Garden update: autumn has arrived

I am able to write this because we cancelled door knocking for today – flood warnings everywhere in the area – and because the only other task I might possibly have for today is cleaning up my office.  

And then it turned out I had to partially clean my desk because otherwise I could not connect the camera to upload the photos.  I am incorrigibly messy.

The successes

Mailbox garden: snapdragons, mums,
no-longer-blooming balloon flowers, and
owl art.  Am I partial to owl imagery?  Yes, I am.

The stars of this year’s Common Household Gardens were the snapdragons, the coreopsis, the sedum, and the coleus.  I wish I had photos of them from August.  Curses on you, sciatica and mal de débarquement syndrome and the ensuing therapies!  Curses on you, dental work and election work!  Those are my excuses and I’m sticking to ‘em.

Snapdragons

Back in June I thought the snapdragons were done, but they just kept bursting forth in their crimson glory all summer.  They did well right next to the street, below the mailbox.

The sedum has spread!

The yellow and orange coreopsis reflected the sun’s brilliance for months (no photo), but stopped blooming maybe in mid-September.  The sedum looks flatter than it did in June, but it kept spreading as I was told it would.

Two varieties of coleus,
making friends with the bush,
and trying to shake
your hand, too.

The coleus suffered from wealth inequality.  I had doubts it would do well as a potted plant under my care, so I planted all of the coleus (two different varieties) in one pot. They deserved a better distribution of resources.  Partway through the summer they looked like they would be eaten to death by some bug, but both kinds rallied and bloomed and skyrocketed.  Currently it looks like it is reaching out to knock on voters’ doors.  Go, coleus!

The bee balm was lovely in its time, and I hope it comes back next year.  I don’t know if I should cut back the stems or not.  The yarrow did its duty, but it was not as stunning.  I like it because I have a vague idea it hails from medieval times and is medicinal.

Hanging on

The marigolds and the balloon flowers (Platycodon grandiflorus) did okay.  Halfway through the summer the deerabbits ate a lot of the balloon flowers.  After that there were some blooms but they were a shadow of their former selves.  

Pot with black-eyed susan vine and forget-me-nots.

I started “black-eyed susan vines” in two pots, and then also forget-me-nots with the b-e.s.v. in one, and English thyme in the other.  The thyme never showed its face. The vines grew and started to tangle themselves in the nearby bushes but there was nary a bloom until September, one solitary flower that didn’t look exactly like a black-eyed susan.  And yesterday I saw one b-e.s.v. bloom in the other pot, and a few forget-me-nots.  

This is the black-eyed susan vine bloom.   (Blogger is not cooperating on the photo captions right now.)

A truly terrible photo of the forget-me-nots,
in the same pot with the b-e.s.v.

The geranium, a gift from the church music director, kept on plugging away.  It was almost never without a bloom, and there is a hopeful bud on it today.  

Geranium - the gift that keeps on giving

The lamb’s ear, lantana, and verbena still have foliage, but the lantana and verbena flowers were dessert for the local herbivores.  And now that spot is a hellish mess. I am not sticking my hands in there. 

A stew of lamb's ear, verbena, and lantana

The two bleeding heart plants faded slowly, as they should, and there is no indication of them except the marker I put there.  I really must hope they return in the spring, as they should, because they were the last things I planted before sciatica doom.  They will be my rebuttal to aging.

Shall I attempt to bring the potted plants inside before the first frost? The question will be where to put them.  And will they have bugs?

The disappointments

The biggest disappointment were the black-eyed susans.  I planted one from the garden store, and several more that were gifts from the neighbor.  I have a great fondness for these flowers.  And so did the deer. Eaten and re-eaten.  I finally got some rudimentary fencing and bird netting.  The plants managed to survive and eke out a few flowers.  There was still one bloom yesterday.  Meanwhile, in our area I saw numerous successful b-e susans. 

The astilbe was dead before mid-summer.  Sigh. This was supposed to be a great plant for growing in the shade.  Not our shade.

The salmon-colored impatiens did much better
than the white ones.

Almost all the white impatiens disappeared early in July.  Why?

The snow-in-summer looks like it just heard all the news this week and now can’t get out of bed anymore.  Why?  

Snow-in-summer, not looking so good.

Also disappointing are my photos.  It was too dark last night at 5:30 PM but I took the photos anyway.  I was too lazy to retake them this afternoon.

Soldiering on

We bought two mums for cheer and hope. The yellow one, which I put out by the mailbox (where it will catch the rain) is doing splendidly.  The purple one, which I put close to the house, is not.  Today I moved it.

HAVE YOU MADE YOUR PLAN TO VOTE?

