Xera Plants

“I know that if I ever go looking for my heart's desire, I'll never go any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.”… Dorothy’s words towards the end of the Wizard of Oz. I was reflecting on them last week when I visited Xera Plants (wholesale nursery) here in Oregon. After all I felt a little like Dorothy when I visited San Marcos Growers in California last October. And now, having been granted my wish to visit Xera I realized that the amazing plants I was in awe of at San Marcos were a part of my California dream, not my Portland reality. Xera is my Portland reality, or at least my most perfect reality. I wish I’d kept count and could tell you the ratio of how many times I pick up a plant at a nursery and see the Xera tag. It’s more than 50% for sure…at least 60% and maybe even 70%. These guys grow the cool plants. They’ve been in business for 10 years now, starting out as just a single green house and growing to over 10 (sorry I was to busy looking to stop and count them!).

Am I the only one who finds greenhouses sexy? I’m talking Ally McBeal car-wash sexy. Not that I’ve ever, well you know, in a car wash OR a green house, I’m just saying…they are really sexy, the smell, the heat, the plants. HOT. Sorry…this is a family blog. I digress…the greenhouses at Xera were full of plants that I wanted to take home and plant in my garden.

How many places can you walk in and find a Restio? Not many. Mine died last year and here were several happy Chondropetalum elephantium. Restio’s are cool.

And a Lobelia tupa! I thought this was only a plant of my imagination and here is was in real life!

Plus…this little beauty (liverwort flowers) which wasn’t even for sale but just happy to make its self at home in the pots of plants growing in the warm humid greenhouses. Isn’t it fabulous!?

Looks like little palm trees, no? This one is growing in a pot of Arctostaphylos rudis.

That’s another thing to love about Xera. If you are lusting after an Arctostaphylos or Manzanita chances are Xera is growing the right one for you. They’ve narrowed it down to 10-15 of their best performers. Yes, 10-15…how many can you grow in your garden?

Besides Manzanita Xera also appears to be the local champion of Callistemon! I was a little doubtful when I planted two last spring but they both sailed through the winter with no problems. (Of course they both were Xera plants)...

Look at this Berberis thunbergii! I thought I didn’t like Barberry…but here is one that I’m considering!

I think this beauty is a Sophora microsphylla

And there were many little agaves! Including these…

And these Agave parryi 'Cream Spike'

Agave bracteosa , I think, I couldn’t get close enough for confirmation (an off limits area) but…

This large specimen was growing in their display garden and if I remember correctly Erich from McMenamins mentioned that the ones that overwintered at Kennedy School came from Xera.

There was an Aloe striatula forest…

And look at the leaves on this Argemone Mexicana!

Opuntia ellisiana, a Prickly Pear without the dangerous spines!

And the dangerous Opuntia with the spines…

A small “not for sale” area…all my little fav’s gathered together!

Eryngium agavifolium…look at all their spiky goodness! Pardon me while I get all misty eyed. This was my very first Xera purchase years ago. An amazing plant that EVERY garden needs. Seriously. I’ve got 5 and bought 2 more! (more on my purchases at the end of this long post)Be still my Phormium loving heart…you’ve disappointed me two winters in a row but I still love you so…

Amazing Echeveria…

Eryngium maritimum Miss Willmott's Ghost, you should look up the story behind the name if you are not already familiar with it.

And Echium x wildprettii 'Rocket' – I had planned on gentling harassing them if they weren’t’ growing any Echium, luckily they were.

Epimedium x 'Bandit'…

Little Sempervivum plugs, so cute.

I want to say something about sick plants being rushed to the ER but that would just be stupid, so I won’t.

What I bought…

From upper left... Two Eucomis ‘Sparkling Beauty’ because I’ve only seen signs of life from one of the E. ‘Oakhurst’ in the front garden and I can’t imagine summer without multiple Eucomis blooms!

A Dudleya collomiae, because it looks like a sea creature

Festuca punctoria (hedgehog grass)…with a name like that how could I not?

Agave parryi cream spike, because it’s so damn cute!

Two Eryngium agavifolium, because you can never have to many

An Eryngium yuccafolium, because when you love the agavifolium you have to try the yuccafolium…right?

Glaucium comiculatum…love those leaves!

And two Echium x wildprettii 'Rocket', because I am an Echium addict.

The Xera website is full of fabulous information on their plants, our PNW climate, and a link to their informative, fun and well written blog. Plus there is a list of the 30 retail nurseries where you can buy Xera plants! If you live in the Portland/Seattle area visit one and buy some plants! If you don’t live in the Portland area, well…find a nursery and make it a destination vacation!

Cross it off my lust list!

How many times have you read about my lusting for a Euphorbia rigida? Too many! But no more! Why? Because now I own one…And not just a baby plant but a big mature plant that has bloomed…

...and will be giving up seeds which will produce even more of this fabulous, and hard to find, plant.

I was soooooo close to ordering one online when out of the blue I got an email from Kat, a danger garden reader and owner of a fabulous (huge) Euphorbia rigida. Hers had produced offspring and she was offering one to me!

Aren’t gardeners the most wonderful people? Seriously. Except for that brief interaction at the HPSO sale (and I still think that “lady” wasn’t really a gardener) plant people are the most generous people.

Kat’s plant was purchased at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, one of my favorite places, and moved to the Portland area with her. That just makes it all the more special for me.

