20 March: sweet pea planting begins

Wednesday, 20 March 2019

The Shelburne Hotel

Allan examined the wisteria that we (mostly he) pruned a month ago. The buds are just barely showing. He was able to remove some more branches. Until they fully bud out, it is hard to tell what has been cut and what is still alive.

He checked the planters on the decks and planted some night scented stock, tigridia, and sparaxis in the bigger ones.

Tulipa sylvestris is the yellow.

I got the sweet peas planted all along the fence and mulched with Gardner and Bloome Harvest Supreme.

Allan watered the garden because it has been so hot, dry, and windy.

The wind was still mildly annoying. I must say that both yesterday and today were too hot for my comfort at 72 F. But…mustn’t grumble. A cold rainy day would have been worse.

Sun and shade

My Melianthus major survived the cold here and will have its old stems cut down after this weekend’s Celtic music festival. I thought the garden needed some height right now.

Long Beach

We picked up our check at city hall and learned that it’s been suggested that planting wildflowers is a solution for the beach approach planter thievery. That won’t work out there in the dry salty wind unless the planters get watered regularly (and not by us hauling buckets). The watering has to become part of the same it’s water truck routine as the watering of the hanging baskets…not as often but at least a couple of times a week. So far, wildflowers in general (poppies, for example) are not drought tolerant enough to take the beach front conditions without supplemental water. Only the plants most desirable to thieves…lavender, sea thrift, santolina…survive out there with no summer water.

I was cheered up from my brooding about it by the narcissi on the north side of city hall…

…and later by some street tree and planter narcissi.

We planted the sweet peas in Fifth Street Park. This involved a lot of hesperantha (formerly schizostylis) removal. It is so lovely in autumn and such a pest the rest of the year.

Allan removed the horrible mildew-prone Dorothy Perkins rose on the low fence in front of Captain Bob’s Chowder. Because of the low fence height and the narrow driveway, we can hardly let it bloom at all without it sticking out in the way of vehicles, and what blooms it did have were always nasty white with powdery mildew.

Allan’s photos:

I added some sparaxis and tigridia to the two nearby planters that we redid last year.

More glorious Tulipa sylvestris

I had thought we might get Diane’s sweet peas planted today, as well. No. The park took us well into the early evening.

Reading

Over the last couple of weeks, distracted by garden shows to watch, I slowly read a book at bedtime.

While I enjoyed it, I liked his later book, Sourdough, better.

Here are my favourite bits.

The passage below reminded me of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City (San Francisco).

I have been feeling lately like I have lived an awfully long time, and also that having fifteen reasonably healthy years to go is awfully short. Here are the thoughts of a much younger character:

On the work board, the sweet pea jobs have begun to disappear. The beach approach weeding is assuming a low priority at the moment as I am more interested in a day of mulching and improving the Boreas Inn garden and another day of sorting out, deep weeding, and some rearranging of the Shelburne garden.

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17 April: under the (good) weather

Tuesday, 17 April 2018

I got very little sleep because of worrying that we were both going to get sick.  With the clam festival coming up, we had much to do in Long Beach town.  There is no back up plan if we can’t do it; all of our other working gardener friends are even busier than we are.

Little dramas loom large when one is self employed.

Allan felt poorly in the morning with sniffles and a cough, and yet with the good weather, we did go to work.  It is maddening; we were so good about disinfecting our hands every time we went somewhere public, and yet…the germs got him.

If only we could have followed Skooter’s example:

Skooter

(Skooter has a chin condition, a problem common with orange cats, says the vet.  My orange cat of years ago, Valene, had the same thing.)

On the way, we dropped off a book at the library (housed in the Ilwaco Community Building).

at the Ilwaco Community Building

Tulip bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’ at the community building

The community building garden needs a bit of weeding…(not shown in the photos above).

In case I end up having to go to work on the bus later this week, we went to the two least-accessible-by-bus jobs first.

The Red Barn

Because I am thinking of using a different plant for the centerpiece of the Ilwaco planters, Allan pointed out how good the Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ looks at the Red Barn.  They get less wind here.

My very good friend Rosie was at the barn.

