Greenhouse fun continues; Raintree Tropical and a bonus drive-by garden

Knowing I'd need a winter "pick me up" (yes, even after a visit to San Diego), I planned an outing to Raintree Tropical with friends Tim and Evan. This nursery is south of Portland, in Silverton, and features a nice warm indoor plant shopping experience (earlier visits here and here).

This palm was completely enclosed in a tall plastic protective structure during my last visit, but that visit was right after a record breaking period of cold last January. This winter had been quite mild when we visited on February 1st. 

Raintree is known for their palms, so it's only fitting they've got them planted all around the property.

Okay, let's go inside...

I miss my Pseudopanax 'Sabre', it was a good looking plant (winter death).

P. 'Sabre' with friends...

Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' (I might need to plant one of these again this summer).

Mangave some somebody...

Graptopetalum?

A nice sized Dicksonia antarctica.

The upper part of this cycad is shown in the next photo, I was rather taken with the base however, it was so mossy spectacular. 

Plant chaos of the best sort.

Adiantum hispidulum

Pteris vittata (a big container with a label even, $40).

I've bought so many Pyrrosia linqua here that I wasn't even tempted by these. Okay, maybe just a little...

This however... I was on the hunt for some underappreciated Phlebodium aureum.

Check out the climbing nepenthes...

An excellent Phlebodium aureum, but it was rooted into another much larger pot.

If you forget to look up in a place like this then you'll miss quite a lot.

Layers and layers of plants.

Abutilon 'Tiger Eye'

I loved this gorgeous creature.

Ditto for this one.

This one kind of gives me the creeps though.

One last glance before I pay for my purchases...

They're all weeds! Mine are the five greenhouse weeds (so called by the fellow who took my money); three containers of Pteris vittata (on the left) and two of Phlebodium aureum (on the right), he was so happy to see me taking the weeds away that he charged me weedy prices! The two containers at the top of the photo are Evan's purchases.

And here are Tim's a palm (I neglected to ask him what it was) and that terribly cute cactus.

Just a few more photos in this twofer post. Enroute to Raintree Tropical, Tim and I drove by by this Silverton garden that I've written about in the past (here). 

I hadn't been back by since I took photos for that post in 2022.

Everything was looking great, although the ginormous Agave ovatifolia that originally caught my eye driving by (back in 2022) is gone, it bloomed (I think that happened last summer? Doug mentioned it in a comment he left on a post). 

I spy a replacement agave, behind the rock, in front of the monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana).

Thankfully the garden is not A. ovatifolia free, this big guy is still looking pristine.

As are the plants the large steel planter.

It was great to see this garden again after a few years! (love the saxifrage)

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A private greenhouse full of exceptional plants (a tour)

I've long been enamored with all the cool plants on the Instagram account pills23. Since I knew they were based here in Portland I fired off a casual "can I come visit sometime?" message and (lucky me!), the dream came true. I got to meet the plantsperson behind that account, Steven, tour the greenhouse and touch all the plants! Steven shares this space with Cassandra (plantsinwonderland) whom I did not get to meet. They used to own a local shop called Cloud City Tropicals which has unfortunately closed. The plant passion runs deep here...

Just inside the door and I was lusting after those curvy leaves. Steven says they're two different forms of Ophioglossum pendulum, yes it's a fern. The spiky business is Huperzia squarrosa (aka Phlegmariurus squarrosus).

The ruffled foliage looked a little like my crested Pyrrosia lingua but it's actually Polypodium fallax.

Ceratostema villosa (aka Ceratostema loucianae)

At this point was having a hard time deciding what to focus on. The big picture? Or individual plants? Of course the individual plants won (with occasional pulled back shots). 

I should also note that even though I'd never met Steven before, I instantly felt at ease with him. His plant knowledge was off the charts, but not in an intimidating way. He let me sort of pick my way through the greenhouse and ask questions of the plants I was curious about. I was there for a little over two hours and it felt more like 30 minutes. I can only hope Steven felt the same and wasn't spending those two hours wondering when the crazy lady was going to finally leave...

