Tangly Cottage Gardening

Friday, 6 March 2026

Ocean Beach Hospital and Black Lake

First (after a morning of puttering) we made a good effort to join the Ilwaco hospital rally in a cold drenching rain. There were but three of us. There would have been four, but Allan locked his keys in the van before going into the library to pick up some books, had to go back into the dry library and fish around for the spare key in his wallet, by which time the other three of us had packed it in because of of the rain. I didn’t have time to change clothes and get dry before we drove to Astoria to see my ear doctor. Another of the four was expecting loads of guests for a 90th birthday party that she was hosting and also would not have had time to change. Leaving after a mere ten minutes did give us time to drive by another rally and take a video of another drenched bunch out of the passenger window. I made a little TikTok. The song is not quite true since we did quit, for good reasons.

@tanglycottagegardens

#smalltownprotest #indivisible #healthcareforall #savemedicaid #rainyrally two rallies in the rain

♬ We Don’t Quit – Apexos

The ear appointment was good. The ENT doctor interpreted the hearing test I had recently and said I had lost the usual amount of high end hearing, but that the range for human voices had been excellently retained and that a hearing aid would just be annoying because my hearing was so good. He also said I am allowed to wear induction headphones. (They will arrive Monday.) He agreed they would not help with the neighbour noise because they don’t block ambient sound but would be excellent for my outdoor practice walk if I dared walk down the block, as I would not want to be conspicuously playing music along the sidewalk. He and his spouse moved house because of a day care situation like the one we are experiencing; his sympathy is strong.

I thanked him for the referral to the physical therapist. He proved his caring nature because he had already read some of my PT’s notes and knew I was doing well.

Saturday, 7 March 2026

Long Beach

We had a break in the weather permitting us to enjoy rather than be drenched at a Long Beach rally in the afternoon.

And of course I spent a little bit of time in iMovie making a film for a TikTok.

@tanglycottagegardens

#smalltownprotest #indivisible #makegoodtrouble #iceoutforgood

♬ Get Up, Stand Up – Bob Marley & The Wailers & Chineke! Orchestra

I haven’t felt like gardening due to the raw cold, and frankly, I am hoping for some rain so that I can read three books in the next three days.

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A farewell…

Before we went to the meeting, I got a message and then had a phone call with the best friend/landlord/housemate of my ex-spouse and former co-gardener, Robert, and learned that Robert had died yesterday after two serious operations in hospital in Vancouver, Washington. I had not seen him around since retiring from Long Beach and did not know he had been so ill in the past year.

He worked with me for much of the first eight years of my gardening career here, and the news is sad. How do you mourn someone who was no longer in your life? He relished life and was also a tormented soul who struggled through life physically from the effects of having had polio as a child and came down with post-polio syndrome, heart attacks and a mild stroke in his 60s, through all of which he persevered.

We met at a week-long anti war rally at Seattle’s Federal Building plaza in January 1991.

How young he looks. He died at age 72.

Here are some photos of what were the happiest years, the first two when we were together in Seattle.

The first few years here were happy, too.

With our dog, Bertie Woofter in 1994-6:

Making the garden in our new house in Ilwaco, 1994.

He was incredibly handy, built us an extra room, and here he had just installed this window for some friends.

Toward the end of our time together, we were still creating gardens. The work was hard and not very lucrative, which made life challenging.

Our time together ended in July of 2003 in a story that I have somewhat told in the early part of this blog. Despite all the problems, he was making me laugh up until the last week that we lived together.

I just want you to know he was here, he was funny and brilliant and talented and skilled at music and building and welding garden art (have a look at that old blog post) and gardening, and he continued to be beloved of his friends up until the end.

I am pretty sure this Pogues song is the he would want to be played in his memory, although it might be a tossup between that and their song Streams of Whiskey, which he used to play on repeat. Although he was from the poor side of Philadelphia, he was very in tune with his Irish background.

Tuesday, 3 March 2026

at home

A few weeks ago, I had a great big path idea. More than a path, a bridge that will make it possible to have a Three Bridge Walk, inspired by the Tootlepedal blog. Toward the end of this post, Mr. Tootlepedal takes one of the “three bridges walks” around the town of Langholm, Scotland. This post from another blogger shows well more than 3 bridges around the town! We must settle for three small wooden bridges, two already in place.