Diane’s garden

My very good old friend Misty greeted us next door at Diane’s garden.

snoozing

till the camera clicked

The septic box bulb display pleased me; we had missed some of it, of course.  After deadheading:

Muscari ‘Bling Bling’

Muscari paradoxum

I was pleased to find sweet peas just emerging along the picket fence.

The corner driveway garden needs mulching; soon, I hope. I asked Allan to take this photo, and did not get what I wanted, which is the fact that the Stipa gigantea grass is already showing flower spikes.  Oops, I should have specified.

Long Beach

Long Beach had been on the schedule for all day this coming Thursday, to get the parks and planters perfect for the Razor Clam Festival.  I was fretting about what would happen if we both got sick and could not work then.  So we did a lot of it today, which led to more fretting on my part that I was going to make Allan sicker by having him work.  I brooded about how I recently delayed one day taking Calvin to the vet, prioritizing work instead because he seemed not especially sick, and then…we know how that turned out.

We went down the six downtown blocks of street trees and planters, deadheading.  I felt reassured each time I saw Allan taking a photo, figuring it must mean he did not feel too terrible.  (He said, “It’s easier than working!”)

Allan’s planter and tree garden photos:

Tulip bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’ and Tulip ‘Silverstream’ and Tulip sylvestris

Geum ‘Mango Lassi’ and muscari

Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ in street tree garden (with tulip)

Tulip ‘China Town’ and Fritillaria meleagris

Tulip ‘Princess Irene’

AKA ‘Prinses Irene’

Tulip ‘Silverstream’

Van Engelen catalog says: A magical sport of Jewel of Spring, fragrant Silverstream ranges from creamy-yellow to deep yellow with red feathering, to red with every combination in between. But the surprise garden party doesn’t stop there: it has showy, attractive foliage with silver-white margins. (Did you know that the phenomena of marginated foliage occurs due to a lack of or insufficient pigmentation and chlorophyll in the plant cells on the outer petal edges?)

I did not think to smell the tulips nor did I notice white margins on the foliage.

street tree garden

Tulips ‘Green Wave’ and ‘Formosa’

Tulip ‘Formosa’

lower left: a tulip ‘Sensual Touch’ that went mushy with rain

My planter and tree garden photos:

Tulips that had been broken, and not by the wind.

Tulip ‘Silverstream’

As you can tell by now, I planted a big run of Silverstream through town.  I think they are too tall to choose again.  And the color variation is nice but it does not thrill me.

one of the viridiflora (green) tulips…too tired to look it up

Tulip ‘Strong Gold’ in one of the windiest planters. Short and strong.

Tulip ‘Strong Gold’

Tulip ‘Strong Gold’…would that all tulips were this tough

more Silverstream

Tulip ‘Sensual Touch’ and Tulip acuminata

Tulips ‘Sensual Touch’ and ‘Black Hero’

Tulips ‘Green Star’, sylvestris, acuminata

Tulip ‘Sensual Touch’

Tulips ‘Prinses Irene’, ‘Sensual Touch’, ‘Black Hero’

We also weeded in Fifth Street Park because…Razor Clam Festival!  Fifth Street Park needs so much more attention, and I hope we can do more later this week.  So much horsetail, so much wild garlic.  (No photos there.)

We went on to Veterans Field, which will be the central place for the clam festival.  It is not ideal to deadhead and weed four days before the festival, but needs must.

Veterans Field flag pavilion garden

The last time we were in Long Beach, Allan asked where the blue was in that arc garden.  I said the grape hyacinth along the edge.  Well, now look at what a string trimmer did:

Muscari ‘Ocean Magic’ as was

And right before the festival, when we were trying to make it perfect despite feeling poorly.  I wanted to lie down on the lawn and blub, but it would be too hard to get back up again.  Some white narcissi were also casualties along the edge.  Then I thought…Ok, maybe this is a sign that I do not have to struggle so hard and fret so darn much about making it perfect.  Maybe I can stop worrying about whether we will be able to get back to deadhead on Thursday.

Still….dang blang it!

On the way south, we deadheaded the welcome sign.

