Blue sky and carefully curated plants, at Pomarius

Saturday’s warm sun and blue sky combination was the perfect backdrop for a visit to Pomarius in NW Portland. Pomarius is a nursery unlike any other in Portland. Its setting in an industrial area, (nearly) under the Fremont Bridge, is not where you expect to find topiary and chickens along with a carefully curated collection of beautiful plants. A lot has changed since my first visit two years ago. There are more small plants for sale (the first visit I saw primarily large specimens). And now things are very well tagged with name and price, no cultural information though. Looks like the makings of a greenhouse? That appeared to be glass in the crates. Wandering around the (almost) deserted nursery was perfect, as invigorating as a mini vacation. On my way home I drove by Garden Fever, “my” neighborhood nursery in NE Portland. As you would expect on a day that virtually screamed “plant your tomatoes today!” they were very busy…which a very good thing (I want them to thrive after all), but I felt fortunate to have spent my afternoon at Pomarius, a little bit of paradise in downtown Portland.

The warm morning light...

Saturday was the day that all of Portland finally breathed a huge sigh of relief. Blue sky, sun, warmth (our first day in the 80's!)…life is good. For me it meant the first coffee on the patio in pj’s and getting to see the morning light hit the back garden plants for the first time this year (yes, it’s been that bad). Days like this I’m pretty sure I live in the most beautiful place on earth.

Our neighbor’s garden…

About a year ago our next door neighbor John put his house up for sale. This wasn’t just any neighbor; this was the neighbor everyone dreams of having, the one you have over for dinner or go out for a drink with. The one who picked up the mail and newspaper when we were out of town…and the one who always said yes when we left town and asked if he could throw some water on the plants while we were away (yes! seriously, and he did a damn fine job). So now he was moving away. How could we possibly be lucky twice? Not going to happen. Nope we were doomed to loud party animals with 3 kids, 5 dogs and an RV, things were going to get ugly. The house sold in a day and a half, and the new neighbors moved in. Right away they ripped out the front and side gardens (I think I even took pictures as it was happening, to blog about it…but never did). Sure it was a little overgrown but there were some good plants in there! And now they were gone….hauled away by a landscape company. Before the house went on the market I had said to John “If the new owners so much as touch that palm!”… it was my litmus test. And guess what, they didn’t touch it! Almost everything around it went away but it remained. That’s when I knew there was a chance I was going to like them (yes I realize I was being a little territorial about something that wasn't even mine...) Fast forward a year, I worried needlessly, we got absolutely great neighbors! In fact they broke the pastel neighborhood "curse" by painting their house dark before we did. These are the same neighbors that I mentioned bought the blooming aloe a while back, it still hasn’t burst into full bloom, but I get to see it everday! Evelyn and Julia (the neighbors) started replanting their garden last summer, but have added several more fabulous plants this spring. Increasing the connection we feel to this house and its occupants (current and former) is the fact that our homes are exactly the same, different rooflines but the floor plan is the same. We’ve joked that this, along with the fact we are so close together, is sort of like living in detached condos. See that’s our (brown!) house just feet away!

Besides the lust worthy aloe they’ve planted a few other things I’ve wanted in my garden but now I don’t have to make room for; like that gorgeous Phormium in the picture above and this Staghorn Sumac… Plus a couple of plants that are in my garden have shown up in theirs too (cause they have great taste)…like an Opuntia… Sempervivum (huge!)… And Manzanita… Their Rubus lineatus is much happier (larger) than mine is. They’ve got it in almost fun sun, where as mine is in almost full shade. They smartly left the gutter downspout extension to take the rain away from the house and accented the water path with blue pebbles. And have a gorgeous Aeonium Schwarzkopf on the front porch. Beside the house under the Palm (you can see it on the far left in this picture)......are a few other gems, including an Acuba. This is the area between the driveway and the house where we’ve got our veggie stock tanks. For some reason this area has been paved over at our place, where as they have a good sized space to plant. I would be jealous except we get to enjoy the view out of our living room window! Ash Leaf Spirea (isn’t it gorgeous?)
How did we get so lucky as to win the good neighbor lottery twice in a row?

The Echium Fever Continues...

I’m back at it again this year, loving a plant that’s (mostly) not hardy in my zone. Here is a roundup of the Echium that I’m currently obsessing over, first the surprise. I had completely forgotten this little Echium russicum seedling until weeding earlier this spring. Bought at the Spring 2010 HPSO Plant Sale I had planted it and forgot about it. When a simple tug didn’t pull it from the ground I looked closer and remembered, could it be? Yes and it’s about to bloom…perhaps in time for June’s bloomday!? (I promise to be in better spirits this bloomday than I was for May) A hardy Echium! E. russicum is hardy to at least zone 7. Why is it not more widely available?

Next is a pair of Echium x wildpretii 'Rocket'…one miraculously lived through the winter in the ground…protected with bubble wrap and a over turned terra cotta pot. And one cruised through in a protected container, now planted in the ground. They are both growing like weeds but showing no signs of a bloom, which is fine with me, I like them as is.

Then there is a huge Echium pininana I bought in February at the Yard, Garden, and Patio Show. I could see early on it was pushing out a bloom. It just got taller and taller. And now the buds are starting to open, I hope it lasts for a long long time. Last up is the gorgeous variegated Echium that I bought from Cistus earlier this spring. This is becoming an annual (3 years now) tradition. How could I not? In case you missed it the folks at Annie’s Annuals recently blogged about their blooming Echiums, and asked their fans to share photos: http://blog.anniesannuals.com/2011/05/27/show-us-your-echiums check it out!

Flowers guaranteed to give me nightmares

I went to move my container of Astelia nervosa 'Westland' the other day. This usually involves bending over with my face directly above the plant and lifting it up towards me. That’s about when I almost dropped it. Yikes! There were “things” coming out of the center of my plant! Creepy crawly things. Wait, no…actually those are just flowers (if you can call them that). I think these might be the ugliest flowers I’ve ever seen in my garden. I looked the plant up on the San Marcos Growers website to see what they had to say… “as with other Astelia the male and female flowers are on separate plants (Monecious), neither are showy and are usually down in the foliage.” “Not showy” is an understatement. I wonder if mine is a boy plant or a girl plant?