Still, there arae some great plants in there.
Monday, June 19, 2023
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.
To receive danger garden posts by email, subscribe here. All material © 2009-2023 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.
Still, there arae some great plants in there.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Wonderful photos of Portland's waterfront park.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if your last winter was the final nail in the tropical circle's coffin.
(I for one, am not left cold by conifers and love the new look).
Chavli
I wonder if this planting didn't happen before last winter had the chance? The mulch looks weathered and those weeds are pretty established.
DeleteThe views from your courthouse site are tremendous, especially by comparison to the courthouses I've been sent to. (The best was one in Santa Monica and the worst is a toss up between downtown LA and Inglewood.) I love the rooftop gardens. The third garden circle was nice. I suspect the city needs a little volunteer action to get the other circles in shape as I imagine the public works department has suffered expense cuts. That - and climate pressure - may be why conifers were installed in the second space in lieu of more labor intensive tropicals but, based on your prior posts, I can understand your disappointment.
ReplyDeleteI got this reply from a friend who used to work in the Parks dept: "Parks management is horticulturally clueless and budgets keep getting cut. These are not the only Parks suffering. The standard has suffered throughout the system. You can’t have a horticulturally vibrant system when management doesn’t get it." so sad.
DeleteAs a conifer lover, I think that circle has the potential to be great in a couple of more years.
ReplyDeleteI hope that you are right.
Delete100% with you on the switch to conifers in that planter by the river. Dull with a capital D. Then again downtown as a while isn’t what it used to be.
ReplyDeleteJim N. Tabor
True words. I was surprised how nice the area around the new courthouse felt, none of the ickiness like around Pioneer Square.
DeleteConifers make me cold too...unless they start with PODOCARP...what a disappointment to see an adventurous planting be replaced with the same old predictable blah that we everywhere we look. Still lost on me why our PNW planners aren't doing more desert-y plantings...could there be an easy genus to maintain than yucca? Set it and forget.
ReplyDeleteHa! Yes indeed we are on the same page about the podocarpus, and honestly there are a few others that I like in mixed plantings—not a conifer only moonscape. As for your yucca comment, I honestly think there is a huge PNW bias against yuccas...
DeleteAgreed on the conifer circle. It could be really nice. Some of the plants are cool but the "design" doesn't do the plants justice. I am not sure when it was planted but I had the same shock when I saw it last fall. It could use some bulbs or grasses or maybe a hardy agave or yucca or two, since it is full, hot sun.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right to call out the "design"... my reaction wasn't just to the use of conifers but the horrid planting style.
DeleteRegarding that once-amazing planting that was so tropical looking, wasn’t that designed by that now-retired city horticulturist who owns the really cool garden in inner SE? Bring him back!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately there's no brining Lance back, he's moved out of the city even!
DeleteI work at a place where the landscaping has suffered horribly. It was an award winning landscape design, but then the person taking care of it retired and no one else has the time to take care of it. So, I’ve been nominally put in charge to come up with something “xeric” this fall. The major problem is that there are too many other people who are also contributing conflicting ideas and I am required to use weedmat (ugh) and river rock (double ugh). At least we are trying to fix it now. OSU is in a similar sad state. They consider it a world class university, but then the campus is full of old, overgrown, dying rhododendrons and weeds. Obviously their budget for landscaping is more on par with an abandoned strip mall. Bleh. I took pictures the other day of a relatively new planting that started out with promise - manzanitas and cistus. But they’ve now been hedged because they were planted too close to the sidewalk and it is all overgrown with grass and canada thistle. Guess which plants don’t like to be hedged or crowded/shaded and are now starting to die? Sigh.
ReplyDeleteHey what's double yuck about river rock? ;) if you visit my garden you'll see that's what I used as mulch. Pea gravel = kitty litter and I wanted something not sharp. Seriously though, design by committee is rarely fun for the person wrangling the design, I feel for you. As for those arctostaphylos and cistus, why!?! Reminds me of the time I saw an Arbutus unedo clipped into a cube. There was one little fruit...
DeleteSorry, not enough context. The double yuck is that it doesn’t really go with anything else there and it doesn’t mesh with what is being asked for. I have a hard time envisioning a landscape that will be 90% large, empty expanses of river rock and 10% plants.
DeleteThe new courthouse is niiiiiice! Is the old courthouse still in use? Too bad they can't partner with one of the killer nurseries around there to rehab those circles. I guess maintenance is still an issue. It's nice to see some pretty shots of my hometown, I worked downtown (Jackson Tower) for years when I lived in Portland. So much has changed.
ReplyDelete