And finally, we paused at the

Shelburne Hotel

where I planted 9 more violas and two Agastache ‘Apricot Sunrise’.  I would like to have weeded more, but we had already worked four hours longer than I had originally planned and Allan was not feeling any better.  The question is, was it wiser to work today so that we can take a day off? Or did it make everything worse?  It would have been so bad if we had stayed home today and then both got sick and couldn’t do a thing before the weekend.  It would be even worse if we got even sicker.  Such woes of self employment have plagued me for the last 42 years.

three by the fig tree, the rest in front

If the gardens in Long Beach are not perfect when you attend clam festival, you now know why.  We forgot to stop at First Place Mall on the way south and deadhead the one dead narcissus that I noticed in the planter there.  I will try not to lose sleep over it.

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14 April: We had some rain…

Saturday, 14 April 2018

Looking out the front window, I noticed that the goldy-bronze Japanese maple, which I planted for eventual privacy, tones well with the cottage across the street.

Allan picked up some books from the library and did some deadheading there:

Ilwaco Community Building

Tulipa sylvestris

Tulipa (probably) ‘Peppermint Stick’

at home

In the early evening, Allan went on a splashabout in the back garden.

I wish that white bucket was not sitting there. Fire water bucket. I keep forgetting to move it.

in the bogsy wood

looking north from the Bogsy Wood

Bogsy Wood bridge

Bogsy Wood swale

the seasonal pond at the Meander Line

looking north

fairy door

at the north edge of the Bogsy Wood

lawn under water

In the evening, we watched the documentary Kedi, about the cats of Istanbul.  It was glorious.  You can watch it right here.

Skooter, lower right

To protect our telly, we had to put Skooter into the laundry room.  The soundtrack of meowing cats had him all in a tizzy. He never gets worked up by the meowing on the show My Cat From Hell.

After the film, I studied the first couple of chapters of this book, a gift from Lorna, former owner of Andersen’s RV Park, a longtime past job of ours..

I have looked at all the lovely photos before, but this time I am seriously studying it as I am not all that successful at intensive cutting gardens.  I am wanting a small one around the edges of the back garden of the Shelburne Hotel and would like to do better with cutting flowers at home because I am taking bouquets there on a regular basis.

A sweet story of how the author got started:

I don’t often pick bouquets for myself but I do like to make them for other people. I learned useful items already, such as succession seeding for annual flowers up till July 15th.  And planting them extra close together for cutting flowers.

After midnight, I looked to see how much rain had fallen on Saturday: 4.36 inches! And 8.55 since this storm began.

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3 April: volunteer projects

Tuesday, 3 April 2018

Anyone who read yesterday’s post script knows that today turned out to be a sad day with the loss of our thirteen year old cat, Calvin.

This morning, Calvin seemed fine.  I made an appointment for him to get his asthma shot in the mid afternoon just to prevent him having an attack over the weekend. I felt I was being a good cat mom to get it taken care of today instead of later in the week.

Meanwhile, Allan noted this view from our garden:

crab pots being stacked next door

The work side of the day:

I had been thinking for a few years about imperializing adopting a spot at the corner of the fire house and turning it into a little garden instead of weedy mini-lawn.  Once upon a time, it had been a garden, evidenced by the remains of a Siberian iris.  Various things got in my way: First, the onset of having a bad knee, and then having just too much work to find time, and then the news that someone else was going to adopt it (but that did not come to fruition due to busy life of the other potential volunteer).  Finally, this was the time to bring the idea into being.  Our town, like the towns of Long Beach and Ocean Park, have volunteer fire fighters.  A wee garden bed with an orange and red and yellow theme seemed like a good way to give something back.

11:30 AM

The garden bed is L shaped but we only did the square, not the narrow bed.  It might be where people step if they park where we parked today.  I might decide to dig it up the L and plant something there later on.  It is a troublesome mess of sod and dandelions right now.  (I know, dandelions are so good for bees, but these are string trimmed to the ground.)

First, the half moon edger.

Next, the ho-mi and the double tool. (Allan’s photo)

The mayor, also a volunteer firefighter, stopped by.  We learned from him that the old sprinkler system does not work any longer and is turned off (too many leaks) but that the firefighters do sometimes water the garden areas.

12:30 PM

At this point in the project, all our buckets were full of weeds and sod and so Allan went to dump them while I went home (two blocks away) to dig a few plants for the new garden.

the first gathering of sod and dandelions

Before going inside, I admired a few flowers.

Muscari macrocarpum ‘Golden Fragrance’

I forgot to smell that yellow muscari to see if it lives up to its name.

