On a warm Sunday evening in June—after visiting the last of the open gardens that were part of the Vancouver Hardy Plant Group Study Weekend—I stopped by the Todd Mahal to see a couple of friends; Todd Holloway and Louis Alden. I've known Louis for years, being a faithful reader of his blog Parallel 49 Palms and Exotics, and Todd (founder of Pot Inc), showed up on my radar with his memorable 2014 City Living display at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show in Seattle (photo here).
So what is the Todd Mahal you might be wondering? Todd's garden, full of fabulous plants and a few Pot Inc pot displays, like here with the Leo wall planters...
After the frenetic pace of visiting 17 gardens over 3 days it was a refreshing sort of homecoming to settle into a friend’s garden surrounded by plants I might see at home, as well as several new-to-me exotic (but hardy) edible fruits and vegetables.
While the Vancouver area’s climate isn’t all that different from the one in which I garden, the plant palette of the open gardens we saw that weekend definitely was. For example, I had just finished walking around the Todd Mahal (with a glass of wine in hand, the very best way to visit a garden) when I got a text from a fellow Oregonian who had also been up for the Study Weekend events. She asked why we hadn’t seen a single Tetrapanax, were they not available in Canada?
Guess how many arctostaphylos I saw that weekend? ![]()
Yep, just this one—Arctostaphylos manzanita 'Blue Tip' (from Cistus nursery). I definitely could have missed a couple in the gardens we toured, but I don't remember seeing any.
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To be fair the plants in that vignette above are all in containers, they definitely wouldn't make it in the ground in Vancouver (nor would they in my garden), but Todd and Louis are exploring what can be successfully grown
in their part of the PNW, as well as lusting after all the cool plants. Follow their adventures on the Instagram account, Arc Plants.![]()
The older leaves of the same plant look quite different! I could do an entire series of blog posts on the interesting rare fruits and vegetables Todd grows, it's quite the amazing selection.
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Digitalis parviflora, sexy!
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This plant is definitely having a moment...
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All the cool kids are growing it. Which, if you're keeping track means I am not one of the cool kids.
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Pittosporum patulum, probably also from Cistus.
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And look at this combo! That's some zone pushing (denying?) for sure. Another Leucadendron 'Ebony', Adenanthos 'Silver Magic' and the always stunning Leucadendron argenteum.
Leptospermum namadgiensis
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Lobelia 'Bruce Wakefield' (Bruce gets around! He's also got a great garden in Portland called Old Germantown Gardens, some of you may have visited).
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I shared this shot in my greenhouses post, but wanted to include it again here, especially since I was so focused on the plants I didn't really take any wide shots of the garden.
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Spikes! Todd had warned me to not expect agaves (last winter was tough on them up in Vancouver too) but I was thrilled to see a spiky cylindropuntia and a pot of soap aloes.
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Yucca baccata (I believe)
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A spiky puya...![]()
And the new foliage of Casimiroa edulis, aka white sapote—what is white sapote you might be asking? It's a tropical fruiting tree which goes by the common name of Mexican apple.
Thanks for the fun evening guys, what a wonderful way to end a long weekend of garden touring!
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