You never know where a chance meeting might lead. Lila and I paid a visit to Cistus Nursery awhile back, if I remember correctly it was early spring of 2013. While there we made the acquaintance of a new employee, Eric, and his dog, Rusty. Rusty took a liking to Lila, in a way she wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Once we put an end to that Eric and I got to chatting. He’s since left Cistus but we’ve managed to run into each other a couple of times since and now, months and months later, here I am standing in his garden with my mouth hanging open in awe…
I cannot believe I’m still in Portland. This is amazing.
Even more so when I start asking about all the specimens which surround me. Eric’s got a story about each one, and these stories are much more interesting than “oh I bought that at (some local) nursery”
There’s mention of Craigslist, trips to Seattle, Los Angeles, the Bay Area. These plants have been curated from far and near and are now all together in SE Portland. What’s more Eric’s currently renting while he searches for the home in which he’ll put down roots. Hence the title of this post, this is very much a moveable garden.
Most of it in containers…
All of it amazing.
Oh and we can’t forget Rusty, how cute is that little face?
So did you find yourself thinking "But what does he do with all these plants in the winter? This is Portland after all and it can get cold and it's wet!"...this is the answer...
It's the most fabulous garage greenhouse!
Amazing right? How happy these plants must be to get to spend their winter under glass, stylishly.
Here's a sad truth, Eric acknowledges he might be running out of space in the greenhouse.
How will he chose what gets to inside?
There's one less plant that will be calling for space, the white (although it looks a little green in this photo) echeveria in the front, to the left of center came home with me. It's big sister appears six photos down (it's blooming)...
This is looking back up the side of the house with the garage greenhouse behind me.
Now we've returned to the back garden...
How beautiful is that ghostly echeveria? I can't believe I got to take it's little sister home...
This is just beyond cool right? The steamer trunks are seating...
And that gorgeous brugmansia was just one of many throughout the garden, of course they're all going in the greenhouse over the winter.
It's dripping with flowers...
I'm not sure if that yellow bloomer on the left is Brugmansia 'Charles Grimaldi' or not, but I can tell you I did come home with a start off one of the resident 'Charles' (yes that's two fabulous plants that left with me!)...
I neglected to get a picture of the overall vine, but this passion flower covered the entire side of the garage greenhouse. It was amazing.
Okay, time to head home. I didn't get any photos of the small front garden on my way in, of course I wanted to stop and take pictures but that would have been rude! So I took a couple on the way out...
Wow, right?
There was a pair of these amazing verbascum, along with a million other things I didn't manage to photograph, what a smorgasbord of plant goodness! Thank you Eric for letting me spend a sunny evening in your garden, it's magical.
