Little Prince of Oregon: a look behind the scenes of a wholesale nursery
One of the highlights of my Easter trip to Portland was a visit to Little Prince of Oregon, a wholesale nursery in Aurora, south of Portland. Their plants are in garden centers and retail nurseries all over the West Coast, easily recognizable by their colorful plant tags featuring a crowned frog: Usually wholesale operations aren’t set up for visitors, especially for Joe Blows like myself, but Loree worked her magic and arranged for a tour with production manager Mike Hicks and propagation assistant Ann Amato (who is also a personal friend of both of us). For most people, visiting a wholesale nursery would be the very definition of boring — lots and lots of plants, mostly small, crammed together on tables or the floor. But for plant nerds, it’s like getting to see the inner workings of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Living Little Prince sign — a perfect use for sempervivums (Left to right) Production manager Mike Hicks, yours truly, Ann, and Max from Oakland (see his and his husba...