Visiting the garden circles on Portland's waterfront—how I spent my jury duty lunchtime

I think I've mentioned that I recently performed my American duty and answered the jury duty call? It wasn't the best timing, but then again is it ever? At least the view from the top of the new Multnomah County Courthouse was great, made even better by a lovely blue sky. That's the Willamette River slicing Portland in half, west on the left and east on the right. Mt Saint Helens is the white cone without a top in the distance, if you look to the far right you can barely make out Mt Rainer (yes the one up in Washington) peaking up over the dark blue conifer covered mountains.

This glass building is the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, the roof is tilted to take advantage of sun hitting the solar panels. I wondered about the roof of the parking structure in front it it. The circle is the top of the spiral exit ramp but doesn't it also look like it's a helicopter landing pad? Maybe my imagination is getting away from me.

A small greenroof belonging to the courthouse building.

And another, much larger and more extravagant version across the street.

Looking down at the river and Tom McCall Waterfront Park (I managed to obscure Mt Hood with the far end of the tall Hawthorne Bridge structure). I decided to go check out the planting circles (there's one to the right of the bridge) on my lunch break.

Getting close.

The bright sun made it hard to get decent photos, but you can still see it's not at it's prime—overrun with weeds and plants not trimmed—which is sad given that it's June, high season for gardens and tourists.

Still, there arae some great plants in there.

Heading towards the second (and always best, IMHO) circle I got an extremely unpleasant shock. What the hell is this madness!?!? Conifers!?!

But this was the big tropical showpiece; Trachycarpus fortunei, cannas, bananas, colocasia, Melianthus major, eucomis, etc, etc, etc. How could they replace them with conifers?

It's so sad, so boring. I mean I know I'm not the areas most impartial judge (most conifers leave me cold), but this planting is so uninspired. 

If you want to see how good it used to be there are many photos in my old posts: this one from 2009 a virtual love note to the city for the inspiration, in 2012 my photos start from a little further south on the waterfront, and in 2013 I was on another jury duty walk.

The maintenance in this circle isn't great either. Oh Portland, you used to be so much better than this.

The final circle is getting a lot more love, I'm guessing because it's next to a fancy section of restaurants, a hotel and condos—maybe they've even taken over the planting and care?

Bananas all around town are getting a late start this year after being knocked back to the ground over winter.

Lush podophyllum.

These circles are where I first discovered Bletilla striata (Chinese ground orchid).

I finally have one in my garden, in fact it's budded up.

I'm headed back to confinement now, the white building with the long cut-outs is the courthouse.

Ugh. I had to walk by this again on the way.

This was a nice surprise though. Someone has added a little life to the hallway behind the courtrooms, where the jury rooms are. If we'd had to return for another day of deliberations I would have snuck a little agave in there. Thankfully we did not.

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