29-30 July: finishing the work week

Wednesday, 29 July 2015

Golden Sands Assisted Living

Golden Sands: in the courtyard, four quadrants of flowers

SE quadrant, hoping to evoke memories of grandma’s garden

lots of tall maddening horsetail infesting that quadrant. It was previously snapped off but now was growing four new shoots from the top and a fifth at the next joint. (Allan’s photo)

NE quadrant

thrilled that I got sweet peas to climb the Joseph’s Coat roses

monarda and cosmos

persicaria and elephant garlic

mom’s coppery rose; I am hoping to strike a cutting of this for me.

my mum’s birdbath (used to be at her house)

NW quadrant…still the least of the four, possibly because in parts of it the irrigation seems to be missing certain plants.

SW: It’s all rather a mishmash because of acquiring most of the plants for free (passalong plants)

We have been doing supplemental watering with the hose every week as the shrubs outside the quadrants are not hit by the sprinkler system. The white hydrangeas especially need extra water.

White hydrangeas, background, are outside the water pattern.

I’m wary of messing with an area that has wiring, but would love to replace those old Siberian iris with something more drought tolerant. Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ perhaps, of which I have oodles.

I had found some short lilies blooming at the back of the NW quadrant.  I cut them and gave them to Pam, the activities coordinator, for a bouquet so that the would be seen.  Must remember to move the bulbs forward this fall.

lilies in a bouquet in the common room; on the wall are mailboxes for residents.

Edible Garden Sneak Peek

Between jobs, we took a peek at a garden which will be on the August 9th edible garden tour, to get some tantalizing preview photos for the tour’s Facebook page.   It was a fascinating garden, all in containers, with even the artistic home made patio being portable, because the residents are renting and would like to be able to take their whole garden if they have to move.

sneak peek!  They even make their own concrete planters.

I’m saving the rest of the photos to incorporate into my edible tour day blog entry.

Marilyn’s garden 

Next, we did some weeding and grooming of Marilyn’s garden, way up in Surfside.

I can report that echibeckia seems to be deer-proof, as a doe and fawns frequent this garden and it’s untouched.

The deer are leaving about 3/4 of the phygelius flowers for us.

I heard the voice of a friend.

my good friend Scooter!

Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ starting to bloom.

Scooter and an Echibeckia

a sweetheart

I clipped some plants so the path is clearer. (looking south)

Wind, or possibly deer, are knocking some of the tall ornamental grasses all about.

When I look down, there he is.

The neighbours’ garage is hidden now (looking west)

looking north down the path

There’s my friend again.

Klipsan Beach Cottages

Agapanthus and Strobilanthes atropurpurea; the strobilanthes is blooming early.

Agapanthus

I used to have a mental block remembering the name “Agapanthus” til I associated it with “It’s a mystery=Agatha Christie”.

Salvia viridis

one of Mary’s roses

looking SW over the birdbath

Geranium ‘Ann Folkard’

Bench area will be made bigger this fall.

SW corner of the garden

Hydrangea ‘Izu No Hana’

the lower part of the fenced garden

Rose ‘Jude the Obscure’

the lawn bed, Allan’s photo

I love all jobs where I don’t have to worry about watering.  Mary and Denny of KBC and Marilyn’s daughter Nancy do an excellent job at the watering.

Ilwaco

While Allan watered the Ilwaco planters and street trees, I watered the boatyard from behind the fence.  The long hose that I loved has gone missing, alas.

this week’s obstacle course

I wonder if anyone has noticed I managed to get a few sweet peas to climb the fence?

a new boat

Thursday, 30 July 2015

The Depot Restaurant

supplemental once a week watering of the new area

cosmos and lilies

east wall

north wall with flowers by The Basket Case Greenhouse

Long Beach Welcome Sign

front, with echibeckia outflowering agyranthemum (and needing way less deadheading)

adding supplemental hose water along the front as the soaker hoses are not doing the trick

back of sign; the cosmos takes lots of deadheading, and I still love them

The Anchorage Cottages

I’m pleased with Agastaches in containers! (‘Acapulco Salmon and Pink’ here)

successful sweet peas in the office courtyard

trimmed back the ceanothus so it no longer pokes into the parking spot

Center courtyard agastache: Manager Beth’s spouse was hose watering.

Oh how I tire of fighting against the 20 mph wind at work these days.

our good friend Mitzu leaning into the wind

Mitzu with the wind blowing her ears (Allan’s photo)

Long Beach planters

the second of two weekly grooming and watering sessions

I always enjoy the happy carousel music.

Allan’s photo, planter on 7th South

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo, he dotes on this volunteer Eryngium at the curb of this planter by Lewis and Clark Square.