On the 26th of February, I had noticed that a giant bamboo back in the willow grove had finally begun to grow tall (leaping in its third year).

There is a path that goes around behind it, inspired by our friend Jane the Mulch Maid who said that the path going west in the willow grove was a dead end which, on open garden days, got crowded with people turning around, and she was right. But the circling back path that I then created might become inaccessible from the bamboo. So I pondered a Really Big Idea of having a third bridge which would cross the deep swale, here.

Because the window has broken glass, it would either have to be covered with a sheet of Perspex or be rehung on the other side of the fence or elsewhere.

There are some decorative stumps to move and two willows that would be in the way.

The fence would be one “railing” and another railing would go on the swale side of the bridge.

On that February day, I felt the bridge was too complicated and perhaps the end of the swale could be made into a simple path by filling it in with gravel or …something to level it up with the garden beds. The idea of hauling a great deal of something 200 feet from the front driveway over damp boggy ground was so exhausting that I tabled the idea.

I have been thinking, and Allan agrees, the bridge would be easier. The ground is not the deepest part of the swale and is solid sandy mud, not the kind your shoes sink into, so concrete blocks could hold the bridge. I’ll buy the supplies, Allan will build it and I hope it will be done by our first open garden weekend (May 22-24).

Today I was in the area on the simple mission of tackling the rampant lesser celandine and found myself moving the heavy piece of driftwood post into a new spot next to where the bridge will be and moving the two willows. I had began the weeding project at noon and was still at it three hours later when the weekday noise began, as you can hear later in this post.

Looking into the deep swale which is deeper than it looks (being filled with fallen leaves), I despaired of the celandine on the small but steep slope. I don’t want to fall in head first.

Monty Don on this pesky weed:

Because Allan was busy painting, I braved going around the other side and edging along to get that celandine, and that’s when I started my unplanned work on the bridge project.

After moving the willows and digging out the big stump…

… I then set it into the ground to the right of where the bridge will cross.

I will keep the escallonia trimmed, and the path will go between it and the alder.

Looking back (south) from the other side, where the path will go.

Sort of. The bridge will be straight, not curved, parallel with the fence.

I am quite excited about this, maybe Allan not quite so much.

Then I went after the lesser celandine in two other areas where it grows rampantly, and to my delight can cross that task off my list, unless I have done it so early that it returns before it goes into its summer dormancy.

On the second of my two walks, morning and evening at three different speeds, I enjoyed some vignettes in the garden…

…and surprised yet another furtive cat who has been hanging around here every day. That now makes four cats who are making free with the garden while Skooter is incapacitated by his head cone.

Now for the noise. First, a little story. Music is my saviour, and after having not listened to music for two decades, I am now obsessed with it again. Music with a beat is necessary here, as you will see. Allan did not seem to understand my obsession with music in the garden. For the first two months of this noise, he was gone most afternoons having radiation, then he was recovering and resting. And he spends way less time in the garden than I do in normal times.

Today, I brought him out to the new bridge spot to show him what I had accomplished and to ask him to dig out one last celandine in an especially inaccessible spot. Like me, his shoulders were up as the sound of screaming and crashing about next door made him tense. As he walked away after the bridge discussion, I turned on my speaker. His shoulders went down and he turned to me with a look of amazement and understanding and said, “OH! You can’t hear them anymore!” I said, “Yes, that is why I play the music!” Now he gets it.

If you are my Facebook friend, you may have already seen this almost ten minute long video.

If you listen to the whole thing, which represents our afternoons, I won’t feel so alone. (In the summer, the hours of this might be 9-5!) The soundtrack of my garden life day after day after day comes from a room which is built like a speaker that amplifies noise right at us, as it is open on the side that faces us. My only solution at the moment is to mask it by playing music, but I do prefer the silence and frog and wind and bird sounds that you can hear at the beginning of this video.

The video is quite repetitive in the middle because I am in the same spot trying to finish clearing the way for the bridge, but what I did was stop every 10 to 15 minutes or so and make an audio to show what our garden ambience is like. Before and after being stuck in that spot, I weeded in other areas, then went back to fetch my tools, then took a long garden walk. Most fade ins in the video are a jump about 10 minutes or 15 minutes forward in time.

