Geeking out in Portland, OR

I just got back from a long weekend in Portland, OR. The nominal reason for my visit was the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon's Plant Fest, a half-day program featuring a special lecture (this year by Kelly Dodson and Sue Milliken of Far Reaches Farm) and a plant sale.

Fortunately, friend and fellow Northern California blogger Kathy of GardenBook was in Portland on business. She'd taken her own car so she could buy plants, and she agreed to transport my haul back with her. This allowed to me to buy with abandon—something I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise since I flew there and back. Kathy lives only an hour from my house so picking up my plants will be easy.

Loree of Danger Garden and her husband Andrew once again gave me a home away from home; they're not only great hosts, but also the nicest people. It was wonderful being able to step outside and explore the Danger Garden as much as I wanted. I took a lot of pictures and will have a couple of long posts in the new few weeks. Here are a just a few teasers:

Cloudy cabbage (Bukiniczia cabulica)

I did schlepp my camera to PlantFest but I was so focused on checking out the plants being sold by the 13 participating nurseries that I simply forgot to take pictures beyond a few snaps.

The day before PlantFest, Loree took me to several Portland nurseries, including Cistus Nursery on Sauvie Island (of course!). Again, there was only time for a few photos in between shopping and catching up with owner Sean Hogan.

Loree also organized two garden visits for Kathy and me. The first garden we saw was blogger Tamara Paulat's 2-acre slice of heaven north of Portland, known to her readers as Chickadee Gardens. Lots of photos were taken here. Needless to say a profusely illustrated post will follow.

The second garden we visited belongs to John Kuzma and his wife Kathleen. This was the third time I've been to their garden—I guess you could say it's a tradition now. I feel very blessed that I've been able to follow the evolution of the Kuzma garden. It's a very special place, as you can see in my previous posts from 2014 and 2017. My 2018 update is coming up next week.

Stay tuned for a handful of exciting Portland posts to come!

© Gerhard Bock, 2018. No part of the materials available through www.succulentsandmore.com may be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated or reduced to any electronic medium or machine-readable form, in whole or in part, without prior written consent of Gerhard Bock. Any other reproduction in any form without the permission of Gerhard Bock is prohibited. All materials contained on this site are protected by  United States and international copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Gerhard Bock. If you are reading this post on a website other than www.succulentsandmore.com, please be advised that that site is using my content without my permission. Any unauthorized use will be reported.