Flinging in Portland - The Pre-Fling Party at Pomarius Nursery

I loved the fact that the Portland Garden Bloggers' fling was only a few hours drive away for me. We'd just arrived home from a trip to Alaska, where we visited many gardens, and had a day to get ready to leave for the fling.  At the last minute, I had the opportunity to see the Elizabeth C. Miller Garden on that day and couldn't miss that.  How nice to simply jump in the car and drive to Portland! While I had the best intentions of leaving early and checking out the area around the hotel, I waited until the last minute and arrived at the hotel just in time to leave my bag at the front desk and hop on the bus to the party.

Although I'd seen posts about Pomarius, this was my first time to see this place in person.  What a combination of  choice plants, unusual spaces, and architectural objects awaited us as we arrived. Seeing fellow garden bloggers is always exciting but Pomarius was a particularly festive venue for an evening of re connecting with people, some of whom only see each other face to face at this annual event.

Pam Penick, the Texan who dreamed up the idea of the fling years ago and has been in attendance at each one, chats with Lisa who traveled from Spain to attend.

Many of our Portland hosts (John Greenlee was an honorary Portlander for a couple of days.) wore floral accessories.  Not one's typical corsage!

Did these all come from Laura's garden?

Ann's tiara being adored by someone whose mother never told her that it's rude to point. 

An orange spray painted Allium schubertii seed head is quite a statement all by itself!

Loree chose to simply wear an agave and be the flower herself. 

So many plants/ so many plant people...

Gaz, Gerhard, and Mark.  I've forgotten what was so funny.   

 Pomarius has display areas of exuberant tropicalismo plants, succulents and other xeric plants and somewhat subdued formal offerings. There's something for everyone here!

Tammy and Jason talking about the size of something.  "Really, the aphids were this big!" Tammy seems concerned.

 "Tango" citrus

Orange-clothed tables with mason jars of delphinums, gerbera daisies, goldenrod, and hypericum fruit.

Anna finds a new use for a trachycarpus fortunei trunk.  

 I was particularly tickled by the placement of this bear!  It looks like he's going to grab the truck on the bridge.

It's a good thing he's caged!

 There are a couple of things I wish I'd picked up like some of these sweet concrete flower pots.

And at least one of these!

It was a special evening in a grand venue!  

We all went home looking forward to what was to come in the next three days and Portland most certainly did not disappoint!