Sequoia Park Garden Eureka, California
April 12
We went out of town for the weekend. When we got back we found out we had a telephone call from a store who had saved their wilted and unsalable plants for us. We rushed in to pick up the plants. We anticipated a few but we were astonished to find the amount they had. We planted the large back planter with white shasta daisies plus we put in borders in all of the planters of Pansies...We worked from 9:30 until 4... it looks great....
We didn't really plan on doing the back planter but we also didn't want to waste the generous donation. The back planter is Shasta daisy heaven.... they will fill in and look wonderful! They are fairly low maintainance so it will look great! We are concerned about the number of plants growing so rapidly as we don't want to fail to take great care of them. We are going to be unable to tend to them in May so we are trying to find volunteers to fill in for us. It's difficult as people are so busy. My sister is coming down at the end of April and she will water but May is still a problem. We'll continue to work on this.
We didn't really plan on doing the back planter but we also didn't want to waste the generous donation. The back planter is Shasta daisy heaven.... they will fill in and look wonderful! They are fairly low maintainance so it will look great! We are concerned about the number of plants growing so rapidly as we don't want to fail to take great care of them. We are going to be unable to tend to them in May so we are trying to find volunteers to fill in for us. It's difficult as people are so busy. My sister is coming down at the end of April and she will water but May is still a problem. We'll continue to work on this.
April 16
Our generous friend at the store called to notify us they are again throwing out dying and wilted flowers if we wanted to come and get them.... You bet we would. We ran in and picked them up.... Yikes.... there were a lot of them! We drove over to Sequoia Park to see how the plants were doing... some looked dry and a few of the pansies on the borders had died. We replaced them and talked about our strategy on the next planting. We decided we would try to find a garden club who might be able to water one or two days a week during May. Also, we are going to go in really early to see if we can get them planted.
I called Eureka Sequoia Garden Club and spoke to Sue Moran. She was very nice and said she would try to water herself.... and she thought of quite a few places who might be willing to come and water for us. The problem is the time as we have only a few days to get it arranged. Sue is going to meet us tomorrow morning and plant with us. She will try to find volunteers to help also but it's hard on such short notice.. ... So.... tomorrow we'll plant and hopefully they'll grow .... grow .... grow!
I called Eureka Sequoia Garden Club and spoke to Sue Moran. She was very nice and said she would try to water herself.... and she thought of quite a few places who might be willing to come and water for us. The problem is the time as we have only a few days to get it arranged. Sue is going to meet us tomorrow morning and plant with us. She will try to find volunteers to help also but it's hard on such short notice.. ... So.... tomorrow we'll plant and hopefully they'll grow .... grow .... grow!
April 17, Planting for the future
April 17: The Field of Daisies ...
David and I got to the Gardens about 6:30 AM...... We were anxious to finish. We unloaded the truck and decided we would have a quick cup of coffee before we started. David watered the gardens before we started as it was looking pretty dry in spots. We began spading the ground in the second back quadrant. It went fairly fast and we were almost finished when Sue and her darling grandchildren Jacob and Katie arrived around 8 AM. They were dressed to garden and all 3 had gloves. Jacob worked on planting some Alyssum by the Brooke Dewitt memorial plaque. I had already planted a yellow and a pink calla lily on each side. It needed something in the front. Jacob was no stranger (I think he was about 9 years old) to gardening and quickly prepared and planted the bed. Then he went to the large flower bed and began using the mattic to spade the dirt next to David.
Sue and I decided to increase the rows of pansies from 2 to 4 then we planted two types of mums behind them (one row of pink and one row of yellow). We planted lavataria in two rows on the very back (they grow to 36 inches) and added the cinneraras in front of them. .... the large center area of the plot is not planted but we thought we might sprinkle wild flower seeds in it. As we finished up Sue's grandchildren went to a ball game. Sue helped plant the last back square of the shasta Daisy field with marigolds and red verbena. It was in the same area as the red/orange/yellow garden so it was a nice addition. Another lady named Sondra arrived and she planted 3 pony packs of Alyssums. We mixed alyssum into the borders of pansies.... It would look great when it matured... Whew.... Finally done!
A lady named Allison rode in on her bicycle. She said she is really keen to help and wanted to get in on the plantings or on watering.... Hooray!!! She gave us her name and phone number and was told where the hoses are kept. She said she will just bring her truck and use her own hose. She knows quite a bit about gardening and really loves the garden area and remembers it's former beauty ...(like David and I). She is very willing and able to pick up the flowers the next time our store friend calls with some wilted and dry plants. We took a good long time and watered and fertilized the whole garden with spray-on Miracle Grow.... Hopefully it will launch huge growth in the next couple of weeks. .... We put down sluggo (harmless to animals) on monday but we didn't see any snails today. ... nice! Sue is going to come by several times a week to water for us during May and Allison will water on Saturday!!! We will water for their garden club in June, July and August when we are doing our own. Everyone benefits!