Thank you for watching with the sound on! I will continue to be a happy gardener as long as I have music.

Sunday, 1 March 2026

at home

I am a meteorological spring kind of gal.

My favourite spring quotation:

I enjoyed a delightfully quiet garden puttering day, pruning roses and deadheading hydrangeas.

Before and after pruning a beautiful yellow rose whose name I do not know.

Perhaps you can tell that I lowered it so the blooms are not way up in the sky.

The plant behind is Metapanax delavayi.

Most of my roses I leave to be as tall as they like, except for this Rosa pteracantha whose main feature is glowing red thorns which turn dull after the first year, so it needs all new growth.

It is a bugger to handle.

After:

My favourite spring shrub, Corylopsis pauciflora, is in full bloom.

I appreciated flowers during some more garden tidying.

As I walked around, I found a mystifying bone on the metal path,. We do not have dogs!

Meanwhile, Allan had replaced for me a dustbin lid planter that had mostly rusted away with a new one (with holes drilled to fit on a stand). New dustbin lid planter, right of bench.

I hung the old one on the south middle gate where I had wanted another round thing. Allan helped me reposition one of the other round things, I also wanted to take down the center loop of rope…but I was tired and it was too hard to remove and I had called Allan away from another project so didn’t want to ask.

He had been busy with his own project, tidying up the front catio, getting ivy (a golden kind but still rampant) off the house and doing some painting.

Skooter got to go on the sunporch with the slider shut, most unsatisfactory.

Jumping ahead to March 2, he finished painting that corner.

The weekends are quiet in our garden, as before autumn 2025 almost every day used to be. Here is the Sunday afternoon soundtrack. You will like this one.

Saturday, 28 February 2026

downtown Ilwaco

We helped out with a food drive from noon to 2:30 by holding directional signs at the stoplight intersection pointing toward the food drive tent in the parking lot of city hall, a block north. Allan also walked around photographing the event for posterity and helped load up the assorted gear afterwards.

The nice man had just handed me a $20 donation. I didn’t even have a money bucket but Allan fetched it into his.

Representatives of the three local food banks, Ilwaco, Chinook and Ocean Park, came to collect the donations: $1500 and 175 pounds of non-perishable food!

The food bank organisers had sent this nice letter in response to the three previous food drives in Ilwaco, Ocean Park, Chinook.

gardens

Allan also photographed this gorgeous evergreen clematis growing on a south facing wall downtown.

I am impressed as this is a vine I have had a hard time growing successfully.

Spring flowers are popping in our volunteer garden at the post office.

at home

We were home by 3:30. Skooter mourned that he still can’t go out, not even into the catios because his conehead won’t fit through the cat doors.

I sifted one small wheelbarrow load of compost from bin two, which continues to look promising.

Bin one is now the bin being loaded up.

I had skipped my mid-morning metronome (now to music) walk because of making a sign for the food drive. (I like my signs to have sticks, not be handheld, so I made a sign that could be clipped over one of my political rally signs.) I barely managed to muster enough energy for the evening walk. Here are a couple of photos from along the way.

After dark, I made a food drive TikTok, same photos, Ken Burns effect, but with sound.

@tanglycottagegardens

#longbeachpeninsula #feedthehungry #fooddrive #lovethyneighbor #foodbankdonation Food drive for peninsula food banks, 2-28-2026

♬ Everyday People – 2023 Mix – Sly Stone

Friday, 27 February 2026

In the morning, we took Skooter to the vet for his follow up appointment (only $36 including nail trim and more wound spray!). He has to wear the cone for another week. But he’s not dehydrated and hasn’t lost weight so he’s eating and drinking more than we knew. Vet says that his because his bite wound was possibly the worst abcess she has ever seen (!!), she thought he’d have to be in the cone for a month, so he’s healing faster than expected. We can send her a photo of it after another five days or so and she will let us know if the cone can come off or if he needs to be checked again. Knowing that he is getting enough water and nourishment will make us worry a lot less about him being coned. He is pretty glum about it.

We had a short break at home, the sort of time that is not long enough to do much of anything productive. I have a problem doing anything in an hour break of time, which is silly because I could watch a tv show in that amount of time, no problem. I could have watched a James and Joe Garden Show if I had thought of it!