Muscari latifolium ‘Grape Ice’

window box with Tulipa sylvestris

In the house, I found Calvin in a sudden and shocking state of respiratory distress (he had seemed fine just one hour before), and we rushed him to the vet as soon as Allan returned.

While he was taken into the inner sanctum for treatment, we were advised to check back in a couple of hours. We went back to work, because that’s what we do, with the phone close at hand.

An hour later, after a phone call from the vet, we were back to the clinic because Calvin was failing fast, and, as I wrote yesterday, we made the decision to let him go because he was suffering so.  We will have him cremated, and so we just had an empty crate to bring home.

We then went back to work….because that is what we do.  The first thing I did was walk next door from the vet clinic to the Depot Restaurant and deadhead a few narcissi.

Tulip at the Depot

We went home for a short while so that I could dig up some plants for the fire station project….

the empty cat box 😦 (Allan’s photo)

…and then returned to the station to plant them.

4:30 PM

Allan’s photo

Ilwaco fire station and new garden

What I planted, quickly gleaned at home: Miscanthus variegatus, Helianthus ‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’, and some Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ (one place where they will be quite perfect!), Eupatorium ‘Pink Frost’ (just because I had a clump ready to go, might not leave it here because the color will sort of clash, don’t you think?), lambs ears, Solidago ‘Fireworks’, Oregano ‘Hopley’s Purple’, an eryngium (plain old blue), some bachelor button seeds, some red annual poppy transplants, some Sedum ‘Autumn Fire’, Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’, some stuck-in cuttings of santolina that will probably “take”.

The whole time I was thinking if only I had taken Cal to the emergency vet when he was coughing on Saturday–or taken him yesterday even though it seemed he was better–he might still be alive. I felt I had been too focused on work (because that is what I do).

While Allan dumped the second load of weeds, I moved to our other volunteer garden at the post office.  There, we encountered the boatyard manager who was able to assure us that the digging for the boatyard project will likely cross the garden at some point but will not require much more in-garden digging than that.

The post office garden has been looking messy with the annoyance of wild garlic and some low weedy grass and some shot weed.  As I was contemplating the disapproval of tidy gardeners, a postal patron said “Your flowers are so wonderful; I have lots of photos of this garden.”

before

after

Ipheion uniflorum

Bellevalia pycnantha (Muscari paradoxum); the bells are olive green inside.

muscari (Allan’s photo)

a painted rock in the post office planter (Allan’s photos)

At home, I picked a bouquet to take tomorrow morning over to the J’s for a guest who is there.  Here it is in a not very elegant kitchen sink photo.

It had been a sad day, so not much joy was taken at erasing two more projects from the work board.

We are expecting several rainy days. Usually, I’d be relishing the prospect of reading days. But now I think it would be preferable to have the distraction of work. On the other hand, the joy of work is sapped right now because it had removed my focus from where it should have been, on Calvin’s every breath.

I have gotten reassurance from many friends who’ve had similar experiences. We all wish our cats had been able to tell us exactly how they felt. “I’m still feeling a bit under the weather even though I played with my toys and ate my dinner.” “Ok, let’s get you to the vet right away.”

Frosty was a comfort while I wrote yesterday’s postscript about Calvin.

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1 April: reading day, privacy, and a strange visit

Sunday, 1 April 2018

We had a day of cold rain till late afternoon.

I finished A Man Called Ove, enjoying it completely.  (And have ordered the film.)

…..

I decided to read this book again, as I had liked it a lot years ago:

I realized about one chapter in that it was not for me anymore and turned instead to a book of essays, edited by Molly Peacock (who wrote The Paper Garden) and all on a topic that is meaningful to me, “privacy in a public world”.

My favourite bits…

From an essay by Cathleen Medwick:

From an essay by F. Gonzales Crusi:

(Oh yes, I get anxious if someone comes closer than those thirty inches.  I will back up.)

From an essay by Jonathan Franzen:

I still feel that scrutiny when walking to the post office in my town.  (We do not get mail delivery, so most of us visit the post office daily.)

My favourite essay is this one on small town living:

Here, houses are often referred to by the name of a family who lived there a generation go.

All of these essays were written before Facebook gave even more opportunity to gather information and scandal.

