Tangly Cottage Journal

We have been in the midst of annuals planting hell.  Planting is my least favourite gardening task; I like setting the plants out but not so much putting them in the soil.  Perhaps this is because we plant with obsessive attention to detail, putting water and a mix of Zeba Quench and Dr Earth fertil

garden three The third stop on the tour pleased us with its interpretive signs. Down at the end of one of the parking strip gardens of the corner lot, I could see other tourists reading something.  It turned out to be a poetry pole. Euphorbias spilled over the wall as garden tourists walked back fro

On our yearly early spring plant buying road trip we always go to Joy Creek first, then on to Cistus on Sauvie Island.  The first time I went to Cistus I recognized only a small proportion of the plants on offer.  Here is a true collectors’ nursery.  I have heard that Dan Hinkley shops at [...]

I love our yearly trip to Joy Creek and its neighbour down the road, Cistus Nursery.  Because if you are still slogging through all these garden tours, you are probably also a plant nut, here are scenes from three years of spring shopping trips.  I do remember one glorious year that I was there more

I’m eager to get into some flashbacks for 2008 and 2009, but meanwhile, even though it breaks the narrative flow, I want to share the wee project we did today.  Our friend Jenna Nisbett’s new gallery, Queen La De Da’s will open at the Port of Ilwaco tomorrow.  We are  thrilled for her and along with

After a six week staycation, one of our first jobs of 2012 was to wake up the 5th Street Park in Long Beach today.  We were tired of the winter structure of the Sedum autumn joy and so eager to make room to display oncoming spring bulbs. After, so satisfying, with a few early crocus [...]

Every year…or two….I just might take a trip with my friends Carol or Mary that is actually not about gardening.  I include such trips here because this blog is for me to read and relive someday if I am lucky enough to reach old age.  I’ve been to the Sylvia Beach Hotel with both of [...]

Cranberry farming creates many beautiful sights on the Long Beach Peninsula, from the haze of red on the field to the sparkling sprays of irrigation jets in the mist.  Every year Ilwaco’s Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum (formerly the Ilwaco Heritate Museum) hosts the Cranberrian fair with a “bog bu

Every year…or two….I just might take a trip with my friends Carol or Mary that is actually not about gardening.  I include such trips here because this blog is for me to read and relive someday if I am lucky enough to reach old age.  I’ve been to the Sylvia Beach Hotel with both of [...]

We continue the tour with the last two cottages.  It’s past time that I get around to saying that the tour is put on each year by the Cannon Beach History Center.  If Moon-Shell Cottage looks familiar to anyone who toured in 2011, that’s because it was on the tour two years in a row. [...]