June 7 - 14 2010
David and I got back from our vacation in the wee hours of June 5.... and we were anxious to see how the garden was doing. We were very happy to see it was growing well. There were quite a few spots where flowers had been pulled up and a huge hole was left. That was disappointing. We knew there would be theft but we were still a bit surprised. Over 75% of the pansies had died.... we think from the drastic rain of May. We will need to replant something in the first four rows. The weeds were amazing.... they were trying to choke out the flowers. From the many weather forecasts we heard it appeared we had had an amazing amount of rain. 3 inchs in the first 4 days of June alone! ... (I think it was some kind of record). We spent the week pulling weeds. We fertilized and purchased a bunch more flowers to fill in the spaces in the beds. It was really rewarding to see it shape up. We bought some impatians to put by the Brooke Dewitt memorial placque as the original flowers were thrashed. It will look great when they fill in. We replanted the few pansy plants that survived. We decided pansies aren't hardy enough for our needs and are transplanted the few left to the first row and planted the second row with petunias. We deadheaded flowers and trimmed back some godetia that had fallen over .... We transplanted marigolds in the daisy bed to the front and planted the huge bushy batchelor buttons from the front beds to the back corner. Later we bought some snapdragons to put in the corner in front of the batchelor buttons. David spent hours crawling and weeding between the daisies.... hopefully it will not grow back too soon.
We had a very nice couple, Don and Joan King, (owners of Cherry Blossom Bakery) come into the garden and after talking to us they donated $20 so we could buy some allysums. How nice of them!!!
We still need to figure out what to do with the large space between the mums and the laventeria. We are still leaning towards wild flowers but we think we will have to plant them in rows rather than scatter them as we don't want them to get pulled as weeds. (Decision needs to be made on this....) I trimmed the ferns out of the bench and pulled weeds in the day lily patch. Some of the weeds were almost as tall as I am.... when I pulled them I was astonished to see tons of day lily blossoms! ... brave little plants! .... we are polishing the memorial plaques on the different benches. The first polish made it so we could read them again but we plan on doing better than that... It would be nice for the families to see it all shiney and nice.
******* One wonders how the parks department was able to keep up this huge garden and make it look so wonderful ( before 2008 ~ when they had funding.)... I have a huge respect for these dedicated folks! This is a huge amount of work! And they do the whole city!
Sue and I decided to increase the rows of pansies from 2 to 4 then we planted two types of mums behind them (one row of pink and one row of yellow). We planted lavataria in two rows on the very back (they grow to 36 inches) and added the cinneraras in front of them. .... the large center area of the plot is not planted but we thought we might sprinkle wild flower seeds in it. As we finished up Sue's grandchildren went to a ball game. Sue helped plant the last back square of the shasta Daisy field with marigolds and red verbena. It was in the same area as the red/orange/yellow garden so it was a nice addition. Another lady named Sondra arrived and she planted 3 pony packs of Alyssums. We mixed alyssum into the borders of pansies.... It would look great when it matured... Whew.... Finally done!
A lady named Allison rode in on her bicycle. She said she is really keen to help and wanted to get in on the plantings or on watering.... Hooray!!! She gave us her name and phone number and was told where the hoses are kept. She said she will just bring her truck and use her own hose. She knows quite a bit about gardening and really loves the garden area and remembers it's former beauty ...(like David and I). She is very willing and able to pick up the flowers the next time our store friend calls with some wilted and dry plants. We took a good long time and watered and fertilized the whole garden with spray-on Miracle Grow.... Hopefully it will launch huge growth in the next couple of weeks. .... We put down sluggo (harmless to animals) on monday but we didn't see any snails today. ... nice! Sue is going to come by several times a week to water for us during May and Allison will water on Saturday!!! We will water for their garden club in June, July and August when we are doing our own. Everyone benefits!
