'twas Hortlandia

As I wrote in Monday's blog post, last weekend was Hortlandia, the spring plant sale which brings many of our Portland-area nurseries together under one roof. Today I share my haul, mainly because I love to look back on these posts and see what I bought each year. Here's a group shot before I took them out of the car...

On the far left, Fuchsia procumbens. 

Last year was the first time I grew this plant (check out the crazy blooms and berries), and based on what I read online I thought it wasn't hardy here and thus an annual. Nope! My plant is coming back from the roots so I thought I'd buy another and see what fun I can have with it.

I bought a pair of small Cassiope lycopodioides at the sale last year and they're still alive.

I celebrated that feat by buying two more this year.

I've always loved the foliage of Sanguisorba officinalis 'Chocolate Tip'.

And my fellow Portland-gardener Scott Weber frequently shares sexy photos of its blooms (here), so I finally had to grab one. This wasn't a Hortlandia find though, I stopped at Blooming Junction before Hortlandia, since I was nearby and had a 30% off coupon...

I mean how could I pass it up?

I only bought two plants from Illahe (a nursery I carried on about in Monday's post); a pair of Draba hispanica.

"Creeping, mat former for wall planting, rock garden/alpine garden. Yellow flowers in early spring. Spain" Look at that foliage!!!

When one sees a $4 saxifrage, one has to grab it.

Especially when it has many babies gathered round. 

Shopping the Sebright Gardens booth this fern caught my eye. It's impossible to capture just how black the stipe appears in person. That's why I grabbed it as soon as I saw it, for a moment I thought it was my long lusted for Dryopteris polylepis—a fern I visit at the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden every time I visit, but no.

This one is Dryopteris cycadina (aka shaggy wood fern or shaggy shield fern, which is tremendously fun to say).

If I needed another reason to buy it (which I didn't) it would have been this from the Missouri Botanical Garden website description: "Specific epithet is in reference to the resemblance of this fern to the cycads." 

Of course the fact several people stopped me to ask what it was and where I got it also told me I'd nabbed a good one.

Speaking of that (a question inducing purchase), this Cyrtomium macrophyllum (large leaf holly fern) from Secret Garden Growers was a HOT ticket at the show, I was thrilled to score one.

This little cutie was also from SGG...

I'm still on an epiphytic fern binge and it's all the better when they just might be hardy in the ground here.

Friends I saw at the show expressed surprise that I only purchased a single flat of plants, but I assured them I had been shopping A LOT already this year. In fact I bought this choice Hakea microcarpa just the day before at Xera Plants.

"Unusual tree/shrub from alpine areas of Australia into Tasmania with spiky modified phyllodes as leaves. The spiky leaves are blue green and it forms an airy conifer like large plant very quickly. In spring flossy white flowers crowd the blue green leaf axils and are showy for several weeks. Full sun and average to poor well drained soil. Little summer water once established...Proteaceous- do not fertilize or even add compost. Un amended native soils are ideal. Very attractive to birds who will use the leaves as perches. Humming birds love this plant in bloom as well...Great on slopes. Casts no shade- great textural element year round...Pronounced HAY-kee-uh." It's going to go where one of my Callistemon "Woodlander's Hardy Red" was (a winter loss). 

Have you been plant shopping this spring? If not... get out there!

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