Thursday, 22 February 2018
I awoke and thought “We will MULCH!” I had talked with Shelburne owner Tiffany about getting a pile of mulch delivered, but over the course of working at the Shelburne for a couple of days, I had realized there was no good place to have a mulch pile dumped. The hotel will need all its parking places soon when the pub opens, and right now all spots are taken up with workers for the refurbishing. I made an executive decision to start the day by getting a yard of mulch for the areas we had cleared. A plus: We could dump our load of debris at Peninsula Landscape Supply. Some work time would be added picking up the mulch, but then time would be saved by being able to park (we hoped) near our mulch target area.
Peninsula Landscape Supply
The lava rock showed the cold.
(Lava rock is my least favourite; Pen. Landscape Supply also has grey gravel and river rock.)
P.L.S. owner Colleen gave me two cute pavers.
Inside the garden shop:
I was thrilled to learn that on March 2nd, P.L.S. will be going to their full seven days a week instead of three days a week. (The three days a week winter hours is why I felt we must apply mulch TODAY.)
One yard Soil Energy (Allan’s photo)
“Soil Energy combines composted wood products, aged screened sawdust, screened sand, composted chicken manure, lime, fertilizer and iron. (pH 6.2, brown tan in color, 38.9% organic matter).”
One of their big trucks waiting to load up after us. (Allan’s photo)
The Shelburne Hotel
We had earlier this week weeded along most of the fence and had removed fennel and yellow flag iris. The soil there had been low already. I was so pleased when we had returned to this job to find that over the years, something I had wanted very much had been done: A board along the back of the sidewalk bed to make it possible to raise the soil to sidewalk level.
before
Allan loaded soil into the wheelbarrow for the front garden inside the fence, while I applied soil along the sidewalk with buckets.
I spy an aster.
Allan’s photo
Allan’s photo (too much hesperantha)
Allan’s photo
When I got to the south end of the sidewalk garden, Allan helped by digging out two Spiraea douglasii, a beautiful native shrub that used to fill up this end of the garden. Its bloom time is brief and it is a pushy runner, so these two starts had to go. There is still one left on the inside, and will be forever, I suppose, because its roots go under the fence. “It spreads by rhizomes, and is very aggressive, It often forms dense colonies and can quickly become the dominant species in a wetland habitat.”–nativeplantspnw.com
These would want to get as tall as me.
That was hard work and I am so glad Allan will tackle a task like this.
after
I salvaged three Kniphofia (the classic old red hot pokers) and replanted them.
If you know me well, this will shock you. I planted some starts of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ on the north side of the entry way:
That is because I will never be able to eliminate these Lucifers from the south side:
The Crocosmia is actually a good plant. I’ve just gone off of it because it has taken over some areas in Long Beach. It is pushy but not as horribly pushy as orange montbretia (aka crocosmia). Orange and red pop against the dark green hotel. That is good because I’m sure I will never manage to completely eliminate the orange montbretia, whose corms are deeply entrenched in shrub and tree roots in some areas.
I am the one who originally planted the Lucifer here years ago. I kept it contained to a couple of small areas. It has gone on a rampage since then and is (or was, till this week) all through the garden.
I decided to send Allan for a second yard of mulch while I weeded madly to have enough garden prepared for it. In picking up a pile of wisteria trimmings (clipped by another worker) to send with him for dumping, I found a surprise:
Here is the source of the yellow flag iris starts that were all along the fence!
Iris pseudacorus is a class C noxious weed here. It is not mandatory to eliminate it. However, we (meaning Allan) are going to dig up this patch on our next day here. It does not bloom at all in this dense shade and so many better things could replace it. I would like to get some cyclamen starts from Our Kathleen if she has any to spare, and I could transplant some epimedium into this spot and some hellebore seedlings. I hope that gardeners from the Big City will stay at the Shelburne and be pleasantly surprised to find garden treasures to admire.
back at Peninsula Landscape Supply (Allan’s photo)
While Allan was gone, I transplanted some hardy fuchsias that were in front of two small rose bushes, blocking them from getting sunlight. The fuchsias went down to the rhododendron end. I loosened up three more big woody fuchsia clumps that my wonky back suggested I wait for Allan to remove. When he came back he did…
Anytime he is working in that area, I fretfully cry, “Watch out for the windows!” We are both excruciatingly careful back there. The windows were imported from England.
