Tangly Cottage Gardening

The yearly planting of the annuals started slow with the loading of a few perennials for a garden down the street.

by our driveway

The iridescent purple African daisy is a division from one in Judy’s garden.

I tend to linger a bit while packing up the vehicle with the daily items in order to admire nearby plants in our own garden.

a clematis on the garage wall

Just on the verge of the beginning of annuals hell, I thought we should make an appearance at our newest job, Mayor Mike’s garden. My policy now is I will try to take on any pretty garden in Ilwaco because of the quick commute time, and I certainly was not going to say no to working on the mayor’s garden, especially since it is right across the street from another job, Cheri’s garden. Mike operates an RV park next to his home, and one of the residents walks by our garden a lot. (Most of them do because it is on the walking route to the post office and store.) One day last week we saw her at the post office and she said she wanted to see sunflowers in Mike’s garden. Then the next day, walking past my garden on my day off, she said that she realized that would not do because it was supposed to be a red, white and blue garden. She asked if there were such a thing as a white sunflower. Why yes, Italian white, and as it turned out I happened to have some seeds of exactly that. We went to Mike’s on Wednesday just to weed, plant a few perennials (to make our own mark on the garden!) and I did put in three little patches of white sunflower seeds, with fingers crossed.

Mike’s garden

Now, that can’t be all red white and blue, thought I, because I see rose campion which will have magenta flowers and the previous gardener, Carol Jones, had installed a whole row of my one of my reseeding nemesis plants , pink flowered geranium ‘A.T. Johnson’.

a row of A.T. Johnson; Carol probably got it from me!

(probably) Pink Panda ornamental strawberry is also not red!

Carol had planted several areas in delicate blue flax, a plant that I rarely see in gardens, and very pretty it is.

blue flax

To be safe, the perennials I chose to plant fell into the possibly desired colour range.

Eryngium ‘Jade Frost’, Variegated figwort, Lobelia tupa

We were happy that the soil was damp, so someone waters this garden and it is one less watering job we need to do.

The next morning we encountered Mike at the Post Office (there is no mail delivery in town so you will see almost everyone at the PO eventually) and told him the sunflower story. He said it is not a red white and blue garden by design. (Whew!) Uh oh, it turns out he did not want sunflowers just because they would look out of place. I confessed to the planting of three would-be clumps of Italian White to please the RV park folks and said I did not think they would look too bad because they are a rather elegant sunflower. We shall see. With my not so great luck with seeds, they may not grow at all.

The ridiculously dry weather meant that we had to water the Ilwaco planters. I had a very few plants ready to go into them….

Erysimum ‘Apricot Twist’ and some Diascia ‘Blackthorn Apricot’ with the pretty yellow of the Portside Café.

Each street tree has simple perennials at the base. I would love to take the bricks out because they are so annoying to weed. Maybe someday. Maybe this year!

tree garden

The boatyard also needed watering. Imagine my dismay when I found the crew had sprayed round up or some such along the gravel on the back side of the fence.

sprayed Linaria

sprayed California poppies

Why???????? AND the spray had drifted and distorted leaves on the back of the garden itself. I put on my softest voice and talked to the head of the crew with utmost self control; really. Really, I was very nice. I WAS!! He said it will never happen again. I believe him. I did point out that only the pretty seedlings were killed, and horsetail did not even flinch.

He promised never to let them spray again.

A nice local woman stopped as I continued watering and asked if I were really busy with work. I told her so busy I could cry so please don’t even ask! Could I recommend any other gardeners, she asked, and I said I could not think of any that were not also totally overbooked. It is a problem! I could set the right person up with almost a full schedule of jobs that we cannot take on.

After all that, I was happy to stop for the second to last Olde Towne coffee klatsch with Judy and Patt. (Patt has been working part time locally even though she moved to Battleground because of her spouse’s work transfer; her job ends next week and with it our weekly coffee get together….a break I can ill afford the time for during garden season but I remind myself that life is fleeting and friendship is more meaningful than being caught up on work.) Today we were joined by would-be, someday Peninsulite Kathleen, who hopes to retire here and would love to find an affordable vacation home in the meantime. We had met because she vacations at the Anchorage Cottages till her dream home materializes.

I must admit I vented about overwork and the “weed” spraying almost before sitting down and it took at least fifteen minutes and one of Luanne’s delicous vegetarian sandwiches before I relaxed. (Thanks for listening, P, K, and J.) With all that, I forgot to take a photo of all of us. Here are Kathleen and Patt, after Judy departed. (Allan had gone off to water Time Enough Books and some port gardens.)

Kathleen and Patt

Allan and I then drove off to the Basket Case Greenhouse to start the serious acquisition of annuals. Walking through the first greenhouse, I almost had to sit down from dizziness. It was a little scary. A lot scary. The same thing happened a year ago while I was deadheading the Anchorage planters, so I remembered that I had survived that. I soldiered on and felt better after (on owner Nancy’s advice) drinking a whole bottle of water. I had not drunk any since before watering the boatyard, just an iced double latte at Olde Towne. One MUST remember to hydrate while gardening.

Crisis averted, the annuals were gathered and off we went to Andersen’s RV Park to begin the yearly planting.

Calibrachoa ‘Lemon Slice’

The above “million bells” has been a big seller at The Basket Case this spring and I did not get as many as I wanted. Just the name makes my mouth water.

Petunia ‘Pink Lemonade’

Last year I discovered Pink Lemonade petunia when it was almost sold out. I have never been big on petunias but many people love them, and they are appealing to me more with the great new colours, especially Pretty Much Picasso. (The next day when I added more annuals I discovered I had almost missed the PMP chartreuse and green ‘tunia: there were only five left and I snagged them all! Nancy has used a lot of them in her hanging baskets.)

At Andersen’s I planted Agyranthemum ‘Butterfly’, a great bright yellow d0-er, along the back of the Payson planters…

three Payson Hall planters

…with some Cosmos ‘Sonata’ and some Sanvitalia and those lemon slices tucked in among overwintered diascias along the front. Owner Lorna had not liked the white with peach cups Narcissi against the white building so Allan replanted all of them over by the restroom/laundry/clam cleaning building. He made an interesting curve.

Allan’s design

I was so pleased to see that a patch of rugosa roses has grown in so thickly that it hides (almost) the one area of weeds that we never got to.

the advantage of rugosas

And…jackpot!! Diascia ‘Blackthorn Apricot’ almost perfectly matches the new paint job on Lorna’s benches. Lorna wanted it peachier in colour, but maybe with this perfect match in pots nearby the colour will be more acceptable.

It’s a miracle!

(She probably wanted the benches exactly that Diascia colour.)

We planted seven big pots, worked till after seven and still did not get the picket fence garden weeded. We need more plants for Payson Hall so back tomorrow.

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