Seed/Plant catalogues for Portland, OR

Can anyone recommend catalogues for me to order that would carry seeds/plants suited to Portland? I looked in the DG top 30's list for plant suppliers, but I couldn't tell where they were located without going into each individual site.

Anyway, any suggestions would be appreciated. We just bought a house with very little landscaping and I'm eager to get started.

Oh boy, lucky you. I moved to the PNW three years ago and the joy of a garden growing and thriving is indescribable. Oh, the weeds thrive too! lol I'm interested in an answer too though I know there's some wonderful nurseries in Oregon.

Territorial seed company is located south of you in Cottage Grove. They carry a wide variety of seed, sell plants (as starts) and cater primarily to thiose of us who have to deal with shorter growing seasons.
I have been using them for about 15 years or so - great company.

Nursuries? Perhaps some of the Oregonians can weigh in with that info.

There is also Nichol's Garden Nursery in Albany (similar to Territorial). For fruit and nuts there is Raintree in Morton WA. All three mentioned so far have a catalog and do mail order.

Fall is an excellent time to plant around here!

There's also ForestFarm

Here's a couple of mail order sources for specific kinds of plants:
Irises: Schreiners Iris Gardens (Albany) and Aitken's Salmon Creek Gardens (Vancouver)
Hostas: Sebright Gardens (Albany, state they specialize in hosta that do well in our climate) and Naylor Creek (All mail order, in Chimacum, WA)
Lilies: (all are mail-order only) , Lily Garden, B&D Lilies, Buggy Crazy-also sells native bulbs and some plants.

You can also do GWD searches by state or zipcode-that helps narrow things down. Then, sort by rating...

Local Nurseries:
There are so many great nurseries! I haven't been to anywhere near all of them. Here's a few. I'm sure I'm missing some great ones.

Portland Nursery -excellent place to start, don't buy lilies or hostas there, though. Has a decent natives section.
Cornell Farm- smaller,interesting selections, but not cheap. Not so much into natives, though, but they do have some.
Al's Garden Center quality garden center type place-has HUGE location out in Sherwood
Farmington Gardens-has bigger plants, lots of 2 gal stuff. Again, not really a ton of natives but a good selection of varieties of plants. Every time I've been there, there's someone getting help with the list their landscape architect sent them with.
Cistus Nursery-exotics, zone-pushing stuff...does do some mail order, but drive out to Sauvie Island, it's a nice little trip for a summer afternoon. Then go to Joy Creek in Scappoose-lovely day!

Nothing but NW Natives sells all natives, they are in WA, but I don't know how much mail order they do. They go to the plant sales, though. http://www.nothingbutnwnatives.com/

There are some good fall plant sales coming up next month, too. You should definitely try to get to some of them!
Hardy Plant Society fall sale Sept 8-9 http://www.hardyplantsociety.org/plantsale.htm
Clark County specialty nursery sale Sept 15-16, Clark Co Fairgrounds
Berry Botanical Garden fall plant sale Sept 29 http://www.berrybot.org/events/plant_sales.html
Audubon Society has a spring native plant sale, too. I think it was in late April this year.



This message was edited Aug 12, 2007 1:36 PM

Hi,

Local nurseries:

Gardeners Choice 14240 SW Pacific Hwy, Tigard This is a great nursery, with a large selection of plants.

Just down the road from Gardeners Choice: Loen Nursery 19205 SW Cipole Rd, Sherwood

Great Catalog for unusual edible and ornamental plants: One Green World, Molalla
http://www.onegreenworld.com
They carry lots of native NW plants, I purchased Seaberry, Wolfberry, Huckleberry, Salaal, Honeyberry and more from them. You can visit the nursery, but they don't let you tour the grounds, you just pick up your plants at the counter - so you can save on shipping but you still don't get to select your own plants. Be sure to check their hours, they are very limited, I went all the way there once only to find they were closed!
I highly recommend getting their printed catalog, you can request it here:
http://www.onegreenworld.com//contact_us.php

I also agree that Territorial is a must have catalog, here is their link:
http://www.territorial-seed.com

And Nichols & Raintree as mentioned above are great as well:
http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com
http://www.raintreenursery.com

Have fun! I envy you moving into a house with very little landscaping! Like starting with a blank canvas!



This message was edited Aug 12, 2007 12:56 PM

This message was edited Aug 12, 2007 1:00 PM

Thanks, everyone for the great info. I can't wait to get started.

I don't know if this is the right thread, but I'd like some advice about what I can grow from now until winter. My clay is pretty poor - clay as a hard as a rock right now, but I'd like to try planting in straw bales this year. Any veggies (or other things?) I can start from seed now? thanks!

I really haven't done much with seeds. I think that you can grow a crop of fall lettuces here, though-but check with real veggie people on this! I expect my tomato plants to produce through Sept, possibly mid-October before the nights get too cold and they're icky.

This time of year is fabulous for planting trees and perennials (and they're usually on sale!). Our winters are usually mild enough that they get a chance to really build a good root system before spring and they start growing on top.

Think about starting a compost pile-you're going to want all the amendments you can get. I've always had great results using Whitney Farms soil mixes and amendments, too.

You can start some seeds in your beds in the Fall, any plants that self-seed in the garden. And check out the Winter Sowing forum of you want to acquire a new adiction.

I am not familiar with strawbale gardening, so I don't know what grows well in those.

If you have time to build a veggie bed bed by mid-october, you can start onions from seed in flats now, and plant them out by mid-october. They would not grow well in hard as rock clay, my soil is the same way, so I build raised beds. I don't know if you can grow onions in straw. You should get Onions suited for overwintering - Territorial has Walla Walla, Hi-Ball and Top Keeper, as well as some bunching/scallion onions.

Also in mid-october is a good time to plant garlic and shallots, and you have plenty of time to order those. Territorial Seed and Nichols is a good source for that. In fact, the Territorial Seed Company Winter Catalog is a GREAT guide to what you can grow in this area for the winter. Some things like to be started in July, but there are some you can do into late August and September.

Here is a list published in the Organic Gardening Magazine:
Beet variety "Winterkeeper" Mid July through mid August
Broccoli "Purple Sprouting" July
Chard May through July (I planted some in July and some in August)
Collard "Champion" Spring through Mid August
Endive "Neos" Mid-July through Mid August
Kale "Lacinato, Siberian, Winterbor" Mid July through Mid August
Lettuce August through September
Mizuna "Kyoto" August through Mid September
Spinach "Olympia, Tetori" August through Mid September

My note: - Territorial has a huge selection of lettuce suited for your winter garden, as well as more varieties for most of the categories above. I would contact them right away for their Winter Catalog.

You can also consider growing some lettuce and winter greens in containers until you get your soil worked and amended.

Nice to meet a fellow NW veggie gardener!

This message was edited Aug 13, 2007 9:27 AM

I will be doing a second planting of snow/snap peas, spinach and lettuce in early September for harvest in mid-October (hopefully before the first frost :0)

Two of my favorite nurseries to visit in OR are:
Heirloom Roses in St. Paul, website http://www.heirloomroses.com/
Absolutely amazing display gardens and test garden

Ferguson's Fragrant Nursery in St. Paul, they have a fantastic display garden thier website is http://www.fragrantnursery.com/default.html

Thank you so much for this thread! I was just wondering if I could get away with planting some items this late. I have a cart ready at Territorial and will check my local nursery this weekend to see what I can buy from them.