20 April: easy work

Thursday, 20 April 2017

Pouring rain almost put an end to the idea of work.

We’d had this much rain overnight.

And then it stopped by midmorning.

I scheduled an easy day, which included a visit to THE Oysterville garden.  That self -guided tour will be our next post.

At home before work

Azara microphylla ‘Variegata’ and Skooter (Allan’s photo)

Erythronium (dog tooth violet)

Allan digging a Tetrapanax sprout, too close to the maple

Acer campestre ‘Carnival’

Acer campestre ‘Carnival, acquired from Dancing Oaks last year

Our post office garden looks unexciting so far.  I planted some bachelor button seeds.

The Depot Restaurant

I planted the wee sprout of tetrapanax in the garden on the south side of the dining deck…my second attempt to get one started there. Light weeding and deadheading ensued.

north side of deck

Tulip ‘Akebono’ (Allan’s photo)

the barrel by the east window

Tulip ‘Virichic’

Long Beach

A stop at city hall to pick up our cheque led to some deadheading and weeding.

the ramp garden

north side: pulmonaria still blooming

north side

signs of finger blight

city hall west side

Basket Case Greenhouse

I’m collecting plants for the upcoming Planting Time, so far just perennials.  I consider it too early for annuals, and yet, as always, I am concerned that folks who plant (too) early will get all the good stuff before I’m ready for annuals (round about Mother’s Day).

Darrel waters the many tempting plants in the annuals house.

Me and Roxanne with Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and some Erysumum ‘Bowles Mauve’

Buddy behind the desk

YOU, yes you (those who live here), should snap these callistemon.  It’s rare to see them for sale on the Peninsula!

heucheras

and more heucheras

Buddy woke up.

We left the Basket Case and took ourselves to Oysterville to tour its premier garden, one of the top two gardens on the Peninsula (the other being Steve and John’s bayside garden).  If there are better gardens here, I have not seen them. That will be tomorrow’s post.

Driving south from Oysterville, we saw Todd gardening at a Nahcotta bed and breakfast.

in front of the Charles Nelson Guest House

Todd Wiegardt at work

Allan’s photo

Klipsan Beach Cottages

We spent a pleasant two hours at Klipsan Beach Cottages. In a preview of Planting Time, Allan planted four Nicotiana langsdorfii, one Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’, and an Agastache ‘Acapulco Salmon and Pink’.

Sarah

driveway garden

Tulip bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’ has been going strong in this spot for years.

looking in the east gate of the fenced garden

Allan planting

He found a furtive dandelion.

tulips (Flaming Spring Green and a parrot in bud)

the burgeoning garden

Tulip ‘White Parrot’

blue inside

Tulip ‘Artist’ hiding under rhubarb

Tulip ‘Artist’

tree peony in bud

fringed pink tulip

Thalictrum ‘Elin’ will get about 7 feet tall.

“pink” narcissi

more narcissi

Fritillaria meleagris, in the lawn bed that I note needs mulching.

double hellebore

white narcissi

Podophyllum (Allan’s photo)

Mary, her friend Katie, Bella, and Katie’s dog Libby, back from the beach (Allan’s photo)

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photos: a hard to reach blackberry sprout across the pond

He got it.

Ilwaco

We drove around by the port on the way home, just to see how lively the 4-20 event was at the Freedom Market pot shop. (Their outdoor barbecue looked well attended.)

garden boat at Time Enough Books (PV=Plant Vessel instead of FV for Fishing Vessel).  Allan’s photo

Tulip ‘Akebono’

While Allan mowed at the J’s (across the street), I planted some poppy and bachelor button seeds in the back garden.  The weeded spots in the east and west bed have seeds, and the unweeded spots will let me know where I can put new plants (after more weeding).

a seeded spot

At the J’s (Allan’s photo)

Next, our tour of the Oysterville garden.

And we really do have to get back to the beach approach weeding!

 

 

 

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18 April: some easier jobs

Tuesday, 18 April 2017

We were revived by our day off but were not ready to face the rest of the beach approach project. Today would be a day of smaller, easier jobs.

Next to the driveway as we left for work:

tulips

Narcissus ‘Chinita’

Port of Ilwaco

An event this Thursday at a port business inspired us to deadhead narcissi all along the Howerton Way gardens.  We won’t be attending but we expect it to draw a crowd.

We want to make sure the gardens look nice for this business that watches out for flower jackers. (A few weeks ago, Allan got asked from the Freedom Market’s upstairs window what he was doing digging up plants in the garden. We appreciate that vigilance.)

We worked our way from east to west.

east end, looking west

The marina is across the east end parking lot.

 

nautical trash

The scrimmy little horsetails are not my mission today.