“hot, wild, and mean…”

I could tell you stories that have gotten round the Ilwaco circuit and back to me about things I supposedly have said or done that never happened and were not even remotely true.  And I am sure the same is true of all who live in this small town.

We had a strange encounter while I was reading the privacy book.  A ring of the doorbell and opening of the front door revealed a strange creature on this Easter Sunday.  The creature wanted to visit the back garden.

The sun came out as I read the book of privacy essays.  Allan commented that it might look nice out, yet the temperature was only 43.  That made me feel better about finishing the book today.  He went grocery shopping….

a pot of gold in the deli?

…and on the way home did a brief deadheading at the Ilwaco Community Building.

Tulipa sylvestris

a greiggii tulip

in the tiered garden

In the evenings this weekend, we watched two excellent documentaries: I Am Not Your Negro on Saturday night, and on Sunday Hope and Fury: MLK, The Movement, and the Media.

Tonight, Calvin seemed ever so much better and played like mad with his pinball-type cat toy.

Tomorrow’s forecast calls for rain and 30 mph wind.  I hope so, because I started to reread What Are Old People For? at bedtime, and if I can finish it tomorrow I will, for once, have no almost-overdue books pressuring me.  I also am anxious to find the answer to that question; I cannot remember it from reading the book a decade ago.  I grew up with vigorous and interesting old people, and I very much want to become one, but I am concerned about what I will be for if the time comes that I must retire from public gardening.

 

 

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29 March: boatyard, sweet peas, Salt

Tuesday, 29 March 2016

I had the strongest urge to get another beach approach section done.  However, the boatyard garden was the plan for the day and I decided to stick to that.  Both are jobs that are hellish in rain or wind.  We planted some seeds at the Community Building garden first, after Allan cut back an ailing shrub hard.

Allan’s photo, before, with salal in front.  

after.  I can’t get in there, too much climbing, or I would have said “Ah, just cut it to the ground.”

boatyard garden

looking south along the two block long garden, 11:49 AM

boat coming in

We overheard some boat guys talking, while two sat and watched one work.  “How old is Steve?”  “Oh, he’s 60 or 61.”  “Still young then!”

weeding like mad

As we were finishing the long section north of the gate, I saw a woman bent over at the far end.  I had been just about to sit in the van, eat my sandwich and rest my knee.  Allan went to see what she was doing and I followed as fast as I could hobble.  This middle aged woman, also hobbling, was digging up poppy plants and bulbs out of the boat yard garden and she also had flowering bulbs she had dug up out of the Howerton Avenue gardens around the corner! By the time I limped up, Allan had told her to replant the poppies.  I pointed to the flowers in her bag and she said “Those are mine.”  That was a complete crock because I knew they were the flowers of Muscari ‘Ocean Magic’, which is growing around the corner, mail ordered and planted by us. When she lied to my face I was simply speechless and let her walk away.

I so understand plant lust.  I also remember years of poverty in my 20s, and again one year of paying off medical bills in my late 40s, when my plant budget for the entire year was $20.00.  Yes, $20.00.  And did I go swiping plants out of public gardens?  I did NOT.  The worse things I ever did was take a cutting off of a rosemary plant growing in someone’s parking strip, when I was 25!  Sometimes I get the argument “But it’s a public garden!”  And how does that translate into stealing plants for one’s own PRIVATE garden?  I have a feeling this person is local and may be a continuing problem this year, as other individuals who have moved on have been plant thief problems in past years.

I volunteered a lot of time to create the boatyard garden years ago, before it became a paid job, and nowadays we volunteer our time and expenses at the post office garden.  Public gardens are not there as a supply source for people’s owns gardens, as most of us know.

That is OUR Muscari and Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ in her bag, and a firework,  of all things!

Allan googled the firework because he thought it was a shovel handle for more efficient plant thievery.

Ironically, she had been filching plants in the area right by this sign.

I found more muscari bulbs dug up and ready to snitch in the area where her depredations had been interrupted, and that entire stretch of garden was pretty much denuded of small seedlings, so this may not have been her first foray into improving her garden.  I fear she will dig up not just poppies but something precious of which I may only have one.  I also wonder every year why, when I plant dozens of narcissi bulbs along here, I get so few flowers.  Hmmm.  Sometimes I feel sorry for people when they get busted by us, but not when they lie.