June 7 - 14 2010
David and I got back from our vacation in the wee hours of June 5.... and we were anxious to see how the garden was doing. We were very happy to see it was growing well. There were quite a few spots where flowers had been pulled up and a huge hole was left. That was disappointing. We knew there would be theft but we were still a bit surprised. Over 75% of the pansies had died.... we think from the drastic rain of May. We will need to replant something in the first four rows. The weeds were amazing.... they were trying to choke out the flowers. From the many weather forecasts we heard it appeared we had had an amazing amount of rain. 3 inchs in the first 4 days of June alone! ... (I think it was some kind of record). We spent the week pulling weeds. We fertilized and purchased a bunch more flowers to fill in the spaces in the beds. It was really rewarding to see it shape up. We bought some impatians to put by the Brooke Dewitt memorial placque as the original flowers were thrashed. It will look great when they fill in. We replanted the few pansy plants that survived. We decided pansies aren't hardy enough for our needs and are transplanted the few left to the first row and planted the second row with petunias. We deadheaded flowers and trimmed back some godetia that had fallen over .... We transplanted marigolds in the daisy bed to the front and planted the huge bushy batchelor buttons from the front beds to the back corner. Later we bought some snapdragons to put in the corner in front of the batchelor buttons. David spent hours crawling and weeding between the daisies.... hopefully it will not grow back too soon.
We had a very nice couple, Don and Joan King, (owners of Cherry Blossom Bakery) come into the garden and after talking to us they donated $20 so we could buy some allysums. How nice of them!!!
We still need to figure out what to do with the large space between the mums and the laventeria. We are still leaning towards wild flowers but we think we will have to plant them in rows rather than scatter them as we don't want them to get pulled as weeds. (Decision needs to be made on this....) I trimmed the ferns out of the bench and pulled weeds in the day lily patch. Some of the weeds were almost as tall as I am.... when I pulled them I was astonished to see tons of day lily blossoms! ... brave little plants! .... we are polishing the memorial plaques on the different benches. The first polish made it so we could read them again but we plan on doing better than that... It would be nice for the families to see it all shiney and nice.
******* One wonders how the parks department was able to keep up this huge garden and make it look so wonderful ( before 2008 ~ when they had funding.)... I have a huge respect for these dedicated folks! This is a huge amount of work! And they do the whole city!
Shasta Daisies.... looking great!
Under this mass of weeds bloomed tons of day lilies....
JULY 6, 2010 ..... We have been home one month .....
We have been home for 4 weeks (we got home on June 5th). Each week we are putting down Sluggo (not harmful to wildlife) and spraying with Miracle Grow. The first week looked a little grim then the flowers started coming on the second week. It is a mass of flowers now. We figure we spend about $35-50 dollars a week. It's not a lot but completely necessary to keep it looking lush and filling any holes in the flowers. We also put Sluggo on the dahlias and Miracle grow weekly. They have gone from absolutely nothing to blooming and beautiful plants. We will continue caring for them weekly. We are pulling the weeds there and trying to keep up with them.
We shined the plaques on the memorial benches but they didn't come completely shiney. You can read them all now (a few were black) but they need more work. We cleaned the weeds under the benches and swept it out. People keep sitting there and smoking and dropping the cigarette butts on the ground. It's really annoying to keep having to pick up after them (over and over). I bought a terracotta flower pot to fill with sand and put there but I haven't gotten the sand yet. So many things to do to keep this huge area up!
We finally decided on what flowers to plant between the Laventeria and Yellow Margarites..... We put two rows of cosmos next to the margarites then a large number of petunias in the next area. Then we have a row of pink daisys and a row of gloriosa flowers. We put a row of small white flowers that will eventually grow to a plant about 1 - 2 feet across. .... AND the Laventeria is amazing... it is a huge row of tall bushes with beautiful white and pink holly hock looking blooms..... Very showy..... It will look even better in a couple of weeks when the petunias take off. A sweet lady with pink streaks in her hair left 3 pony packs of allyseums and I planted them in different places.... I even planted some in the pansy color pots by the bench in the back... (that area looks really nice!)
Along the back fence we pulled the thimble berries and cleared the old flower beds. We planted some sweet peas, sweet william, pink begonia, geraniums, fuschia, coleus, copper plants, petunias and a few that I don't know the name of. We are excited about how it will look in a month or so.
A really nice lady, Judith Rucker, came up tonight with lemonaide for David and I. She brought tools and weeded. We were amazed at how fast she weeds (yes she gets the whole plant ... roots and all) ... She thinks she may come again tomorrow.... Hooray! She brings her little dog Princess who is an elegant lady. We are really happy for the help... The weeds were out of control and taking over. What a good friend Judith has been. There is another lady, Rene' who brought us a can of Dolmas one evening. The neighbors are super nice and supportive.
The two front gardens are still open, unplanted and barren as they are being held for Eureka Sequoia Garden club. The huge plots look sad compared to the blooms we have in our designated area. Luckily, David said we should plant alyssum along the edge so it's not so grim..... Eventually we hope the garden club will jump into the area. If they don't intend to we hope they will notify us so we can buy the plants and plant it before the growing season is over.
