From Portland to Pinole

I haven’t been posting much in the last ten days. But it’s not because I’ve been lazy. Quite the opposite; I’ve been busy. Over Easter, I spent four jam-packed days in Portland, touring nurseries and gardens, shopping at Hortlandia, the giant spring plant sale organized by the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon, and hanging out with a great group of plant peeps. And a couple of days after I got back, I visited my friend Justin in Pinole, about an hour from here.

I have plenty of blog material for weeks to come, but it’ll take a little time for me to edit my photos and find the right words. Here are a few teaser photos to tide you over.

PORTLAND

Driving all over the Portland area for four days

My friend Loree Bohl, the author of the groundbreaking book Fearless Gardening (sadly out of print now) and the brain behind the popular blog danger garden, had organized a Spring Fling for a bunch of plant geeks from California and Oregon. The four days I spent in Portland went by in a blur, but we covered a lot of territory. Head on over to Loree’s blog for a summary of our adventures.

Here are some teaser photos I took:

Four of the 99 (!) greenhouses at Little Prince of Oregon, a large wholesale nursery south of Portland

Fern house at Little Prince

I love the patterns created by hundreds of plants

Aeonium ‘Wheels of Captivation’

The private gardens we visited ranged in size from 4,000 square feet to 30 acres:

Garden of mosaic artist Jeffrey Bale

Jeffrey found these pieces while living in India

Agaves in the garden of Heather Tucker and Greg Zwart

Felony Flats Botanical Garden, the private garden of Eric Peterson and Robert Brigman

Garden of John Kuzma and Kathleen Halme

Rancho Cistus, Sean Hogan and Preston Pew’s private garden at Cistus Nursery on Sauvie Island

Bella Madrona, the storied garden of Geof Beasley

I’d first visited Bella Madrona during the 2014 Garden Bloggers Fling, and I was excited to go back

We also saw two outstanding crevice gardens, both created by Kenton Seth, North America’s leading crevice garden expert and co-author of the book The Crevice Garden:

Crevice garden at Rancho Cistus

Crevice garden at Dairy Creek Meadows...

...Craig Quirk and Larry Neil’s garden...

...outside of Portland

And, hands down, the two most spectacular private greenhouses I’ve ever seen:

Craig Quirk and Larry Neil’s greenhouse surrounded by crevice gardens

Inside Craig Quirk and Larry Neil’s greenhouse

Eric Peterson’s masterpiece, designed and built by himself — he even made most of the stained-glass windows

Inside Eric Peterson’s greenhouse

I was staying at Loree and her husband Andrew’s home, so I had plenty of opportunity to explore and photograph the danger garden:

The shade pavilion is still in winter mode, acting as a greenhouse for plants that need protection against the rain and freezing temperatures

Shade pavilion on the right, garage in the center

Loree has an ever-expanding collection of ferns

Loropetalum chinense and Agave ovatifolia

Agave ovatifolia and Yucca rostrata next to the front door

The basement becomes a garden room in the winter

As I mentioned earlier, there’s much more to come.

PINOLE

Davis to Pinole

A couple of days after I got back from Portland, I made the 50+ minute drive to Pinole to hang out with my friend Justin. I hadn’t seen his garden in a while, and I was eager to see how things looked.

Justin’s Agave applanata is now 6 feet tall and wide — Justin for scale (he’s 6’3"). Also notice how small Agave horrida seems in comparison.

Lots of spring color

Agave shawii has the most colorful marginal teeth

Impressive clump of seed-grown Agave utahensis var. eborispina

Echinocereus × roetteri

Justin planted a variety of Calochortus last year, and some are flowering now

I took more photos of Justin’s garden and greenhouse and will have a dedicated post next week.

RELATED POSTS

• Little Prince of Oregon: a look behind the scenes of a wholesale nursery

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