Portland: Danger!

It's been a month already since our trip to Portland for the Garden Bloggers Fling, and I'm only about halfway finished showing you the gardens we saw. Today I continue with Saturday, a day when I wasn't with the rest of the Fling group but still ended up seeing a few of the sights that were on the itinerary: rose test garden, Japanese garden, and today's topic: Danger Garden.

When I started blogging over four years ago there were a handful of garden blogs that I found and started following: Loree's Danger Garden was one of them. Over the years I had seen hundreds of photos of her garden, and I felt like I knew "everything" about it -- and now I was finally getting a chance to see it in person! 

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The name "Danger Garden" applies for several reasons. First, the place is packed with spiky and thorny plants, things that can easily poke you somewhere sensitive or leave a scar. Second, Loree likes to push zonal limits, planting something in the ground that may not survive the mild-but-still-colder-than-many-plants-can-endure Portland winters. I have to add a third reason now: if you're a plant person and visit, you're in danger of losing hours of time and developing vigorous plant envy!

The Tetrapanax papyrifer in the photo above was the first plant I encountered in Loree's garden, as it was in the front yard next to the sidewalk. A big, beautiful, and impressive plant, I expect to have this growing in my garden at some time in the near future. Nice start to the visit!

Wide-angle photos were difficult due to the harsh sunlight and deep shade, but hopefully you can see that the front yard is a plant-lover's spot. I was first attracted to the small trees though...

(I told you I had a thing for bark!)

(and lichen)

One plant that I was looking forward to seeing but had almost forgotten about was the wingthorn rose:

The sun wasn't positioned appropriately to backlight the thorns in the best way, but you can still see that this is a striking plant!

There are several different low-growing plants in the front, filing in the spaces between the larger plants. Most of them were difficult to photograph on this hot and sunny day.

As nice as the front of the house is, the back yard is where the real magic happens (is there a garden whose front, public face outshines the private back one?), where I finally got an appreciation for how cozy typical Portland yards really are.

I didn't take any overall photos of the space (you can get those at Loree's blog), instead focusing on the details. Some obviously pointy...

Some fuzzy...

Some looking fuzzy but are actually pointy on a smaller scale and do not want to be touched:

The place is just packed with plants, interesting things filling every corner...

...and when you run out of corners to wedge another plant into...

...you make more! Loree's tiny patch of lawn is outlined by a border containing both concave and convex corners, not only increasing the viable planting space, but creating so much more visual interest!

Also adding to the interest are containers, some required because of their non-hardy inhabitants that must be moved into a protected area in the winter...

...but many are here because containers make gardens so much more interesting!

Sometimes you wonder which is the focus, the plant...

... or the container. (That's the way it should be!)

So what sorts of things will you see in Loree's garden, besides the orange shade pavilion and another wonderful Tetrapanax?

Let's just look, shall we?

Accidental macro shot of my shorts

To see more of Danger Garden -- including lots of shots that actually show you the layout of the garden, check out this post from Diana.

Glad I got to visit your garden Loree -- hope to come back to see how it's evolved some day!

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