We shined the plaques on the memorial benches but they didn't come completely shiney. You can read them all now (a few were black) but they need more work. We cleaned the weeds under the benches and swept it out. People keep sitting there and smoking and dropping the cigarette butts on the ground. It's really annoying to keep having to pick up after them (over and over). I bought a terracotta flower pot to fill with sand and put there but I haven't gotten the sand yet. So many things to do to keep this huge area up!
We finally decided on what flowers to plant between the Laventeria and Yellow Margarites..... We put two rows of cosmos next to the margarites then a large number of petunias in the next area. Then we have a row of pink daisys and a row of gloriosa flowers. We put a row of small white flowers that will eventually grow to a plant about 1 - 2 feet across. .... AND the Laventeria is amazing... it is a huge row of tall bushes with beautiful white and pink holly hock looking blooms..... Very showy..... It will look even better in a couple of weeks when the petunias take off. A sweet lady with pink streaks in her hair left 3 pony packs of allyseums and I planted them in different places.... I even planted some in the pansy color pots by the bench in the back... (that area looks really nice!)
Along the back fence we pulled the thimble berries and cleared the old flower beds. We planted some sweet peas, sweet william, pink begonia, geraniums, fuschia, coleus, copper plants, petunias and a few that I don't know the name of. We are excited about how it will look in a month or so.
A really nice lady, Judith Rucker, came up tonight with lemonaide for David and I. She brought tools and weeded. We were amazed at how fast she weeds (yes she gets the whole plant ... roots and all) ... She thinks she may come again tomorrow.... Hooray! She brings her little dog Princess who is an elegant lady. We are really happy for the help... The weeds were out of control and taking over. What a good friend Judith has been. There is another lady, Rene' who brought us a can of Dolmas one evening. The neighbors are super nice and supportive.
The two front gardens are still open, unplanted and barren as they are being held for Eureka Sequoia Garden club. The huge plots look sad compared to the blooms we have in our designated area. Luckily, David said we should plant alyssum along the edge so it's not so grim..... Eventually we hope the garden club will jump into the area. If they don't intend to we hope they will notify us so we can buy the plants and plant it before the growing season is over.
July 22, 2010
A funny thing happened today. One of the parks department guys came out to give us a huge packet of forms to fill out to be able to take care of the gardens. Apparently we filled out the one day form and had been working since March with it. They also gave us a packet for the ADOPT A PARK PROGRAM. Pretty funny .... we had been working and spending money without the proper documentation..... we had no idea. We'll complete it and return it tomorrow. The 'adopt a park program' asks for a commitment of a year. We have already decided we'll keep the garden up through December 2011.
A really nice man came in and introduced himself. He is a long time neighbor. He said he has walked the park for 20 years and it has never looked better. He said he really like the English garden look of the flowers. (We chose this because we prefer not to have just one type or color in a bed ... ) We were really appreciative of his enthusiasm. This area seems to have quite a few long time residences who enjoy the park. That's so nice for us!
A really nice man came in and introduced himself. He is a long time neighbor. He said he has walked the park for 20 years and it has never looked better. He said he really like the English garden look of the flowers. (We chose this because we prefer not to have just one type or color in a bed ... ) We were really appreciative of his enthusiasm. This area seems to have quite a few long time residences who enjoy the park. That's so nice for us!
August 6, 2010
Today is Sylvia's birthday. (Yeah, I'm talking about myself in third person .... LOL ) Traditionally, we have always taken food we prepared into my (Sylvia's) office friends. I decided we'll do this again although I retired in December. After all, they are used to it every year and I don't want to cut them off cold turkey. It was fun taking in dolmas, wraps, a cheese plate, fruit bowl and crackers. We decided to take the same things to the Eureka Parks department. They work so hard for very little reward or recognition and we honestly appreciate their work.
For the first time in a long time we saw Tom the head of the department. Although he seemed a bit confused about the food he was very happy to have it for his crew. We took the opportunity to speak to him regarding the two empty flower beds. He said the flower club that requested it must have had problems as it never came into fruitation. He said if we wanted we could plant it although he pointed out (correctly) that it's getting quite late in the year to plant.
David and I went to Greenlot Nursury to see what plants she had that might work. They could not be pony packs as they needed to be more mature plants. David suggested miniature dahlias in four inch pots. They cost 3 for $5.00. We got 36 which is $60 dollars worth. And... a wonderful surprise was at Greenlot. A lady named Beth Costa had left $35.00 as a donation. She had been at the garden earlier that week with her mom and sister and we spoke to them about the flowers and the past gardens. David and I were very happy. It made our purchase affordable...We need to get another 30 to complete the garden and we'll do it on Monday.