We continued weeding till we reached the south end.

Nora J coming in

looking south, after, 3:06 PM, as I began to plant sweet peas.

Our weeding job was pretty good but not perfect.  The big horsetail are sprouting up so it will need another go-over soon.  Last year, I planted a few sweet peas just as a lark when I had leftover seeds.  To my surprise, some did well, so I planted more this year, mostly Streamers mix.

boatyard sweet peas last year

While Allan dumped debris, I sat at home for ten minutes.  My mission was to make some fertilizer mix for planting.  My knee had plagued me so much at the end of the boatyard stint that I had to use my scarf to drag it into the van, like an old dead thing, so Allan had to make the fertilizer mix when he returned.

Next, we replaced some of the old tatty Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’ in five of the planters, and counted how many more Erysimums we needed.

“yellow hoop petticoat” narcissi in a planter.

We had time to drive north to plant sweet peas at the Anchorage, passing the Long Beach welcome sign on the way.

welcome sign, front, with tulips just coming on

both sides

‘

welcome sign, back

Flowers made me forget the Finger Blight incident until Allan brought it up later.

The Anchorage Cottages

Mitzu greets us (Allan’s photo)

near the office

Allan’s photo: He pruned the viburnum so it won’t hide the window box

trilliums

trilliums

Fritillaria meleagris (Guinea Hen flower)

Tulup sylvestris still going strong, and miniature narcissus

Tulip ‘Green Star’

Tulip ‘Green Star’

Tulip ‘Virichic’

Tulip viridiflora, not sure which one!

maybe older Virichic come back from last year?

a fringed tulip from a few years back

fringed tulip

Tulip ‘Gavota’

Tulip ‘Strong Gold’

flowering currant

On the way back to Ilwaco, we paused at a planter so Allan could take a couple of photos for me.

Tulip bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’ spread into a large patch

Tulip bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’

The sign goes back to volunteer days.

The four planters I did as a volunteer almost 20 years ago caught the attention of then-city manager Nabiel Shawa (“Magnificent!” he said), who suggested we be hired as city gardeners.

Allan and I decided to have dinner out, again…and along Howerton Ave, I photographed my special Muscari that had been getting filched from earlier today.

Muscari ‘Ocean Magic’

If several passersby each decided to dig up a bulb, there’d be none left.  Fortunately, most don’t.

We soothed our nerves at

Salt Hotel Pub.

Salt

our view

more view

evening light, Saddle Mountain way across the Columbia River

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

delicious tuna melt

One fun thing about the Salt sandwiches is that you get three “halves”.

The work board is getting back to focusing on the beach approach.

One of these days we have to get to the back corner of Coulter Park.

There are no entries from my mom’s old garden diaries to correspond with today.

The thought that tonight is the premiere of the new Deadliest Catch season kept me going through some painful moments today, and now it is time to watch!

from a Deadliest Catch ad by Peter Jaworowski: makes our job look easy

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8 March: gardening day off

Sunday, 8 March 2015

If all goes according to plan, by the time you read this, I will have returned from a five night trip to the Sylvia Beach Hotel.  The blog has fallen well behind, thus there will be two posts for today.  Tomorrow I will try to have a post for the whole work week in one and perhaps there is some hope I can return the blog to only being five days behind.

Skyler’s day off: At home

gardening

After a late start due to the welcome switch to daylight saving time (which I LOVE), I started out with some small gardening projects.

First, I want to show you the cute little paper “house” that came as the free gift with my bulb order from Colorblends last fall.

with Tulip sylvestris

The Colorblends catalog is where I originally discovered the glorious Tulip sylvestris; now Van Engelen also carries it.

Gracie, a good friend of mine, was across the street.  I visited briefly to give her some pets.  She has gone blind and can no longer come visit me.

Gracie today, on her own lawn.

Gracie visiting me in my back garden last year.

My plan was to spend the day pulling wild impatiens (Impatiens glandulifera, touch me not, jewelweed) seedlings out of the garden in my continuing quest to have only one small contained patch of this irresistible class two noxious weed.

wild impatiens, so ztunning it’s a darn shame it’s on the bad list.

