A Japanese Cornel......

Cornus officinalis 'Kintoki'

In the Plantmad garden today this Japanese dogwood lives in the shadow of it's more well known European cousin Cornus mas but when it come to fruit display the cultivar 'Kintoki' outshines them all!

Acer sikkimense

Acer sikkimense

This Dan Hinkley collection of Acer sikkimense from Vietnam has wonderful wine red leathery foliage. It does fine in an unheated greenhouse but haven't been brave enough to plant one out in the garden yet!

Clethra fargesii

We picked Clethra fargesii up a few years ago simply because it was a Clethra that we did not have. It's leaf and growth habit is very similar to Clethra barbinervis However it outshines its cousin when it comes to Autumn Colours.

Moonlight

To shamelessly use the BBC Radio 4 "Desert Island Disks Theme" This is one of my Desert Island plants Schizophragma hydrangeoides 'Moonlight'. If I could only have 10 plants this would be one of them! We have a good crop of liners (at the moment)!

The first colours of Autumn

Vitis vinifera 'Purpurea', bring the first colours of Autumn to Plantmad.

The 'Goshiki' Hedge!

Juan giving our Osmanthus heterophyllus 'Goshiki' Hedge it's biennial trim in the Plantmad Garden. 

We 're going for the biggest 'Goshiki hedge in America!!

Azara microphylla 'Variegata'

Azara microphylla 'Variegata'

This plant has been absent from our availability list for a few years now but we finally have a good crop of liners again for 2016 / 2017!

Fall Shipping

Pulling orders for Fall Shipping today at Plantmad!

Heading out the door.

Fall is just around the corner and some of our plants are heading out the door as some local nurseries are gearing up for Fall Planting.

Wisteria galore

Another grand crop of grafted Wisteria liners are ready for Fall 2016 & Spring 2017 Sales. 

Time to get worried?

I'm thinking it might be time to get a tad worried about my Tetrapanax papyrifer 'Steroidal Giant' in the Plantmad Garden, after a few quite years it's now beginning to expand geometrically :)...

Tetrapanax papyrifer 'Steroidal Giant'

Tiny Cuttings!

Today we also made cutting of this curious little plant, 

Euonymus japonicus 'Dr. Rokujo Variegated'

Hydrangea serrata 'Miyama Yae-murasaki'

It's been a few weeks since we posted anything so thought it was time to get back into the habit! Makeing some hydrangea cuttings today, this is the lovely 'Miyama Yae-murasaki'

It's a jungle out there.

We call this the "no profit" house :)

Here we go again!

Two weeks after we finished potting last years cutting we begin sticking this years!

Down to the wire..

Down to the wire on our Spring 2016 potting, our goal is to get it all done by the end of May. We should just about make it!

Yellow on a cloudy day!

Brightening up a cloudy & rainy day here at Plantmad. Graham Stewart Thomas a great Horticulturalist & Gardener and a great Honeysuckle that should be much more widely planted.Intoxicating scent for both people & bees!  

Hoping for Pink!

Cardiocrinum giganteum "Fingers crossed maybe Pink"

Oh heck we are about to run out of roof :)... This is a seedling of Kelly & Sue's (Far Reaches Farm) Pink flowering Cardiocrinum giganteum. We have our fingers crossed but know the chances of pink flowering offspring is slim! We'll be happy whatever the flower color. 

Burford, The House, The Wisteria!

Wisteria 'Burford'

Burford House not far from Tenbury Wells in Shropshire was the home of the renowned nursery man & Clematis grower John Treasure. Back in the 80's he sent a photo of a large Wisteria covering one whole side of Burford House to Hilliers Nursery. He identified the plant as Wisteria sinensis but after some period of time it was decided the the plant was almost certainly a hybrid between W. sinensis & W. floribunda.

It was then introduced to the trade under the name for the house upon which it lived! 'Burford' takes a couple of extra years to reach flowering age but if you have the patience it's more than worth the wait for the fantastic flowering display that you will be rewarded with.

A few plants were sent to the US and we were lucky enough to get one. While we have grown a few of them off and on over the years we have now added this cultivar to our regular production schedule so you should start seeing a few more of them in coming years.

Champagne Mimosas For Lunch.

Champagne Mimosas for Lunch at Plantmad today as we (FINALLY) celebrate the end of another grafting season!

Chilean Fire Bush on Flight Path!

Anyone who has been around plants in the PNW for any time will know about the old Embothrium coccineum growing at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle. Sadly it's been in decline for a good many years now but at it's prime it was said that when in flower you could spot it from an airplane window if you were on the right flight path into Seatac airport.

I'm hoping to recreate that down here in Oregon for folks flying into Portland from the East! This tree is a first generation offspring of that Seattle tree and I've planted another 5 second generation trees around this one. Give me a few more years!!

Embothrium coccineum in the Plantmad Garden

Wisteria 'Anwen'

Back in the mid 90s I selected & introduced 2 climbing plants named for daughters Mirranda & Anwen, one was the variegated climbing Hydrangea anomala petiolaris 'Mirranda'. The other was Wisteria 'Anwen'.

While Mirranda soon found her way into the trade both here in the US and in Europe. Anwen was never produced in large numbers but still found it's way into peoples collections & also to Europe including the Wisteira collection of the Ghent University Botanical Garden.