Thank you Kat! I think I’ve figured out where this treasured addition to the danger garden will live…and it was great to meet you!

Another step (or two) closer….

Way way way back in early August of 2009 I blogged about our being “one step closer to a pond.” We had purchased the stock tanks and they were about to be dug into place and made level. The digging happened on Labor Day weekend '09… And they are level! Next step…planting the pond! (picture taken September 7th)

Well you know how projects can go (right? Please say you know...) and before I knew it winter was looming large and nobody in their right mind (at least in Zone 8, Oregon) would actually finish a pond project when winter is just around the corner.

So in late September (the 26th to be exact) I planted the bog tank with plants that needed a safe home for the winter. And called it good. We were off on our California Vacation and I knew I wouldn't revisit this area for a few months.

On December 5th they were blissfully unaware of the cold the next week would bring.

On December 20th they were freeze dried.

Through it all the pond set empty. Well, sort of empty. Over the winter it filled with rain, and leaves. It froze solid in December. And now it’s a gooey mess.

But the freeze dried bog plants are showing signs of life. The transplanted Acanthus are going strong, the Tree Fern is happy…

And I’m waiting (not so patiently) for the temperatures to warm, and the crazy spring rains to stop and then I’m heading to Hughes Water Gardens and I’m buying pond plants and little fish…and then…FINALLY, I’ll have a pond. About 9 months after the project started.

The many colors of Aloe Yucca

Yucca aloifolia or Aloe Yucca at Farmington Gardens. One plant, so many different colors!Green, brown/red, yellow, purple, and nobody could explain exactly why they were all so different. Or if they would stay that way.

I would guess it had something to do with the temperatures they endured through the winter months. But…same nursery, same plant, wouldn’t you think they would have faced the same temperatures?

I wanted to buy them all and further the experiment. But I could only rationalize just one; I chose this one, and will be watching to see what happens.

And yes that is another Yucca behind it, on the right. A Yucca 'bright star' from the HPSO Sale last month. I think someday I am going to design an all Yucca garden!

How to make a perfectly wonderful plant disappear...

I planted my new Rodgersia tabularis in the front garden. Hinted to by the plant tag, and confirmed by my follow up research online, it wanted more sunlight than the swell spot I had planned in the back garden would have provided. I figured I would place it where anyone walking up the sidewalk, to the front door, could enjoy it’s amazingly large leaves. Of course when I planted it the Bishops Weed was still waking up from its long winters nap. How easily I forgot what a thug it is.

Back then the Rodgersia was standing tall in the gravel, now it is swallowed but the emerging weed, which will most likely get even taller. And if I dig it up to move it I risk transplanting The Weed to another part of the garden.

What appeared to be a wise placement now proves not to be.

The plant maintenance facility

Where do you stash plants you’ve bought that you won’t be able to plant right away? Do they have a dedicated out of the way holding area? If so that’s your ‘plant maintenance facility.’

What about ones you’ve dug up, intending to more elsewhere but not gotten around to replanting? Ditto…they go to the ‘plant maintenance facility.’

The term comes from my husband’s brief stint years ago as a meter reader for the gas company in Santa Barbara, CA. Naturally he had the opportunity to visit a few large estates and there were electronic notations from previous readers as to the location of the gas meter, for this one particular estate the meter was found “behind the plant maintenance facility.” Yes it really was a plant maintenance facility.

He describes it as an amazing greenhouse and plant yard full of plants that would be rotated in and out of the gardens and containers surrounding the home. And maybe even a place where less than perfect specimens could be nursed back to health? That’s probably just wishful thinking on my part.
The spring of ’06 when we were working on the front garden makeover, and I was buying plants before we were ready to plant them, we christened a protected area along the driveway, cozy up next to the house, as our plant maintenance facility (above and two pictures below).

Now that I have the shade pavilion in the back garden I find that it makes a handy plant maintenance facility. It’s out of the way and can’t be seen from the street or the house.It’s a little warmer and drier than the rest of the garden and a perfect place to park my new purchases until they can be properly planted. So tell me about your plant maintenance facility….or are you (horror) one of those people who goes home and instantly plants what you’ve just bought?

What were they thinking? (WWTT, Number 1)

Do you ever find yourself looking at a landscape and wondering “what were they thinking?”…you can see someone really put thought and consideration (as well as time and money) into what you’re looking at, but you just don’t get it. Really, what were they thinking?

I find myself wondering this at times. And I am confident others have looked at my garden and thought the same. I had a neighbor pull me aside a couple years after we’d torn out the sod in the front yard and put in plants and gravel to tell me that she finally “got it.” That during the first year she would look at it and wonder “why” but now, she got it.

Hell there were times I would stare at it and think “what was I thinking!”

I’ve decided to share with you a few of my favorite WWTT (What Were They Thinking) landscapes. These aren’t the sofa on the front porch, beer cans in the yard sorts of gardens. People actually worked on these creations, they willed them into being. If I were a braver blogger I would march right up to the front door and ask these folks myself “what were you thinking?” But instead I will share with you their creations and let you make up your own stories. Starting with this one…

This one is epic.

My made up story is that there are two different creators at work here. The first did the hard-scaping. The actual structure…And the second has added the accessories, they had no choice but to work with what they inherited. There is a water wheel, which sometimes works.

And they added…

The dolls. The dinos.And the plastic plants.

Or maybe not. Maybe it was all one big master plan. They must be having a hell of a time putting this together.