I found an article in a British publication in the defense of wild impatiens, suggesting there is no good reason to classify it as noxious because it does not actually push out native vegetation and is easy to remove.  I wish I could find that article again. Other sources list it as a moderate scourge.  It is certainly true that I have loads of seedling sprouting from seeds cast by a few plants that came in from seeds carried on transplants from another garden. All of which probably originate from the fact that a garden I used to care for was absolutely full of it. All “my” gardens (jobs) get free plants from me, and sometimes I take back starts of said plants, and that is, I think, how I got the wild impatiens in amongst my own plants.  I have now eliminated the impatiens from all but one of our jobs.  (The one is a garden from which it will not spread for various reasons, mostly being extreme dryness of soil.) On the state noxious weed list, it’s a class B weed.

“Class B noxious weeds are nonnative species whose distribution is limited to portions of Washington State.

• Species are designated for control in state regions where they are not yet widespread. Prevention of new infestations in these areas is the primary goal.”

ANYWAY, here is one of four areas that I intended to weed today:

There is quite a scrim of impatiens to the back of this bed, now only an inch or less tall.

Toward the front, the Hamamelis (winter blooming witch hazel) is covered with apricot scented flowers.

and so is the Ribes speciosum

which looks a lot like a fuchsia

Here is the other area I intended to weed:

north side of house, before

And I did.  Mission accomplished, after cutting back the Rubus lineatus, and Allan helping me to dig out two running clumps of it.

after

However, before I got that bed weeded, I got distracted by this:

during the removal of some grass-infested golden oregano

after

While working over that bed, I pondered how yesterday Pam Fleming, Seaside’s gardener, told me that she goes through all of her wonderful streetside plantings each spring, dividing, fertilizing and mulching the plants.  I realized yet AGAIN that we simply do not have the time to do this in Long Beach, and I fretted for awhile AGAIN about having too many jobs.

Finally at about 5:30 I got back to the original weeding project.  Allan and I had set forward every clock but I’d forgotten my own watch and it was later than I thought.  By then, a cold wind had come up so I did a fairly half-arsed job before going inside before dark and finishing a book.

after

As I began my gardening day at home, I had just a glimmer of a dream of what it would be like to have more days in our own garden.  Imagine the ideas I might have to make this garden more of a paradise.  But then, depending on our replacement, Long Beach and Ilwaco might be less of a garden paradise.  It’s a dilemma. 

reading: 

For the reading part of today, I am publishing a second post this evening.  I’d like to keep my appreciation of the author separate from the garden blog, to make her more searchable.  If you prefer to read about gardening (and sometimes boating), I encourage you to wait for tomorrow’s post.

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5 March: fluffing up The Anchorage

Thursday, 5 March 2015

I was so glad to be done with the rounds of big spring clean ups and back to regular maintenance that we got kind of a late start on work; the pressure was off, and we skived off a bit on the way.  First, we dropped some tax forms off at the Port Office and admired the garden on the south side of the building.

Port office garden

Note the cute dog at the end.

The transit bus parked outside had murals showing some of what our town has to offer.

Speaking of Discover Ilwaco, we had noticed quite a few new boats in the boatyard on the way, so we headed back there just to take some photos for the Facebook page.

Ilwaco boatyard

Maui just arriving

Laura Marie

Steel Breeze

Fear Naught and Island Star

Allan’s photo of me taking photos

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

Allan’s photo

You can see photos from a couple of years back on Our Ilwaco blog (which has pretty much been superseded by this one, at least until I retire) here (its beauty) and here (working on boats) and here  (how the Travelift works) and here (boat names).  A lot of boats have Marie as a middle name.

Basket Case Greenhouse

We followed a truck with two dogs along Sandridge Way toward The Basket Case Greenhouse.

a matched set

Our mission at The Basket Case: to acquire some violas to make the Anchorage Cottage planters look perkier for the owners’ meeting this weekend.  (We got some for Ilwaco and Long Beach, too.)

first open day of the season at our favourite local nursery

I like violas with small flowers better than the ruffly pansies.

two staff members

inspecting the plant boxes for sturdiness

Tomorrow (March 6th) we will return to get some photos for the Basket Case page of the first shipment of plants that will considerably increase the plant variety on offer.

