Wednesday, 6 April 2016
As I was preparing to go to work, I saw a bunch of shifty looking characters hanging over the front fence looking at the garden. Oh! It was our friends Steve and John! and Betsy Millard, director of the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum, and other members of the Community Historian group, heading down the street to look at the historic Colbert House.

with Tetrapanax ‘Steroidal Giant’ in foreground

John and Steve
I waylaid Steve and John and dragged them into the garden, with continual apologies regarding how far behind they had fallen on the historic walk.

Smokey says hi.
I apologize to Betsy for interrupting the tour and I do hope Steve and John did not miss too much of it.

The historic Colbert House at Lake Street and Quaker Avenue.
Long Beach
The annual Clam Festival takes place this weekend. Therefore, we deadheaded and groomed some street trees and planters.

Allan’s photo of a narcissi coming up through a “plant washer”…a washer someone had dropped in a planter.
Allan weeded in Veterans Field, the main location for the outdoor part of the Clam Festival.

Allan’s photo, Vet Field garden

Allan’s photo, anemones

While grooming the nearby garden by Kabob Cottage, Allan found this froggie.

planter by the police station (Allan’s photo)
While Allan weeded, I checked on another block of planters.
There was the usual amount of annoying Spring Break finger blight.

here, a blossom…

and further on, a stem…

…of what would have been a beautiful Dutch Iris.

This is deer, not human, damage, with tulips nipped off…

and even pulled right out.

Beautiful Tulip ‘Rococo’ on one side of a planter.

smashed flat by standing? or sitting? on the other side of the planter. Damn it!
Me, to a male tourist by Funland: “Sir, I have to work on these planters, would you please not spit in them?” He apologized, abashed. Why, why, why, must some of the menfolk spit?
Some good things:

a glorious fringed tulip

Tulip bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’

Tulips ‘Virichic’ and ‘Exotic Emperor’

Tulip ‘Exotic Emperor’

Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ and ‘Exotic Emperor’

Tulip ‘Formosa’, which USED to always bloom in May.

Tulip ‘Rococo’, also used to bloom in May, but has been early last year and this year.

Tulip ‘Rococo’
beach approach
Where we left off last time before being interrupted by bad weather:
I had been optimistic about having finished 2/3 of our more recent section. Nope. We’d done more like 1/2 before getting rained out on Sunday.

before (Allan’s photo)

before

before

Allan’s photo

passersby (long telephoto by Allan)

after, including the short end cap that we did weeks ago.

sidewalk tile by Renee O’Connor

lots of passersby today (and some Santolina ‘Lemon Fizz’ added to a planter (Allan’s photo)
I got to pet a four month old puppy and to admire a gorgeous Weimaraner. Allan saw a funny doggie sight:

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

after (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo
We deliberately left some shaped clumps of clover, for the bees. I heard a passerby say to her child as I weeded, “They’re taking all that clover out.” Not quite all, and I do wonder if people will view it as just weedy.
We got done with the section left over from Sunday and were able to embark upon just a bit of the penultimate section.

Yay, we are about to cross the driveway!

section 11 of 12.5 (The .5 is already done.) Before (Allan’s photo)

The buoy is our goal. (Allan’s photo)

digging with the ho-mi (Korean hand plow)
I said we would stop at six. At six, I wanted to continue, and felt happy when Allan kept weeding. I said “I could go till seven”. Then I stopped for just a moment and all of a sudden I could quite simply do no more.
We got this far:

Allan’s photo

an early (6:30 PM) end to the day due to my running out of steam.
At least that is a head start on tomorrow, when I hope, oh so fervently hope that we can get this section done to the planter and the next section done to the end. That will be a challenge.

We have this far to go.

We have come this far since we began at the arch days ago.

What remains might be impossible in one day. (Allan’s photo)
I can dream.

We are this far.

Using a scarf to haul my locked-straight knee into the van. Dang, that hurts.

I long to erase “beach approach” tomorrow.
Ginger’s Garden Diaries
from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago
1995 (age 70):
April 6: Bruce took down the two 3-tier baskets. I added more plants from the Floralight [3 shelf plant gro light table].
1998 (age 73):
April 6: Again I was determined to finish the strawberries and I did. I have 24 flats of plants and each one must have about 50 plants. I even dug up the 1 1/2 rows that I had interplanted with new plants. They needed dividing so I took them up. Now the entire garden can be filled on Sat. I also pulled the multiplier onions and put them on a flat.