Last week a friend in Portland posted some photos of Anwen looking resplendent on his from porch. Besides the mass of wonderful flower racemes Anwen also as a strong sweet scent.

A bit of a mouthful!

This plant isn't normally grown for its flowers but for it's large bright red ornamental thorns. It's looking pretty good in the Plantmad garden at the moment though. It's full name, Rosa sericea ssp. omeiensis f. pteracantha is also a bit of a mouthful!

Doves or Handkerchiefs!

Davidia involucrata 'Sonoma' flowering in the Plantmad Garden this weekend.

Where water falls.....

If Irrigation water falls where it shouldn't..... Then just put a plant under it ;)

Ginkgo biloba 'Snow Cloud'

New grafts of Ginkgo biloba 'Snow Cloud' leafing out today!

29 years & counting..............

This week our Washing Machine gave up the ghost after 29 years of trouble free & faithful service! While I think that's a remarkable accomplishment our Acer palmatum 'Corallinum' that I also grafted 29 years ago is just beginning to hit it's stride!

A Willow from the mountain slopes of Northern Japan.

Salix nakamurana var. yezoalpina

This low growing ground covering Willow is native to the high mountain slopes of Hokkaido Japan. It was looking particularly nice in the the nursery this evening. 

Not your everyday Silverbell!

A couple of years ago the Portland "Friends of Trees" group were helping conduct an inventory of trees in Portland neighborhoods. A tree was found that no one could at first identify, it turned out to be a Melliodendron xylocarpum! Some propagation material was sent our way but it was already late summer and not really suitable cutting wood. We decided to graft the wood onto the closet thing we had, Halesia tetraptera! We were surprised to get quite a good take and this year we have been rewarded with the first flower.

Monster Grafts!

A couple of weeks ago we grafted some variegated Aralia for the first time on our callus bed system. Initial results look promising and we potted them up yesterday!

Aralia elata 'Silver Umbrella'

Back in Service

After an 8 year hiatus Greenhouse #7 has been recovered and returned to service....

More potting Chiyoko :) 

Witch Hazel Grafting

We spent the day grafting Witch Hazels at Plandmad on 2016/03/19

Grafting some old Cherry Trees.

This past Sunday we went hiking in the Eastern Gorge again. Due to the seemingly never ending rain this year we have found ourselves doing this almost every Sunday! This weeks destination was the Old Pioneer Homestead Cherry Orchard just East of Lyle WA at about 1200' high on the Gorge Bluff

On a previous visit last December we found that 3 of the old trees were still at least partially alive! We contacted the land owner (Friends of the Gorge) & asked if they would be interested in us trying to propagate these old trees for them and received a positive answer. So we headed up there to collect some scion wood, unfortunately we were about 3 weeks too late and the buds of the trees had started to push. While this lowers our chances of success we still considered it worth a try. Fingers crossed!

Time for a new Broom!

One of today's projects was custom grafting scions of this newly found Douglas Fir Broom. Always something new & interesting with plants!

A job for my Masakuni Grafting Knife!

My Japanese Masakuni grafting knife doesn't have to come out of it's box very often but today I needed it. These giant Aralia scions were more than my usual Tina 605 or 606 could handle!

Japanese knives are sharpened on the opposite side to Tina knives as they are designed to be used by cutting away from yourself where as with Western knives you cut towards yourself.

Podophyllum 'Kaleidoscope'

Podophyllum 'Kaleidoscope' Wakes up!

Edgeworthia Time!

Flowers from six different clones of Edgeworthia in the Plantmad garden this weekend.

Time for a bit of Snow Cream!

Edgeworthia chrysantha 'Snow Cream' Flowering in the Plantmad garden today.

Japanese Star Anise

Illicium anisatum

I cane across this flowering Illicium in the Jungle Greenhouse today! The Jungle house is the money loosing house that's full of overgrown plants that we never get around to selling and never quite get around  to planting in the garden wither!

A Variegated Japanese Tanbark Oak.....

Lithocarpus edulis 'Variegata'

We found this at Woodlanders Nursery many years ago, it's been as slow as molasses for us and I can't imagine a time when we would ever have any for sale but it is growing on me! 

Another Embothrium clone.

Embothrium coccineum (RCH #1 Clone)

These liners are rooted cuttings of a tree we selected out of a wild collected seed batch that we received in 2005. It has much narrower leaves than our Washington Park clone. So far it's shown equally good hardiness with no damage to the original garden tree which was still quite small when we hit a low of -13C a few years ago.

Ready Steady Go!

Wisteria rootstocks healed in & ready for chopping up into pieces for root grafting. We keep them in the same place we keep the firewood because it's cool but dry!

Un pequeña bosque de 'Primavera'

A Little forest of 'Primavera' Witch Hazels in the greenhouse today!

Making cool cuttings............

Here at Plantmad we are not conifer growers but some conifers have such a cool story behind them that you can't help but propagate a few! This is the Vietnamese golden cypress Xanthocyparis vietnamensis.  Not discovered by Western botanists until the 1990's it's only close relative is the Alaskan Cedar Xanthocyparis nootkatensis (Syn. Chamaecyparis nootkatenis). Two closely related plants one from Alaska the other from Vietnam! Gotta' love the mystery!

Cuttings of Xanthocyparis vietnamensis