We finished planting the mini dahlias on Monday August 9th. They really look wonderful and do a lot to fill color and life to the beds. We seriously underestimated the number of plants and had to go back to the nursery 4 times!!! As I was going across the street bringing one load in I could see a man watching me from the other side of the hedge. He greeted me and asked if I remembered him. Yes, he was Daniel Swenson and he had spoken to us briefly about the Moose lodge sponsoring the efforts at the gardens. He had been in contact with his organization and said he wanted us to figure how much money we had spent from March. They wanted to pay us for the past expenditures as well as ongoing. Goodness....that is so generous. David and I seriously discussed it. We decided to not get paid for our past expenditures as we wanted to donate it. It had been our intention to contribute it and help out the gardens and we didn't want to let it be paid back.
When we went back to Greenlot nursery we found Sue had been contacted by Mr Swenson already and he had set up an account for us. WOW.... that was fast. I split the cost of the plants between the Moose and us as I was uncomfortable taking the contribution. I didn't want them to think we were taking advantage of them....
When we got home that night we found a very nice Email from Mr Swenson representing the Moose Lodge. We are really happy to have them sponsoring our efforts. Having a large group behind us somehow validates that we are doing a service for the city. We will hear more from the Moose after they have their meeting and discuss what they are going to do. We wrote back thanking him and telling him the possible costs for the next year: We also have things we want to accomplish for the garden before we give it to the next volunteer in 2012:
1) We are looking into some signage that would show the location of the garden from the street and from the zoo entrance. Many people come in and say they didn't know it existed. We need permission from the city. 2) We also want to move the existing sign that explains the Glatt's donation from the unseen corner of the garden to the front area.
3) We want to replace the split rail fence in the front hedge area and plant cosmos or another tall hardy flower.
We will hear from the Moose later on what they decided to do.
For the first time in a long time we saw Tom the head of the department. Although he seemed a bit confused about the food he was very happy to have it for his crew. We took the opportunity to speak to him regarding the two empty flower beds. He said the flower club that requested it must have had problems as it never came into fruitation. He said if we wanted we could plant it although he pointed out (correctly) that it's getting quite late in the year to plant.
David and I went to Greenlot Nursury to see what plants she had that might work. They could not be pony packs as they needed to be more mature plants. David suggested miniature dahlias in four inch pots. They cost 3 for $5.00. We got 36 which is $60 dollars worth. And... a wonderful surprise was at Greenlot. A lady named Beth Costa had left $35.00 as a donation. She had been at the garden earlier that week with her mom and sister and we spoke to them about the flowers and the past gardens. David and I were very happy. It made our purchase affordable...We need to get another 30 to complete the garden and we'll do it on Monday.
We finished planting the mini dahlias on Monday August 9th. They really look wonderful and do a lot to fill color and life to the beds. We seriously underestimated the number of plants and had to go back to the nursery 4 times!!! As I was going across the street bringing one load in I could see a man watching me from the other side of the hedge. He greeted me and asked if I remembered him. Yes, he was Daniel Swenson and he had spoken to us briefly about the Moose lodge sponsoring the efforts at the gardens. He had been in contact with his organization and said he wanted us to figure how much money we had spent from March. They wanted to pay us for the past expenditures as well as ongoing. Goodness....that is so generous. David and I seriously discussed it. We decided to not get paid for our past expenditures as we wanted to donate it. It had been our intention to contribute it and help out the gardens and we didn't want to let it be paid back.
When we went back to Greenlot nursery we found Sue had been contacted by Mr Swenson already and he had set up an account for us. WOW.... that was fast. I split the cost of the plants between the Moose and us as I was uncomfortable taking the contribution. I didn't want them to think we were taking advantage of them....
When we got home that night we found a very nice Email from Mr Swenson representing the Moose Lodge. We are really happy to have them sponsoring our efforts. Having a large group behind us somehow validates that we are doing a service for the city. We will hear more from the Moose after they have their meeting and discuss what they are going to do. We wrote back thanking him and telling him the possible costs for the next year: We also have things we want to accomplish for the garden before we give it to the next volunteer in 2012:
1) We are looking into some signage that would show the location of the garden from the street and from the zoo entrance. Many people come in and say they didn't know it existed. We need permission from the city. 2) We also want to move the existing sign that explains the Glatt's donation from the unseen corner of the garden to the front area.
3) We want to replace the split rail fence in the front hedge area and plant cosmos or another tall hardy flower.
We will hear from the Moose later on what they decided to do.
