WeHop

WeHop.  Is it the exclamation of tadpoles upon becoming frogs?  Could it be some sort of Kangaroo revue?  Name of a flea circus?  No silly, it's short for Western Horticultural Products!  WeHop is a Pacifric Northwest plant broker for wholesale growers, grower/retailers & retailers. A week or so ago, Sally Priest, the WeHop rep. for Western Washington, allowed me to visit her nursery in Poulsbo to see some of the cool new plants that growers in California would be marketing next year.  Most of these newbies were planted in combinations, some with old plant friends,  in pots which were displayed on a large lawn. 

Here's some of what I saw.   I'm mostly a one plant one pot kind of a guy but some of these combinations are stunning! 

Phormium 'Guardsman' with kalanchoe thyrsiflora.  YUM!

The Calothamnus villosus in the back of this pot glowed in the sun and was extremely soft.  Probably that's what earned it the common name Silky Net Bush.

Grevillea 'Ned Kelly' is beautiful in bloom  

and out!  This one's going on the lust list.

Sally thought it would be interesting to combine succulents with annuals and other plants not often planted with them.  Love the contrasts!

There were also beds filled with only succulents.  It was difficult to keep from drooling.

Begonias are a favorite of mine and begonia 'San Miguel' is too cool!  The huge red-backed green leaves are so furry that you have to touch them.

  These were "leftover" plants and one could actually purchase them.

  Gulp.  Restraint....

 Dyckia 'Precious metal'

 For those of you who live in warmer climates, seeing a huge growing table full of these gorgeous plants is probably as common as petunia baskets but for me, this was overwhelmingly beautiful!

 Colletia parodota is even more dangerous than it looks!

 This is not a plant one wants to caress or even be in very close proximity to.  Yikes, it was so sharp it cut my eyes just looking at it.  Guess who wants this plant in her collection? 

These decided that they wanted to come home with me.

And the Agave americana 'aurea' which I can't keep from staring at. 

 

After I purchased the agave, Sally said, "If you like agaves, come back here."  It seems that Sally had fallen out of love with agaves because they're sort of dangerous around small children.  She did this after having brought about 20 different hardy agaves up from Yucca Do nursery.  They had been sitting for a few years on the floor of the greenhouse and had been pretty neglected but she said I could have as many as I wanted.  The car was already pretty full of plants as I had visited a couple of other nurseries as well and I didn't want to appear to be a total pig so I took 4.  With a little tidying up and some water, they're looking much better. (Two are in the foreground of this picture.)  OMG!  Free plants.  I also stopped by Valley Nursery as I had earned some "Valnur dollars" from purchases earlier in the year and the cool aloe behind the agave americana 'aurea' was mine for half price ($8.00.)  I drove home feeling like the luckiest gardener in the world to find even more gift plants waiting on my front porch which I wrote about here.  What an amazing day.  Thank you Sally for the opportunity to see these cool new plants and for the gift of the agaves!  Be watching for these plants to be in nurseries next year!  If you want to see them sooner, check out the WeHop website and give Sally a call!