Allan’s photo: Lewis and Clark Square planter

northernmost planter, as the wind continued to blow at 20 mph

I popped into NIVA green, my favourite shop, to get some photos for the Facebook page.

nautical towels

birch tree trunk pattern shower curtain

kitty things

Long Beach parks

deadheading done in Veterans Field gardens

Allan’s photo: FINGER BLIGHT in Fifth Street Park

Two big daylilies AND this orange montbretia that snuck in MUST go this fall.

feathery pink Sanguisorba canadensis and Melianthus major

a bottlebrush sanguisorba backed with baptisia

We had time to check on the Sid Snyder beach approach planters, in which we had turned on the mostly futile soaker hoses before going to the Anchorage.  The hoses had done very little good and the planters on that stretch look just pitiful.  We deadheading the wee kite museum garden and drove on to dinner.  On Ocean Beach Boulevard, we saw that someone has again adopted one of the little sidewalk popouts by a vacant lot, a tiny garden that otherwise would be just be unwatered ornamental grasses and crocosmia.

Whoever adopted this little garden, bless your hearts!

If I could find out who does this, I could show that person where to hook up a hose to water more easily.

The Cove Restaurant

At last, dinner with Dave and Melissa at the Cove.  How we look forward to this all week.  It’s especially pleasant for me and Allan because it’s our last day of the work week nowadays.  We get to schmooze about the workweek with other jobbing gardeners; what a blessing it was for us that they moved here.

Tired but happy diners. In the background, Lynn checks on our table, and to the left in the background is restaurant owner Sondra.

Dave has settled on this pork dish as his favourite.

pretty sure it is called Mayan Pork Conchita.

my Caesar salad with anchovies

ahi tuna, my favourite

We’ve started having desserts lately at The Cove.

a fruity cheesecake

Now: three days off.  I am delighted that I have only one small excursion off of our property (lunch with Our Kathleen on Saturday).  Allan has grander plans involving his boat.

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

22 July: The longest day?

real time reminder:

The day that this post publishes is Edible Tour day.  See you there?

coming up August 9th

Wednesday, 22 July 2015

Every year seems to have one day that drags on till dark and qualifies as the longest day, and today may have been it for 2015.

Copy editors:  I know I change tenses a lot.  I don’t mean to switch from past to present tense.  Sometimes, a work memory is so immediate that I switch to present tense as I relive it.

Ilwaco

Allan watered our volunteer garden at the Ilwaco Post Office garden while I watered my potted plants and ladies in waiting at home.

Allan’s photo: someone is stripping the flowers off this lily at the post office, on a daily basis.

Allan’s photo: lily buds dropped on the ground. The stripping is too thorough to be a deer.  You can see his  and the cameras shadow.

Allan’s photo: It’s grasshopper time.

post office watering (Allan’s photo)

at home: Nicotiana langsdorfii has been a champ in the garden this year, whether here in the drier front garden or in the more lush back garden.

Mary sees us off.

I am sure she would rather I stay home, as she likes to be with me in the garden.

I would rather like to have stayed home.

on the way out of town: the planter by Queen La De Da’s on Spruce Street.

Jenna gives this one and the one across the street from her shop extra water, so it is thriving. Too bad all the merchants don’t do that for their adjacent planters…It would be so easy.

A planter that gets watered daily does better than one that is watered every third day, which is what the city budget and our time allows.  Just sayin’….it’s not that hard to take a jug of water out to the planter by one’s business…or is that too much to wish for?  The Portside Café owners also give theirs extra care, and it shows.

The Planter Box

On the way north, we stopped at the Planter Box to get some new plants for the biggest Long Beach planter.  I was impressed with how lush the plants look; it is not easy at all to keep them all watered.

Planter Box: me and co-owner Theresa; it’s a family business started by her dad and mom, who have almost retired.

roses

shades of gold

Rudbeckia ‘Irish Eyes’ (I had to buy one for me)

blue agastache (hyssop)

Eryngium ‘Blue Hobbit’

Celosia ‘Forest Fire’

Allan’s photo: snapdragons

With some plants acquired, we went onward to our first job.

Golden Sands Assisted Living

I hope that our four flower quadrants in the courtyard at Golden Sands remind residents of cottage gardens they once knew.

from the south hallway window

SE quadrant

NE quadrant

dahlias

oh, yay…have successfully grown sweet peas up my mom’s Climbing Joseph’s Coat roses.

dahlia

NW quadrant

SW quadrant

just one third of the length of hallways that we traverse to the garden

This was actually a short day for the north end jobs, because we did not have Marilyn’s today; we do it every other week now. So we went straight from Golden Sands to…

Klipsan Beach Cottages

Photos taken after an hour of weeding and deadheading; Mary and Denny keep the gardens well watered.

