A tale of two plant swaps (it’s not about what I brought home)

We Portland area garden bloggers get together in the spring and again in autumn to swap plants ("Portland area" is a loose term, this time around we had someone from Seattle join us as well as someone from Amity and another blogger from Corvallis). Honestly the plants are really just an excuse, we enjoy socializing and seeing each other's gardens. Our host for last weekend's swap was Hayden Smith, who has been gardening at this location in St. Paul, Oregon, for just a year.

Here's part of our group chatting and checking out the garden. 
There were so many beautiful flowers in Hayden's garden I wasn't sure where to point my camera (or err, actually my phone), but once I saw these celosia I was smitten.
Many of them were sort of falling apart and going to seed, but they were just as beautiful as the ones still in bloom.
The seeds for these plants came from Floret.
I recently listened to Jennifer Jewell interview Floret's founder Erin Benzakein on Cultivating Place, it was a fun podcast—give a listen here if you're interested.
There's a small spiky plant collection in the garden.
They've got a nice spot to soak up the sun and heat in pots in front of a brick wall.
Our flower farmer Mindy brought this homegrown arrangement.
More flowers from Hayden's garden...



I've been known to trash-talk marigolds but loved these floppy beauties on tall stems.
And I've always admired Verbena bonariensis blooms.


This fun scene is what I thought would kick off the section on the blogger's plant swap, but instead it's the end of that chapter...
...and we move on to the autumn swap of the NE Portland focus group within the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon umbrella, this swap was held earlier last week. Here two of the attendees are splitting a plant so they could each take a piece (Hemiboea subacaulis var. jiangxiensis). I love the plant surgery aspect of the endeavor.
This swap was held in Mary DeNoyer's garden, which I've shared a few times (most recently here). Mary and I have similar taste in plants, so I wasn't surprised to see her expanding collection of Pseudopanax ferox.
She picked up a couple of odd Pseudopanax crassifolius on a visit to Dan Hinkley's Windcliff.

Agave isthmensis 'Ohi Raijin Shiro Nakafu'
Maihuenia poeppigii
Pyrrosia lingua 'Cristata' 
A close-up of the plants in...
... this fabulous planted up bird bath. The fern at the jaunty angle on the left planted itself, as they are known to do.
Anemone 'Honorine Jobert', I love them when I see them, but don't need one (or 1,000) in my garden.
Ditto for this hardy Begonia grandis.
What a horribly bad photo, but I had to include it because the plant and Mary's pruning job are both just so good,  Arctostaphylos auriculata ‘Diablo’s Blush’.
Shaggy and blushing, a match made in heaven.
The surrounding plants here seem to planted with the intent of highlighting the variegated foliage on the Canna 'Cleopatra'.
*Sigh*, I haven't planted any Echium wildpretii in my garden for a couple years now. I need to take care of that, soon. Well, not until next spring since this beauty isn't reliably hardy here through the winter.
Bam! Take that jolt of flower power.
Arabis ferdinandi-coburgi grows beautifully along the border in many parts of Mary's garden. She gave me a piece once, but it didn't like my garden much.
Pyrrosia hastata with an unknown persicaria.
And to end this tale of two plant swaps, the photo I'd intended to start with. 
In case you're curious I took a few things to both swaps, but didn't come home with anything from the blogger's event at Hayden's—well anything for my garden, I did bring home a few things nobody claimed that went in the little free greenhouse at the curb. From the swap at Mary's I did bring home a few plants—an unnamed podophyllum division, a Mangave 'Bloodspot', a small rooted aeonium cutting and a couple of wire thingamabobs that I'm sure will turn up in the garden in the future. I feel so lucky to have spent time with two different groups of generous gardeners in the same week, in case you needed a reminder, gardeners really are the best people.