Another visit to Rare Plant Research (with the Outlaw)

I'm a sucker for tradition, especially when it evolves nursery/garden visits and good friends. If my calculations are correct then this last weekend was my 18th annual trek to Rare Plant Research in Oregon City, Oregon, and at least my 6th with Peter, aka the Outlaw.

Rare Plant Research is a wholesale nursery that opens to the public for a few events each year, the owner lives on site and has created extensive gardens around the home which are also open.

To avoid the choke point with the crowds at the entry, and of course to put an eye on the bromeliads, I always start at the very last greenhouse and then work my way to the front.

And I always take this photo, because cannas in a group are impressive.

As are opuntia...

Hmmm, speaking of (opuntia) I've got a spot in the garden for a nice spiky version!

Agave montana (I believe, although they still aren't signed as such)

Eucomis comosa, maybe 'Sparkling Burgundy'

Of course I had to go peek at what was "behind the curtain" in the off-limits area.

Didierea trollii

Echium in a greenhouse

Echium outside

Kniphofia

Sad looking Platycerium bifurcatum 'Netherlands'.

Blooming Sarracenia x catesbaei.

This glorious white spiked devil appears to have been abandoned by a potential purchaser, as it (and it's offspring in the next pot over) was not where it was originally found. How do I know? Because Peter had picked one up from the original location and was also considering leaving it behind.

Remember this little segment as I'll have a story for you at the end of this post.

Agave ovatifolia! I was hoping to find them here again this year. These are the 3 gallon offerings ($45) but there were also 1 gallon ($19.50).

Spikes and shells, an unexpected combination anywhere but here at RPR. 

Peter and I walked up to the house and garden of the owner Burl, and his wife. It's an interesting area to survey, and pass the time, while the line to pay down at the nursery thins out. Those bromeliads do not spend the winter there in the rocks, lots of plants around the home winter-over in the greenhouses. 

Alcantarea imperialis 

This photo doesn't accurately convey just how large these sarracenia were.

Inside the home's conservatory.

And across just one of several man-made (Burl-made) ponds.

Another, looking back at the house.

And down at the nursery area, thru the winery's vines (Villa Catalana Cellars is another of Burl's endeavors).

So there's our haul (mine is toward the bottom of the photo; the purple bromeliad, the spiky opuntia and a pair of Agave ovatifolia). Peter is replacing the evil cylindropuntia he'd previously decided against. 

I admit to pushing him to buy it, it was such a beautiful plant. During the trip home a segment (like the abandoned one I photographed above, in the plant pot) broke off and attached itself to the rubber floormat in the back of my car. While Peter was loading his plants into his car I tried to pry it free (with a knife) so he could take it home. I ended up getting it—via at least seven of its long white spines with barbs—stuck in my fingers. The weight of the plant segment meant every move pulled on them and the pain increased. Thankfully Andrew was home and cut the spines free from the plant and then pulled out from my fingers. Fun times with spikes!

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Blood is thicker than water, the pen is mightier than the sword, and the agave is stronger than the strawberry

I've been planting my chartreuse strawberry pots with agaves and succulents since I bought them back in 2014. 

This particular combo has been in place for at least a couple of years.

I laughed when I pulled it out of the shade pavilion greenhouse a couple of weeks ago and noticed an agave pup had pushed up out of one of the pockets, forcing out the sempervivum that had been growing there. Well, I'm not laughing anymore.

Damn.

Who knew? 

I guess I'd better think about pulling out that agave before it happens again.

Funny, I just planted the top of the second pot with a random agave last week.

Since this one pups a lot (I think it's an Agave lophantha 'Splendida', just a little sickly looking) I'd better not leave it in there too long either.

So there you have it. What's good for the strawberry is in fact not good for the agave...

(my umbrella was out to give me shade while repotting in the driveway, it's still sunny and warm here)

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Just keep working...

This spring is hard! We've gone from record breaking cold and wet, to record breaking heat with high wind and low humidity. It's enough to make a gardener crazy! I've been working like a much younger version of me, trying to make up for the havoc the bad winter caused in the garden while also doing my usual spring container migration and implementing a few design changes that I felt needed to be made. I prefer to share projects here on the blog once they're completed, but with the demands of our extreme weather I've been skipping around the garden dipping in and out of things depending on what could or could not be done for the sake of the plants, in other words a lot is in the works, but not much is completed. Here are a few quick updates with more to come later...