Geranium ‘Ann Folkard’ drifting around

Ann Folkard: a stunning hardy geranium

Dierama (Angel’s Fishing Rod)

the straight path (made for easy wheelbarrow access) in the fenced garden

the weekly view SW across the birdbath

I wish I knew the names of Mary’s roses.

Agapanthus

Agapanthus (lily of the Nile)

Strobilanthes atropupurea…very hardy here, blooms later than this usually

Nicotiana langsdorfii in front of lilies and Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’

lily

Salvia viridis (painted sage)

We planted the Clematis ‘Rooguchi’ that we acquired at the Basket Case end of season sale.

daisies in the lawn border (outside the deer fence)

It was a hot day. The refreshing splash of the pond waterfalls helped.  That’s a plastic fern hiding the pipes…good idea.

The A Frame deck: I often think it would be nice to be a guest here, sipping a glass of cold white wine and just chillaxin’.

Long Beach

First, we went to the city works yard and got several buckets of Soil Energy mulch from my pile.  Allan took some to Fish Alley to top off the four barrels there.

Fish Alley, Allan’s photo

diascia and santolina, Fish Alley, Allan’s photo

At last, we took the crapulous old Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ out of the Lewis and Clark Square planter.

old and tired Erysimum

before

after; we had picked up some soil at LB city works to fill in.  The white is sluggo, because we found lots of snails.

It did not look as great as I had pictured so I added two zinnias that I had bought for me.

Because it did not end up looking as full and wonderful as I had imagined,  I wished I had brought more plants.

Allan’s photo

Next, we went to Oman Builders Supply to get some lumber for a home project which you will be reading about soon-ish.  It’s for an idea proposed by Pam of Seaside.  $200 plus of lumber later…  A worker there had brought her new puppy!

puppy was getting belly rubs

Ilwaco

A brief stop at home to unload lumber and pick up the water trailer battery and some hoses….

In the front garden, my Rose pteracantha was giving just the effect I wanted…

sunshine glowing through the thorns

Even thought the foliage does not look impressive, I was thrilled to see a flower on one of my pineapple lilies.

Mary probably thinks we are home for the evening. (Allan’s photo)

leaving home again…phooey

Allan did his usual hour and a half watering session of the Ilwaco trees and planters while I watered the boatyard garden.

watering from behind the fence (Allan’s photo)

We have had no rain to speak of. Across the street, birds were pecking at ice from one of the fish trucks.

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo of a local fellow heading back from paddling out in the Port of Ilwaco. (I bet Allan wished to be boating instead of watering.)

the usual obstacle course for boatyard watering

as always, interesting boats

boatyard garden, looking north from the gate

looking north at the whole length of boatyard garden as I leave for further watering rounds

looking east along Howerton

looking northwest back at the boatyard

My mission now was to water all of the Howerton Avenue gardens at which I have hose access: Time Enough Books, the port office and Nisbett Gallery gardens, and the Bruce Peterson gallery garden.

As I walk east, I ponder this scruffy little spot. I decide to imperialize it by throwing a bunch of poppy seeds in here this fall. If we get some rain…could be good next spring into early summer.

West end garden…suffering in the drought.  The most difficult one to water.

a soothing view while I unhook the port office hose to hook it up to a faucet closer to the Howerton gardens.

As I water the gardens by the Nisbett Gallery, Don comes out to chat and tells me he has been watering them also, and he means absolutely drenching them.  He unhooks the hose for me and hooks it back up at the port office, bless his heart.

thriving gardens by Nisbett Gallery and Port office, thanks to Don’s extra watering.

looking west along the Time Enough Books garden, which has extra cool plants because we’ve been doing this one for years.  Sometimes bookstore owner Karla adds some extra water, too.

I show Don where someone snipped themselves a bouquet of lavender. Do they think I won’t notice? I notice everything. If everyone did that, there would be NO flowers left.

Eryngium ‘Sapphire Blue’ starting to fade

I love that I can flood these small beds with water and let them soak in. Happy plants.

Gaura lindheimeri ‘Whirling Butterflies’

Allan, having finished the Ilwaco planter watering, is coming along after me.  His plan is to use a long series of hoses to water the gardens at the west end, and to also use it to water Salt Hotel’s curbside garden to pay them back for their water generosity.  They’ve been letting us use their hose and water to water two businesses other than their own.

Allan will water this one also.

I do a bit of trimming and weeding the garden above but I give it up and move on when a drunk guy who has hunkered down between two buildings starts yelling at me.  Not a pleasant working environment.

By now, I have realized Allan is having trouble because he is so far behind me.  I call him and he tells me what is going on:  Because the owners of the business close to the garden will not let us use their water, Allan is hooking up to a faucet at the docks, but wrestling with three hoses takes time.  Then he found that even three hoses was not long enough to reach, so he borrowed the Salt Hotel hose.  The Salt hose sprung a leak and he said he felt responsible because he has been using it to water for the last few weeks.  But the leak looked like the hose had been burned…but did he have to get them a new hose?  I said Oh my gawd I am too tired to even think about that, but if it looked burned, it was not our fault.  (He talked to Salt owner Laila and she agreed, but he still felt bad.)

