I thought it was going to be a short, weeping tree. I got it from Hall Gardens, a wonderful home nursery that existed near Nahcotta way back then (and later became the private home called Gypsy Pond).
view with a potentially too large tree (planted by me in 1993)
Amy, the housekeeper who has worked there for many more years than I did and who also sells plants there, asked me if I could identify two shrubs out by J Place. One we thought must be an Osmanthus. The other…I can almost remember. I got it from Heronswood mail order, probably. Thandi stands next to it for size:
She’s 5’2″.
Here’s a close up of the leaves…not very good because it was such a hot sunny day.
mystery shrub
leaves…what is???
We looked inside the amazing two story trailer called The African Queen, of which I had fond memories just because I liked it. When Amy spoke of not loving to clean it, I do remember it was a challenge with all its nooks. I also learned that in later years the previous owners of the lodge, cabins and trailers, for whom I had worked, had the staff (staff? before, it was just me!) just put sheets and bedding in the trailers and not make up the beds. I had to make every bed, and..with eighteen or so apartments, cabins and trailers, there were…oh I don’t even want to remember. The trailers were, of course, the hardest, being built in tightly.
While we looked at the interesting vintage RV, Thandi and her friend Alex pulled Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’, after we told them it could be pulled and not just cut back.
next to the African Queen
I used to have African Queen Oriental lilies and an African Queen Buddliea planted by The African Queen…I had forgotten the latter even existed till Amy reminded me. (It is still there, planted long before Buddleias made the invasive list….)
I said the volunteer tree should be cut down so the trailer mural shows!
The mural on the Disoriented Express still shows up well.
The Disoriented Express
I told Thandi, looking at the remains of my old garden and at the shrubs which would look so much better deadwooded, that I could imagine, if I lived in walking distance, coming over just for the fun of bringing some of it back. She offered to have me chauffeured from Ilwaco. Hmm.
one of my Sou’wester garden beds in 1993
Through making this garden I met Maxine…and her daughter Jo…and my gardening career started so it was worthwhile.
We passed this year’s possible landscaping job at Sou’wester on to our friend Ed Strange who has a young(er) helper who might feel more inclined that we do to tear out an overgrown garden bed. Then we can help plant it with something better than Siberian iris and the blah running yellow kind of Hypericum.
After all this goofing off, we went up to Long Beach to deadhead. With rain predicted, we skipped watering the planters. The soil was damp, yet the plants looked a little thirsty….but a good rain will be effective because of the already wet soil in the planters.
painted sage still looking grand
It better HAD rain or we will have to go back and water!
painted sage and cosmos
Oh, big news….I know the names now of the three cultivars of painted sage (Salvia viridis, sometimes called horminum): Marble Arch White, Blue, and Pink…looked at the seed packets at The Planters Box for a friend who needed the information.
Every year, when I see the dahlias in a couple of the planters, I think I simply must plant more “patio” dahlias.
fabulous dahlias
Maybe in 2014 I will remember to do so. They come back every year and bloom like crazy.
Speaking of crazy, check out the nasturtium…this one gets extra liquid fertilizer when the city crew waters the hanging basket overhead.
in front of Home at the Beach
trailing into the street!
by the door of the Wooden Horse gift shop, very beachy
We next went to the Anchorage Cottages. I intended to do nothing but quickly deadhead the containers, as we had done a lot of pruning there on Monday. Somehow, more pruning ensued today. Manager Beth asked if we could limb up a tree so she could get to the outside of the office window.
done, and looks great although I forgot before pics!
The volunteer hebe that was under a low limb is getting sun for the first time!
We also pruned the Ceanothus so that the number one shows really well at last.
Ceanothus, pruned
During the course of getting tools in and out, I photographed our rake in the back of the van.
Yesterday, I told Allan this rake makes us look poor.
We like the style very much and cannot seem to find a new one like it.
After The Anchorage, we deadheaded cosmos and weeded at the Boreas Inn.
Boreas Inn, west garden, with the sun cooling off a bit at last.
The only Lobelia tupa that bloomed for me this year still looks magnificent even as it goes to seed.
The Boreas tupa….
a garden doodad backed with Phormium
If the Lobelia tupa is blooming here because it is happy next to the Phormium, we have a problem…because I like to get rid of Phormiums now whenever I can!
Boreas, looking east
Allan remembered that we had to deadhead the Long Beach welcome sign; I might have forgotten.
back side of welcome sign with Acidanthera
Six Agyranthemum Butterflies later, we departed to water again at Crank’s Roost.
Crank’s, view from the back porch
Finally, in the last hour of daylight, we filled water buckets at the boatyard and Allan watered the Ilwaco planters while I groomed them.
Ilwaco boatyard
I happened to see Thandi and Alex from the Sou’wester again as I deadheaded near the Ilwaco Antique Gallery. After another pleasant conversation they went off to walk along the port and watch the moonrise. While I did the last few planters, I suddenly had this vision of living in an old trailer at the Sou’wester again and bringing back my old gardens. In an alternative universe, that would be fantastic. In this one, I guess I can’t go back!
Allan and I dropped off the trailer at home as the sun set….
looking west on Lake Street
We had a choice between making a fire in the back yard fire pit before the rains come and get our alder wood all wet…or going to see the harvest moon rise at the port. It would be too hard to set up a campfire at the last minute in the twilight, so the port moonrise won.
harvest moon
The sky seemed to get lighter as the big moon rose.
moonlight path
Allan’s photos:
Allan did the best job of getting the moon’s face. (We both have dinky cameras.)
higher
over the tidal flat
moonlight on the water between the port and Stringtown Road
And then, home….to pick some eggplants, as the edible harvest continues.
another little harvest
These are the first eggplants I have ever grown. I hope they were picked at the right stage. Allan has prepared them according to Joy of Cooking while I wrote this, and now it is time to eat them.!
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