Lecanopteris pumila, aka ant fern.

Yes I can definitely say that thanks to Stevens love for ant ferns I too am now a little obsessed. 

Philodendron verrucosum

This leaf was gorgeous from both the front and back and has a fuzzy stem too!

Selliguea platyphylla

One of the most interestingly shaped staghorns I've seen, this is a Platycerium veitchii.

Microgramma bifrons 

A close-up.

Platycerium ridleyi

Dendrobium uncatum, it definitely reminds me of my Poncirus trifoliata. Steven mentioned a desire to collect all the zig zag orchids he could find.

This one! Back when Steven shared a photo of this crested form of Pyrrosia longifolia on his Instagram feed I nearly passed out from sheer plant lust.

And now here I was, standing right in front of it! 

Be still my heart! If Steven hadn't been such a nice guy I might have been trying to calculate if there was any chance I could grab it and outrun him. Truth be told he probably saw the lust in my eyes because he offered me a cutting (!), yes! More on that at the end of this (long) post.

This was the first time I'd been face to face with this plant "in real life", but even before seeing on Steven's Instagram feed I'd seen it on Martha Stewart's blog. Martha had visited the Amazon Spheres and afterward they'd sent her a box (or two, or three) full of plants. Here's Martha's picture of Pyrrosia longifolia...

And back to Steven's, isn't it crazy how it's growing in a piece of bamboo?

Okay, moving on...

Another ant fern I think...

And another Huperzia species. I asked if this one had been resting on a shelf or something to get the flat-bottom effect but that's just how it's growing.

Hot! Am I right? Anthurium wendlingeri

 I wanna call this a aglaomorpha, but it might also be a drynaria.

Another of those cool plants I've seen photos of, but never in real life; Selenicereus wittii. yes it's a cactus.

"A very strange and unique species of epiphytic cacti from the seasonally flooded forests of the Amazon basin of Brazil. It clings tightly flat against the trunks for forest trees just at the high water mark of the seasonal flood. The segments of the stem are broad and flat and approximate two inches wide and four to six inches long. There are fine marginal spines in tufts. The flowers are fragrant and are borne on long peduncles and are about four inches in diameter and bright white, emerging only at night and fading by first light" (source)

Shortly after my visit Steven posted photos of this plant on his Instagram account, I was shocked how much was lost in translation, but that meant I wasn't too upset when I looked at my photos and they didn't do it justice. In person this was absolutely stunning, Monolena primuliflora...

Truth be told the bits left after the flowers fade might have been my favorite part.

Oh ya! Sexy begonia alert, Begonia paulensis.

Looks like a nice chunk of tree fern used as a mount. Lots of texture to grab hold of.

Maybe Lecanopteris lomarioides?

Microsorum punctatum 'Dragon Whiskers'

I think this one may be Polypodium formosanum.

With textured fronds!

Super sexy...

This was interesting, the tag read Lemmaphyllum microphyllum, which I know as a little epiphytic fern with thick succulent leaves, yet these leaves were thin and more traditionally fern-like.

Microsorum thailandicum, aka blue oil fern.

Alocasia cuprea

Microgramma mauritiana 'Laciniated'

And this final fuzzy fern is a mystery, if I remember correctly what had been growing in this container slowly disappeared, while this fern took over. It's pretty cute...

Here's Steven, posing with (I think) an Elaphoglossum metallicum. Meeting this guy and hanging out in his greenhouse was such a bright spot in an otherwise intense and overwhelming few weeks. Plant people are the best!

And the fun didn't end there! Steven generously shared cuttings of a few of the ferns I lusted after. Here's the Lemmaphyllum microphyllum that was different from the ones I already have.

Microgramma mauritina 'Lanciniated' (I cut the long leaves down to a smaller size since I'm trying to root them)

Here's the small fuzzy NoID fern.

Keep in mind I have no idea what I'm doing here, please wish me luck rooting these babies!

Pyrrosia nummularifolia

And last (but not least!) the crested form of Pyrrosia longifolia. Thank you Steven!

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All material © 2009-2025 by Loree L Bohl. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.