CoHo Charters lavascape

deadheads by the old Portside Café (Allan’s photo)

by the Fort George Brewery office

The old Shorebank building (now empty)

kinnikinnick looking really quite nice and making one big buzzing bee happy

Wax myrtle and arbutus that got the full windstorm blast from across the Shorebank parking lot…

Another storm blasted wax myrtle

We will trim up those shrubs before the May 6th Children’s Parade and opening day of Saturday Market.  No time for that today.

Allan went on to deadhead the west end while I weeded between Shorebank and the Port Office, including the little garden on the south side of the port office building.  The tide was low…

looking west

Little brown birds scavenging the muddy rocks

Looking east, with lots of interesting driftwood

In the wheelie bin enclosure, I found a salvage piece which will be great to add to our fence.  Its little doors will provide a peekaboo effect.

This went home with us.

 Interlude at home

As we parked in front of our fence, I thought about how interested I would be to see our garden as a passerby.

I’d be looking over the fence for a better view.

I remembered a few gardens in Seattle into which I used to peer through and over fences.

The cats had something to say about how we should stay home for the rest of the day.

Smokey

Skooter appears

Frosty

Calvin, being not especially outdoorsy, doesn’t much care whether we stay home or not.

Calvin woken from his usual daylong nap

The garden looked extra fine and tempting.

tulips and cardoon

Japanese maple (Allan’s photo)

golden bleeding heart

Tulip ‘Green Star’

Ribes speciosum still in full flower

Ribes speciosum and tulips

patio tulips

a lavishly fringed tulip (and Frosty saying, “Do stay!”)

tempting

I have pretty good willpower about going to work (necessary for longterm self employment).  Off we went.

Allan photographed this good old dog when we stopped at the bank to put a cheque in.

The Anchorage Cottages

Beth and Mitzu (Allan’s photo)

We expected to just deadhead and weed.  However, Beth needed help with the climbing hydrangea which had fallen over in the recent big windstorm.

They got it pushed back and well tied to the new trellis.

The wind was hard on a lot of the tulips in containers, especially in the office courtyard.  They fared better in the more protected center courtyard.

center courtyard; an array of pots is just to the right

some courtyard containers

purple fringed tulips

pink fringed tulip

window boxes with tiny species flowers

narcissi and unfurling sword fern

Long Beach

Next, we picked up from the city works yard as much Soil Energy Mulch as today’s buckets would carry.

our mulch stash, with plants that were removed from a defunct planter

Our first mission was to mulch the corner bed at Veterans Field.  Some sort of Veterans walk is beginning there later this week so we want it to look fluffy.

Allan’s photos, before….

during; an annoying and constant wind made the day cold.

after

With that done, I went on a deadheading walkabout of the city planters and street tree gardens, while Allan went to weed and add some mulch in two areas of Fifth Street Park.

He found this big lily bulb…

a bright orange tulip

and some annoyingly persistent horsetail

My photos while walking the planters:

Tulip ‘Flaming Spring Green’

foreground: parrot Tulip ‘Rococo’ in bud

Tulip bakeri  ‘Lilac Wonder’

bench sitter

Reminder to self: Put “dig out planter ivy” on the work board so I will remember it.

horrible variegated ivy.  I blame myself from many years ago.

exciting bud on Asphodeline

orange tulips

and a painted rock placed by California poppies that might be orange later on!

pink fringed tulip, and progress on defunct planter (the lamp post has now been removed)

some big tulips, windblown, chomped by deer, broken, or picked

In the same planter, Tulip bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’ have been blooming for weeks.

Note to self: plant many more ‘Lilac Wonder’.  They are my favourite species tulip and they do so well here.

Tulip bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’

I was awfully tired for the last two blocks of deadheading and figured as soon as we got home, I would sit down.

at home

At home, I took four buckets of deadheads out to the compost bins while Allan (almost always a man of boundless evening energy) set to mowing the lawn.

The compost bins inspired some compost turning.  A day of varied jobs is much less exhausting than an all day, same place weeding project.

I had gotten all excited when seeing the bottom of bin B:

It looked like it might be siftable!

It wasn’t.  But soon will be if I keep turning frequently.

bins after today’s turning

I need more green stuff before flipping another layer.

While Allan also mowed the next door lawn for our next door neighbour, I checked the hydrangeas over at the J’s garden for signs of life.  The twigs are green when snapped but still no leaves, not even at the base.

good looking sword ferns at the J’s

Back at home, a stunning narcissus with a deep green center (and tiny spider):

I got a bit of a start when I thought each leaf of my Davidia tree had a snail in it.  No, those are flowers buds

Not like the horrible snails everywhere in my garden due to lack of time to properly police them.

Allan’s photo

Tomorrow, yet another storm is due.  I look forward to reading a book.

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21 April: bayside garden picnic

Thursday, 21 April 2016

Tulip ‘Leo’ at home.  A Christmas gift from Todd that we have been admiring daily.

