I just got back from an exceptionally wonderful week in Portland Oregon. I was there for the Independent Plant Breeder's Conference, and got to spend a couple extra days tooling around checking out amazing gardens and nurseries! Too much fun. Here are some photographic highlights.
A gorgeous selection of
Veronica incana seen at
Xera Plants. It is always a great plant, but this is by far the nicest form I've seen. Yes, they sold me a plant, and yes, cuttings are already stuck!
Want to guess? Buddleia! Yes, this is a butterfly bush!
Buddleia colvilei 'Kew Form' to be exact. Excuse me while I stop drooling. Not even close to hardy for us, of course, but still.
Fall color was just about perfect... here's a shot of the Japanese maples in the garden of Dan Heims (as in,
Terra Nova) He was one of the organizers of the conference and a perfect host. Thank you Dan!
Japanese maples + moss = Perfection.
Attendees of the conference all busy taking photos of the spectacular maples at the Japanese Garden.
More Japanese maple perfection... I can't get over that PINK one on the left! Amazing.
One of the conference tour stops was Terra Nova... This is where all your heucheras come from. Kinda amazing. It was fun to see behind the scenes a little, and meet some of there breeders. I have to admit, I love their heucheras and kniphofia even more now that I've met Janet Egger, the genius breeder who creates them, and flat out one of the coolest ladies I've ever met.
Gorgeous planting at
Cistus nursery.
More Cistus beauty... I took lots of pictures at Cistus, most of which didn't come out well, so you'll have to use your imagination. Basically, truly amazing collection of gorgeous plants, most of which I could only sigh over, wishing they would be hardy for me.
This just made me sick. It is a bad picture, but this was just one of the many lush, vigorous, flowering blocks of
Gentiana acaulis I saw at
Edelweiss Perennials. Huge, gorgeous flowers of absolutely perfect blue on plants that were growing like WEEDS. If you've ever tried growing
Gentiana acaulis here in the midwest, you'll appreciate my insane envy... I had a little patch that I was inordinately proud of... before it completely shriveled up and died in the baking heat and dry of this summer.
Would you guess this is in Oregon? This was at
Rare Plants Research, where again, I walked around looking at gorgeous plants that I could never grow in Michigan...
Besides all the gardens and nurseries and amazing plants, the conference itself was amazing. A veritable who's who of horticulture was attending, I got to meet and hang out with a lot of incredible people and have a terrific time. If you are interested in plant breeding, I highly recommend attending the next one in 2014. Particularly because it is going to be held here in Michigan! Either Lansing or Grand Rapids, I believe, so I'll get a chance to try and make other people jealous of the gorgeous plants we can grow here.
9 comments:
Looks like you had quite a trip, glad you enjoyed our fair city :-)
That Veronica is stunning to say the least! Have you heard anything about the availability of Salvia 'Amistad' outside of California? My Hummingbird Forum members and I have been trying to get our hands on it for 2 yrs. now.
So what you're saying is that Zone 8 would be pretty nice after all? Glad you had a good time here in P-town and that we got to meet up and chat a bit. Next time come visit in the summertime and we can have drinks on the patio...
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