Portland: Cistus Nursery

The first day (Friday) of last week's Portland Garden Bloggers Fling started with a walk, but then had us on the bus out to Sauvie Island, for a picturesque 15-mile ride to Cistus Nursery.

What makes Cistus (and the next stop of the tour, Joy Creek Nursery) different from most city and suburban nurseries is its display garden. With a larger-than-urban property, they can plant lots of the things they sell so you can see their potential. And although any nursery that has a wall of bamboo along one border is a winner in my book already, We'll start with the display garden, which you must walk through to reach the more typical sales area.

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Again because of the harsh sunlight and too-hot temperatures I didn't take too many wide shots to give you an overall view, but I did take a few.

This path was for the more ambitious, with lots of small discoveries
along the way. It was fabulously cool too on this hot day!

Mainly though I went for macro shots again -- you'll see that as a theme in these posts. I don't know how anybody can photograph gardens and not have access to a macro function or lens!

Seen on the cool, shady path shown above.

The most striking plants for me in the garden were a couple of members of the poppy family (I learned from fellow bloggers on the tour). First up was "plume poppy", whose 8' (2.4m) bloom stalks were amazing against the clear blue sky:

Maybe plume poppy (Macleaya cordata) is a bit of a bully, spreading readily in the garden, but I'm not afraid of big plants that want to take over. I'll be adding this to my garden this year if I can find it!

Another was what I was told was the "fried egg plant" (which I believe is Romneya coulteri):

This one is also cold-hardy in my zone, so I may have to give it a try as well. I wonder if the deer like both of these as much as they do other poppies?


Back by the customer restrooms there was a patch of Eryngium -- I'm not certain what species, but there were multiple types it seemed. I love the look of most Eryngium, but the E. planum that I grow in my garden has an unpleasant scent of cat poop. These had no fragrance that I could detect, but attracted the bees by the dozens!

Look at the beat-up wings on this one! How can it even fly?

Does anybody know the species of these Eryngium? I want to try them!


Ready to take a look at the sales areas?
They're arranged into different "rooms" based on the conditions they like (if I remember correctly):

There is also a central area with so many wonderful Yuccas and similar...

And a few greenhouses. Do you know what's not the most fun place to be when it's 90ºF+ degrees outside? A greenhouse.

Still, there were lots of interesting textures in here, so I endured.

I've actually bought plants from Cistus before and had them shipped, so it was really nice to see where they originated. I've read other gardeners' accounts of their trips to Cistus before so not everything here was new, but photographs are a poor substitute for the actual experience and I thoroughly enjoyed the visit -- despite the heat!

Next up: Joy Creek Nursery, equally impressive as Cistus but with a completely different feel.

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