Here is a historic photo of the Shelburne, before two buildings were joined together to make a greater whole. It used to be across the street from where it sits now.
Along with loosening the fuchsia clumps, which would like to be so tall that they would block the windows, and one of which was swamping a rose bush, I had ruched out loads of running aster roots. It helps that the roots are a distinctive pinky-purple. And I had also pulled out two buckets full of pink-rooted Lysimachia punctata which had colonized almost all of the garden on the north side of the entry. I will let some grow but I want more variety. Lysimachia punctata is a plant that is so aggressive that I have (almost) completely eliminated from my garden.
The three fuchsias (plain old Fuchsia magellanica) had to go away; their roots were infested with bindweed, scilla, and aster. There are still many smaller specimens left of the same plant.
Allan’s photo
Have I mentioned these want to get tall? A passerby familiar with the garden said that in recent years, “from across the street, you could hardly see that the building was there”.
A cleared area. The aster will come back but in moderation. The white phlox can breathe now.
second load (Allan’s photo)
Allan’s photo
5 PM with the temperature dropping rapidly
looking south from the north end, with montbretia still to be edited, on the right
I’ve started weeding out the grass along the sides of the round pavers and moving some of the loose river rock to the very north end outside the fence. I would love to have had time to finish that weeding, but the ground was starting to freeze and we were running out of daylight.
looking south. The southernmost end still needs to be weeded and mulched.
looking north from the entry way, before Allan did some more soil smoothing.
Allan’s photo, after soil smoothing with the back of a rake
Here is how it looked three work days ago:
Monday, before, looking north from the hotel entrance
looking south from the entryway, 5 PM today
Here is how it looked three work days ago:
We need to weed and edit up to the north end fence. One more yard of mulch will finish the front garden mulching. I have many the cool plant in my garden which I will divide and plant into this garden. The good kind of passalong plant. I look forward to days warm enough to start that part of the project.
Salt Pub
Tonight was our weekly North Beach Garden Gang dinner. This time, the core four of us were joined by Our Kathleen and by Todd (Willapa Gardening).
We gave Todd his belated birthday presents.
Allan’s photo
two books: Cutting Back, my favourite gardening memoir of the last decade, and The Essential Earthman by Henry Mitchell.
“–Henry Mitchell was to gardening what Izaak Walton was to fishing. The Essential Earthman is a collection of the best of his long-running column for the Washington Post. Although he offered invaluable tips for novice as well as seasoned gardeners, at the heart of his essays were piquant observations: on keeping records; the role of trees in gardens (they don’t belong there); how a gardener should weather the winter; on shrubs, bulbs, and fragrant flowers―and about observation itself. “The most soul-satisfying gardening book in years.” ―New York Times (thanks to Leslie Buck for finding this quotation)
Cutting Back made me want to meticulously shape up so many shrubs and trees…I have not had time to get to all of them.
Todd, who had been with his twin sister in Hawaii for his birthday, brought us all delicious Hawaiian chocolates.
We had the most excellent conversation about everyone’s latest gardening and home projects. I fear that for awhile I dominated the conversation with Shelburne this and Shelburne that, because I am obsessed.
Our delicious food:
cheese curd app with chipotle sauce (Allan’s photo)
crab mac and cheese
pork belly poutine (I would have had this if it was chicken poutine)
smoked tuna melt with salad subbed for fries
Melissa showed us this photo of her garden a couple of days ago:
photo by Melissa Van Domelen
When I got home after dinner, I had a chat on the phone with Bill and Carol Clearman, making for a good end to a satisfying day and evening.
Friday, 23 February 2018
I woke with an intense desire to get back to the Shelburne and dig up yellow flags and edit the orange montbretia and finish weeding the north end so that we would be ready for more mulch. I was so determined that I did not care that it was 29 degrees. (Our Kathleen says the low at her cottage halfway up the peninsula was 21F this morning. Her cottage is set down in a “holler”.) Normally, I would not work in such cold weather. But I am obsessed.
Just as Allan was getting the trailer ready for work, snow began. I looked at the weather report and saw this:
Never mind. I’m not that obsessed.
Even this picture on my bookshelves failed to inspire.
It became a blogging day. With this post done, I can do another book list post. (Late last night, I posted Reading in 1993, so I have a long way to go.)
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