Garden Tour Nancy and I had our first “swanning about” day of the year as she drove us by five of the excellent gardens she has picked out for this year’s Music in the Gardens Tour.  (She could use a couple more large gardens for the tour, so if you know of any, let me know.  The garden tour rule is that a garden cannot be repeated till four years have passed since last time it was on the tour.)

We picked up delicious chicken salad sandwiches at Roots Juice, Salad, and Java Bar in Ilwaco.

Roots, a drive through for espresso, juice drinks and lunches

inside Roots

I did not take any preview photos of the gardens as we were viewing them just from the road.  Soonish, we will have a proper walk through for the purpose of description writing.

the bayside garden

We took a lovely break for a picnic at one of my two favourite private gardens on the Peninsula: Steve and John had invited us to include their bayside garden, now at its rhododendron peak, in our day of swanning about.  (It was on the garden tour just two years ago and also on last year’s Rhodie tour).

along the driveway, rhododendrons going back to when this was Clarke Nursery

redtwig dogwoods coppiced along the right side of the drive (for brighter red stems)

an old rhododendron to the right of the long drive

Advance garden touring is hungry work, so our picnic came first.

a perfect seat for a picnic

Nancy had brought me a bag of birthday gifts, delightfully stretching my birthday celebration out for an extra month.

Clever wrapping for a St Patrick’s Day birthday book: Chicken Soup for the Gardener’s Soul

and a bunny to go in a flower pot, and a pot holder much too pretty to hold pots with.  It will go on the wall.

And a customized card by our good friend Artist Don Nisbett with a perfect quotation inside:

Roots picnic lunch: chicken salad sandwich on flatbread

the view from our picnic spot

picnic view

Satisfied with our yummy sandwiches, Nancy and I took a walk all around the garden.  Formerly part of a rhododendron nursery, it is a skillfully planted combination of young plants intermixed with mature shrubs and trees.

Nancy inhaling the fragrance of Rhododendron loderi ‘Venus’

Rhododendron loderi ‘Venus’

The garden abounds in young rhododendrons.

hostas and perfectly trimmed sword ferns

(Last week when driving north on the road past this garden, I had noticed that even the ferns along the highway are perfectly trimmed.)

Ulmus x hollandica ‘Wredei’ by the pumphouse

The succulents on the pump house roof have sailed through the mild winter:

the Willapa Bay side of the garden; in winter, the highest tide comes up to (and maybe over) the plantings.

clipped naturescape of evergreen huckleberries and sword ferns

north side path

the north upper garden

old rhododendrons

woodland glade with rhodos and evergreen huckleberries

along the south side of the driveway

This tidal stream marks the south edge of the acreage.

The old irrigation pond

Due to my knee playing up today, we did not walk across the lawn to explore the pondside bed.

east of the pond

As always, this garden refreshes and inspires me (and makes me go to the internet to try to find a source for buying a reasonably large Rhododendron loderi ‘Venus’).

Meanwhile….Allan’s day at work

Allan took the opportunity to work on his own particular garden job at

The Ilwaco Community Building

Rhododendrons and Tulip ‘Flaming Spring Green’

Tulip ‘Flaming Spring Green’

Tulip batalinii ‘Bright Gem’

Rhododendron by the bus stop

the curse of horsetail before weeding

in the tiered garden bed

before pulling the accursed bindweed in the tiered bed

Long Beach

Allan went on to continue the weeding of the center berm by the Long Beach parking lot.

before

It is a hard packed and miserable challenge.

some progress made

after

after

There are still several feet to go.

Ilwaco

Allan and I briefly intersected before I had an evening of quiet reading whilst he went to dinner at the Salt Pub with his former spouse, Arlene, who was having a Long Beach interlude on her way to a beach vacation on the Oregon coast.

Arlene, who had recently acquired a darling mini Cooper.

reading

I have been reading the first of the Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard.  The library only has the first so I’ll have to acquire the rest of the series through interlibrary loan.  I am completely smitten with The Light Years.  EJH had been a favourite author of mine years ago.

How well she captures the joy of a child making a miniature landscape:

and the English landscape itself:

Tomorrow:  If we can get enough work done, we can have another three day weekend.

Ginger’s Garden Diaries

from my mother’s garden diaries of two decades ago

1995 (age 71):

April 21:  Wasted whole day waiting to go to the store.  Bought 12 pansy plants from Gordon’s [Nursery].

1997 (age 73):

April 21:  about 2:30-6:00   It was warm enough to work outside.  I planted the 2 astrantia replacements from VB in the patio bed next to RR ties.  Planted the 10 raspberry plants that have been potted since Feb.  Then cleaned weeds out of RB row and the path between RB and SB rows [raspberries and strawberries].  When I quit and came in it was 6 and Tabby was starved.

1998 (age 74):

April 21:  Dentist appt 1:00 for a filling.  The dentist office asked me to change appt to Thurs due to emergency in other office so this day is shot.  I called in $150 Bluestone order—mostly mums.  I cut the tulip flowers in tam area.  There are lots of weeds again.

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