The Anchorage Cottages

We finally arrived at our first job!  Yesterday, we had encountered manager Beth at the coffee drivethrough and she had asked if we could come this week to fluff up the gardens for the owners’ metting.  Fortuitously, we had planned to be here on this very day.  The Anchorage was our first stop on spring clean up work rounds and therefore became our first stop on our maintenance rounds.

Allan went to work on the south end gardens and courtyard. Left, a shade garden on the north wall of two of the cottages.

Beth herself had done a great job of removing an annoying glut of Lady’s Mantle out of the circle courtyard.  Allan weeded the rest of it.

We brought three bales of Gardner and Bloome for fluffing.

Soil Building Conditioner used to be called Soil Building Compost.  How odd of them to change the name to Conditioner and to make Gardner and Bloome small print with “G&B” in big letters!

before, Allan’s photo

after, Allan’s photo

I planted violas and then weeded all around.

The bed on the east wall near the office does not look like much yet.

Here it was last summer….

with a lily that perfectly matched the sign

our viola haul

My favourites have faces with whiskers.

I burbled them in water buckets till they stopped producing air bubbles…

and planted two in each of the four window boxes

along with Narcissi and Tulip sylvestris in bloom.

circle courtyard after Allan was done

hellebores in the shade bed

pulmonaria (spotted dog)

Center courtyard all weeded again.  (It has way too many scilla from olden days; used to have way too many calla lilies but I seem to have prevailed over them, at least.)

Anchorage center courtyard in summer 2014

A couple of tulips have returned in the garden bed. I’m surprised the visiting deer have not eaten them.

‘Sailboat’ Narcissi in the center courtyard

The office window

with Hyacinth and golden variegated vinca

Beth had recently purchased this lemon cypress (now in center of pot) from Dennis Co in Long Beach…quite a find!

against the chimney in the office courtyard

Gavota tulip looks great with brick. This one returned from a planting about three years old.

from 2013:  Maroon and Yellow Tulip ‘Gavota’ goes well with brick.

Long Beach

After the Anchorage, we went to Dennis Co where I hoped to find some lemon cypress for myself…but they were all gone.  We at least got a couple of big garbage cans for catching downspout rain water at home.

tree garden in front of Dennis Co

Allan drove to the “Big Pop Out” to cut down a pampas grass while I walked two blocks worth of planters, checking for deadheads and small weeds.

planter just north of Dennis Co

This planter by Dennis Co is the one I keep meaning to dig out as it has too much vinca. This is the only time of year it looks good.

Tulip sylvestris

I thought this Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ was so old it would need replacing; now look how happy it appears.

Just north of the Heron Pond, I stopped into NIVA green to take some photos for proprietor and artist Heather Ramsay’s Facebook page, making the third page for which I’d gleaned photos today.

inside NIVA

the very cool birch trunk shower curtain in stock again!

an old rake turned into a thing holder

After that interlude, I joined Allan at the Big Pop Out, just south of Boo Boo’s Putt Putt Golf on Ocean Beach Boulevard.  While mini-golfers shouted with glee, Allan chopped away at a “dwarf” pampas grass.

hard at work

Meanwhile, Susie from Boreas called and asked us to join her and Bill for dinner at the Cove.  Even though we had planned to not dine there till dusk, we left the weeding partly undone to meet them at 5:30, because life is short.

before, Allan’s photo

before, Allan’s photo, with damnable rugosa roses

after today, but not really after, as we must return tomorrow (Allan’s photo)

as we left it (Allan’s photo)

We dumped debris at the City Works yard as quickly as we could and hurried to the restaurant at the Long Beach Golf Course, arriving only ten minutes late.

The Cove Restaurant…

where “Fish Taco Thursday” is a tradition of ours.

in the foyer, tulips in a vase, bulbs and all

The menu reflects plans to open a “noodle Wednesday” dinner evening starting at the end of March.

menu perusal and discussion (Allan’s photo)

Chef jason Lancaster and Boreas Bill discuss the menu.

Bill looks appreciative as golfer stroll by outside.

spicy chicken wing appetizer for the table (two each)

Bill’s Mayan Puerco Conchinita

Susie’s noodle bowl

Allan and I had ahi tuna

and I fulfilled my craving for prawns solo

We all had Sondra’s apple cake for dessert…

Next, our maintenance rounds continue in Long Beach and at Andersen’s RV Park.

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