I bought several new plants this spring, the idea was that holes from winter needed to be filled and I was fleshing out a couple of new plantings. However, we went from the soil being to wet to dig in, to temperatures that one should not be planting in. Thus we wait (this was supposed to be a photo of a few plants in holding in the driveway stock-tanks, instead it turned out to be mainly peony foliage). I need to get these plants out to their permanent homes so I can plant tomatoes and basil here!

Here's a glimpse of a few of those "yet to be planted" plants, in the tanks on the left and right, but also a look at the sarracenia bog that replaced the dead Agave weberi that used to be in the large black container. I lost a lot of my carnivorous plants last winter and wanted to change things up and move what did live into a sunnier spot, so here they are. 

There's another carnivorous container out of frame on the left, and the surviving Darlingtonia californica are on the patio with the nepenthes.

Remember Holman, the plant I brought home from the Yucca rostrata rescue my friend Eric and I did last September? Well, after spending winter in a container in the driveway he's finally in the ground.

I've yet to deal with the surrounding Leucothoe fontanesiana 'Rainbow' (it's got to go) or plant the xeric plants I've collected for this area, but getting Holman in the ground is a start.

Another big front garden change is underway, as the annually pollarded Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' was removed (thanks Andrew!) and a previously hidden Yucca linearifolia was moved into it's place, along with a stunted Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Wissel's Saguaro'. More to come on this area as well, once I can get back out there and finish it up.

Winter did a number on the area to the left of the palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) and I've got to get in there and dig out a couple dead stumps and plant a couple of "new" things. Soon...

This area was bare soil a few weeks ago, thankfully fresh spring growth has exploded! Usually there would be a couple of galvanized dish planters in there standing tall, and colorful bromeliads that I drop into the ferny undergrowth. Not this year. Changes underway. Slow changes....(rusty changes).

The shade pavilion greenhouse walls came down (finally) on May 6th. Containers were moved to the patio, and then I spent most of the week after that hauling plants up from the basement, including the ones that get mounted on the fence. The patio is currently a mash-up of containers plopped in their approximate place. I'm planting-up some of those (ones whose contents didn't make it through the winter) with new occupants and hoping to have the time and energy arrange them all soon (maybe when the temps drop back down into the 80's?).  

Ya, so that's what's going on here. I keep reminding myself this is what I WANT to be doing. Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy... (also, please overlook the dingy late evening iPhone photos)

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I'm not dreaming, it is May's Bloomday...

My Bloomday participation has been rather hit and miss lately—however, since the blog of our hostess of this event, Carol, is called May Dreams Gardens, I needed to post for May's Bloomday. Most things have caught up with the season and are blooming roughly when they "should," however there are still a few stragglers—plants that are sulking because of our cool wet spring.  Let's have a look...

Magnolia laevifolia...

A spring favorite.

It's so good!

There are a million saxifrage blooms in my garden this time of year, and no, that's not an overstatement. These flowers belong to Saxifraga ‘Primuloides’...

These are from Saxifraga taygetea 'Rotundifolia'. You get the idea, they're all small white flowers that bloom on delicate stems. 

The podophyllum are also in bloom, these dark leaves are P. 'Red Panda'

A close-up of it's blooms.

These smaller blooms belong to Podophyllum pleianthum.

The white blooms of Podophyllum peltatum.

Arisaema ringens

Epimedium 'Amber Queen'

Epimedium wushanense

Convallaria majalis 'Aureovariegata' (variegated lily of the valley)

Disporum cantoniese ‘Moonlight’

Thalictrum ichangense 'Evening Star'

Gasteria glomerata

Close-up.

A couple of my palms are pushing out their lobster-claw blooms, here are the ones at the tip top of my tallest, a Trachycarpus fortunei.

And a close up of one of those claws on a Trachycarpus wagnerianus.

Solomon's seal (Polygonatum sp.)

From above...

Rhododendron laramie

A new lewisia I haven't got planted out in the ground yet, Lewisia longipetala 'Little Mango'.

A no-name lewisia from a long ago blogger's plant swap...

Another no-name from a friend.

Leucothoe fontanesiana 'Rainbow'

There are a few rosemary blooms, although about 80% of the plant turned crispy brown because of our winter weather.

Poncirus trifoliata

Corokia cotoneaster

Loropetalum  chinense var. rubrum 'Hindwarf', wide-shot.

And a close-up.

Erica arborea var. alpina

I'll wrap this up with my Rhododendron stenopetalum 'Linearifolium', which seems to be having a great bloom year. Be sure to visit Carol's May Dreams Gardens for a link to all the bloggers posting their blooms today!

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