Then we were off for a rally. I wish all the rallies were at noon, but today’s was one of the 1:30 ones.

Ocean Beach Hospital

For the first time after the two months when my physical therapy conflicted in time, we were able to join the Ilwaco hospital rally. I do have six more PT sessions that are at random times, different every week (and none at all this week).

I pestered the attendees to spread out and it worked, for a little while!

Only Allan didn’t get his photo taken, because he was taking the photos and I forgot to take one.

at home

By the time we got home, it was three. I found a project, sifting some compost from bin two into bin one and emptying a kitchen compost can because the other one was almost full. It made two and a half five gallon buckets of rich compost like this:

Now the can to the left will be the one to use for critter-secure kitchen waste.

Bin two looks very promising and I look forward to sifting more of it.

Bin one now has the roughest fresh compost makings.

Before my timed practice walk, I took a twilight stroll through the garden from the house to the woods, reflecting that I do need to rake up (or Allan to mow) the paths and also pick up all the windfall twigs. There will be no sneaking up on anyone with wilderness tracking skills till the paths are clean again. The birds can hear me coming. I do note that other than crows, we have noticeably fewer birds when the other loud racket is going on. Sound up if you watch the video! In some ways, I am occasionally amused by the noise, almost beyond belief that our peaceful and contemplative garden could have come to this. It was even at the quieter end of the evening, almost twilight, when the crowd of players have thinned out! One especially loud individual can be counted on to stay till the very end.

Thursday, 26 February 2026

J Crew Cottage

I wanted the Js’ ferns and ornamental grasses (Panicum ‘Heavy Metal’) for my compost bins, so we did a spring clean up across the street.

at home

The sheared ornamental grass went into the bottom of the empty compost bin one, and the ferns got thrown onto Alicia’s lawn where Allan mowed and bagged them and put the chopped ferns also into bin one. Sword ferns put in whole or even hand clipped into pieces take over a year to break down.

Meanwhile, I went all around our garden clipping our ferns, over twenty sword ferns and some fancier ones.

Allan joined me to finish the last few in the willow grove and we talked about a new path idea of mine, which I will share in a future post.

While I announced that I would clip a few more ferns in the front garden, Allan soon started mowing the pile of chopped ferns that I had thrown onto our back lawn, adding the ferns from the orange oyster basket I’d been putting them in.

The amount of compost that I will get out of the mown chopped ferns will be in the negative compared to my clippers which also got mowed.

The good thing it that the mower did not get wrecked.

I noticed that Geum ‘Totally Tangerine’ is still blooming, and it has done all winter.

The hardy banana is putting out new leaves from inside the old ones.

The rest of my gardening afternoon of clipping perennials and taking them to the compost bins had a musical soundtrack. Allan and I had been finishing the ferns in the woodland when this happened and went on until dark. SOUND ON! Watch for the deer at the one minute mark; it had been moving rapidly away from the noise and toward our fence (where it can walk along the frog bog) till it saw me. I think we shared a moment of agreement.

Skooter has figured out how to sleep in his cone. He has a follow up appointment tomorrow and I hope it can come off. Or at least that the vet would agree we can use the more comfy big cushiony cloth one that I bought online in a midnight panic over his misery.

Two boxed cats…

..and Faerie being irresistible.

photos for 27 February 2026, taken on 25 February

It has been such a busy week: four small town protest rallies including a candlelight vigil, and a lot of gardening because of clear weather, and half an hour a day of walking practice (physical therapy for balance problem), so all I could come up with was spring flowers again! But isn’t that our favourite subject right now? It is certainly what I love to see in other “Sixes”.

one:

Ribes sanguineum in the willow grove…

two:

More hellebores, one showing the effect of rain-splashed mud.

three:

The beautiful dark red chaenomeles that I got from Cistus Nursery years ago…

four

An Iris reticulata, one of my favourite spring flowers.

Considering the number I have planted over the years, my garden should be full of them but is not.

five:

The same could be said of ordinary snowdrops, of which I was thrilled to see one!

six:

Some narcissi, my favourite flower of the whole year. (The first photo also has a hellebore to the right so could have gone in that number.)

Thanks to the Garden Ruminations blog for hosting us every Saturday.