Thursday, 18 April 2024 Ilwaco Post Office garden At our little volunteer garden, Allan dug out a clump of Solidago ‘Fireworks’ (goldenrod) that was infested with the rampant pink geranium. I did general weeding and contemplating how unsatisfactory I find my efforts in this garden. Allan moved a piece of driftwood for me… I got rid of some bulb foliage and we both dug up some of the invasive Spanish bluebells that, like the pink geranium, we did not plant here. I guess it looks a little better. I was feeling like I had lost my ability to create beauty. The usual compliments from passersby ..read more

Wednesday, 17 April 2024 at home Today was going to be a work day, but Sandridge Road was closed for road work of some kind and we couldn’t get to the Red Barn and Diane’s. The crab pot wall next door is getting even bigger! They are tying it down where it is close to our fence. The gear shed owner, when I admired their work of cleaning up all along the west side of the shed where blackberries and bindweed were rampant, said he is amazed at all the birds he hears in our trees when he arrives at dawn. I really should try to hear the dawn chorus just once. I turned to bin three to seek enough c ..read more

Tuesday, 16 April 2024 at home Allan took Zinc for a practice walk on the harness. She managed to slip out of it once before, when he thought she could play near him on a long leash, so she must be supervised. After a short walk, she went back into the south catio. I wonder if walks will make her feel she wants to be in the whole garden all the time. Watering season seems to have begun early. We are warned of a possible frost tonight, and nothing would make my propagated plants in pots unhappier than being cold while too dry. And the fish totes need water where I planted peas and broad bean ..read more

Sunday, 14 April 2024 at home I went outside to garden in the late morning only to be turned back by a cold wind and what felt like a chilly damp mist (even though the pavement stayed dry). I returned to my comfy chair and finished the book about Buffalo gardens (see yesterday’s post). When that was done, even though I very much wanted to start another book, I thought…it being two o’clock…that I should go out and do something garden-physical for one hour, just for some daily exercise. Even though I felt cold at first, I soon got involved and was out there for four hours. Past the fish tote kit ..read more

Saturday, 14 April 2024 at home The crocs sandals that I had ordered came, but despite my desire to give my sore toe room, they didn’t work….I felt my foot was slipping out the open back. The same delivery had brought Allan a pair of boat shoes with wide toe room, and they fit me, so I absconded with them (but will buy him a new pair). They have no arch support, which is not good for me (I was born with flat feet) but…lack of toe pain is my priority for gardening. We did a little project. I took all the plants, about six flats worth, off of the pallet cover that Allan had put on top of the fo ..read more

Thursday, 11 April 2024 at home The promised rainy reading weather stopped at mid morning, rather to my disappointment. As often happens when I am taken by surprise by good weather, I turned to a compost project. I had decided to put some of the assorted clumps of different kinds of sanguisorbas, including one I had to move while shifting a path and some others that had reseeded too vigorously. It can be a pest of a plant and yet is one of my favourites. I had already put one big clump in the boat and needed to build up with mulch around it. I made a mixture in the wheelbarrow of sifted coir ..read more

Tuesday, 9 April 2024 at home We had had some rain overnight and in the morning, which then stopped. Thus I had to abandon my plan to read all day. I returned to compost bin two, roughly sifting the lower portion, which I had left like this a couple of days ago…. ..and got to the bottom! I applied it to the area where I’d done the difficult weeding of pasture grass, horsetail, creeping buttercup and, at the back, an annoying running grass with fine roots (but not couch grass). When I started on it a few days back, it looked like this from the back, looking west: And now it looks like this ..read more

Monday, 8 April 2024 at home Faerie enjoys being a little bully to Zinc, pinning her down and making her cry, and when Faerie does this, she puffs up her normally skinny and unimpressive tail. After causing trouble, she slept the hours away. On this rainy day, I read an enjoyable memoir/how-to gardening book by a British gardener with whom I felt I had much in common, including gardening while experiencing physical difficulties. The Timberland Regional Library system has it. This is familiar to me: “I may have started managing my expectations, but still had a long way to go to manage my ima ..read more

Sunday, 7 April 2024 at home I had expected a day of reading weather after the night and morning of rain evidenced by the red rain gauge. Reading weather was not to be. I decided to plant one of the little trees or shrubs from Tony, a rather heavy one in a pot with no drainage. After I got it out to a spot by the deep swale, I became nervous that, because I was planted it on a tilt, I might fall in. I asked Allan for assistance in planting it. Skooter also joined in. (To the lower left is a clump of lesser celandine that Allan later pulled, because to reach it also involved leaning over the w ..read more

Saturday, 6 April 2024 at home We had rain. The predicted rain all day actually ended by early afternoon, which was fortuitous because we had two friends arrive to pick up the remaining give-away clumps of Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’. Allan had brought the wheelbarrows to the tarp for easy transport to our friends’ two vehicles. Artist Dorothy Danielson from across the river took some clumps and a couple weedy clumps of Siberian iris. She had just been to The Basket Case and bought some plants at the conclusion of helping a friend move into Golden Sands Assisted Living. I must remember to tell her the ..read more