Allan manages to get the hose all the way to the Salt garden.

Here’s how he did it:

I leave him to his struggles and walk several storefronts to water the Peterson Gallery.  Then, even though I am so tired, I unhook the Peterson hose and haul it several storefront west to the bank, where I have found a faucet that I can use just to get enough water for their street trees, so they won’t die in this drought.  This will save Allan some time and I know he must be exhausted.

When he gets to the Pavilion, I water the garden there with his hoses while he takes the Peterson hose back to hook up to THEIR faucet.  I lack manual dexterity and am lousy at threading and unthreading hoses to faucets. I imagine how good the gardens could be if I could devote the time we now spend hose watering to garden design and care instead.

I am so tired, I can only imagine how tired Allan must be.  Fighting with four hoses is like being stuck in a nest of (nonvenomous) snakes.  I can’t help him water the east end garden, so I leave to walk three blocks to home.  (Using the water trailer would take him twice as long, because he has to wait for the tank to fill, and then wait for the water to pump back out of the tank onto a garden.)

Allan hauling hose back to the trailer, to drive down to the east end garden.

By hooking up to the newly discovered (by us) dock faucet, Allan is able to give the east end garden a proper soaking for the first time this summer.  He had been hauling 20 or more five gallon buckets there once a week and tipping them out onto the garden.  (Picture also having to lift 20 heavy buckets of water out of the trailer.)

I walk home past “the lost garden”, thinking about how it once was carefully bordered with rocks, that now show because it has been strimmed.  The woman who created it is long dead, and the garden is gone.

the lost garden

home just before sunset. Mary comes to greet me.

So does Smokey.

Allan gets home after dark.  Next time he will take another length of our hose and he’ll know his routes and the lengths he needs, so it should go faster. Thus ends what I hope will be the longest workday…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

2 September 2007 — Rhaphithamnus, why???

goodbye to a beloved botanical friend

For some unknown reason, my Rhaphithamnus spinosus…both of them…are dying, and after I had raved about them earlier this year and said every gardener should have one.  One day I saw a haze of brown in the background out the kitchen window and realized that one of two of these glorious Chilean trees, acquired about 7 years ago from the Heronswood of old and now about ten feet tall, had turned all crispy.  At least, I thought one survived, and it looked fine as I took photos of its stupendous berries.  But yesterday, when I went down into Allan’s garden, I saw that the second one is showing curling and drying of the small evergreen leaves.  I have no idea why, and it is so rare that Googling brings me few results…and only one place to buy a new one, a nursery back east.  Deb of Rainyside told me that Cistus had it a few years back, so perhaps they will carry it again.  Meanwhile I am sad.

Today I spent much time fighting with the overgrown Akebia in the back corner of the garden where no one goes because it is such a jungle.  This gave me a chance to enjoy that area, and it is now so much more accessible that maybe guests will dare to venture there.  Soon I may actually have enough progress to have an after photo of the overgrown path. I’m always impressed in the late summer with the Strobilanthus atropurpurea which is growing well back in that shady area and also in sun against the house wall.  It seeds around freely. This fall I intend to dig some out of the path to distribute among our clients (who so must have this plant, but every year I forget to share it), so until then the “after” path photo will have to wait.

Both the above plants gave me a hard time remembering their names.  I had to write “Rhaphithamnus spinosus” on a index card and put it in my kitchen window where I saw it whenever I looked out at the back garden.  I finally learned to remember “Strobilanthes” by associating it in my mind with “strobe light”.

Late summer bloomer Strobilanthes atropurpurea in shade and in sun

Yesterday I planted more of my new plants.  My “pot ghetto” is down to six plants on a small table and one gallon pot on the ground.  Yes!  We have been toying with the idea of going to the HPSO plant sale, but I think that I want a rest from new plants, a sensible plan which involves getting new areas prepared before more plants take over the entry patio.  A radical and unusual plan for a collector, but it might be worth a try.

(above left) TINY pot ghetto (Right) Allan reclaims space

Meanwhile, Allan has been working to reclaim the fireplace patio and the secret upper deck. The path was under so much leaf litter you would not even know it is there. The words “cobbler”, “children”, and “shoes” come to mind.

more garden vignettes: (left) My wonderful Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Frisia’ in Allan’s garden; (right) a thriving pot of annuals on the stone steps

Having opened this entry with strikingly blue or purple  berries, I’ll close with some more.

I was amazed to find that Lonicera ‘Red Tips’ (left) has the same colour of berries as Lonicera pileata (right). I had no idea.

Read Full Post »