Life on board: six days of Alaska

Is there a more pampered way of travel than a cruise?  Not in my experience.

This was our first time on a cruise ship.  We thank our friends who gave us numerous tips.  We were not quite ready for the unique culture that is cruise travel.

Our cruise ship, the MSC Poesia (of the MSC Cruise line) housed about 3,000 passengers and also 1,040 crew members.  As our Seattle friends said, it’s a floating hotel.  

My first impression: the ship is huge and full of mirrors everywhere.  Loads of staff of many ethnicities welcoming us and helping us find our way.  Almost never-ending availability of food.

It’s now been eight weeks since we returned, but for posterity’s sake I record here my impressions of The Cruise Life.

The room

Our luggage was delivered to us seamlessly. Our room was small but not claustrophobic.  The closet space was a pleasant surprise.

We had paid for an upgrade to a balcony room, which I think was key to our enjoyment of the whole trip. We were on Deck 11: I thought my acrophobia would kick in, but I simply looked out instead of down.  It was marvelous to wake up and open the curtains to a view of either never-ending ocean, or snow-capped mountains, or endless forests, or teal-blue fjord.  

Blue arrow pointing to our room
on Deck 11

The CHH on the balcony.

The neighbors

Before leaving port, we spent some time on the balcony and met the people next door.  Throughout the cruise we could occasionally hear them through the wall, but mostly it was quiet.  We heard from our assigned dinner mates that noisy folks in a next-door cabin can greatly mar the cruise experience.

Yes, we had assigned dinner mates.  That could have been a disaster, especially when our new acquaintance said, “We’re from Texas.”  But we avoided outright political talk, and moderately enjoyed their company when we were dining with them.

The pool

Like any hotel, this one has a pool.  On the top-most deck, exposed to the air. 

Once we settled in, the Common Household Husband wanted to take a dip in the pool which is on deck 13, at the very top of the ship. Open to the sky.  Unpleasant gusts of wind.  I did not go swimming, and did not enjoy my time there.  The CHH bopped around in the pool and enjoyed it.  In the hot tub he met people from Chicago and Vancouver.  When he went back to the hot tub another day he said it was full of teenagers.  Who are, in fact, entitled to use the hot tub, too, but less inclined to be contemplative while in it.

the CHH enjoys the pool

Behavior and dress

The cruise culture included this quirk: some people place magnets outside their cabin door for decoration or to distinguish their door from all the other doors in the narrow corridor of this Hilbert Hotel-like atmosphere.  This makes sense, especially if there are children involved. 

Casual dress is the norm.  Except for the special night on which 30 percent were dressed to the nines, another 30 percent moderately dressed up (like us) and the rest not at all.

The entertainment

There was no shortage of entertainment possibilities.  We attended an opening presentation in the theater (800+ seats?).  The theater was sparkly but the seats were uncomfortable for me.  The presentation informed us that there were dancers, singers, pianists, big band, and a comedian on board.  During our 7 days on board, we only went to a few musical performances.  We did not go to the napkin folding workshop.  The big band on board was quite good, I thought.  I had not yet developed my MdDS; the Common Household Husband is a very good dancer; I am not but nevertheless we enjoyed dancing to the big band music.

The Zebra Bar.
Probably not good for the vestibular-ocular reflex

Lights and sparkles everywhere

The big band in the Pigalle Lounge

There was a small casino on board.  I have no objection, except that smoking was allowed in that room, a room we often had to pass through to go somewhere else.

The naturalist

I was pleased that there was a naturalist on board.  We went to two of the naturalist’s presentations.  Although her background was in teaching, I found the presentations rushed and a bit disjointed.  

Periodically the ship’s PA system would sound “Bong Bing Bing!” and then the naturalist would tell all of us that there was an orca on the port side, or a humpback whale on the port side.  I think only once was there wildlife on our side, the starboard side. But we saw plenty of wildlife on our excursions.

Naturalist presentation in the sparkly theater.

Dining

We wished we had discovered sooner in the week that we could have breakfast and lunch at the restaurant, rather than the buffet.  The buffet had a plethora of offerings, but it was often crowded and noisy.  There were SO many opportunities to eat; the food was of varying quality.  The restaurant food was mostly good to very good.   The Butcher's Cut, the super fancy restaurant, was excellent.

If you wanted to, you could eat some form of salmon at every meal.  Maybe that just applies to Pacific Northwest cruises.

One of the restaurants.

We tried room service breakfast
the first morning, but it was suboptimal.

Breakfast in the buffet,
with Dawes Glacier in the background.

Dinner on the first night, in The Butcher's Cut
Excellent food and service and unparalleled view of the
wake of the ship.