The Portland Local Arrangements Committee is happily anticipating the arrival of our fellow GWA members and friends. We want you all to have a great time. Here’s a peek at what’s in store and some travel information on the area.
STORY TOURS
The Portland Symposium tours give you a taste of the amazing diversity of plants and garden design found in the Pacific Northwest. We hope that you will be delighted by what you see and will want to share the experience with your readers, viewers, and listeners throughout the country.
On Saturday, we’ll visit six urban gardens—each offering a different style and personality—and a specialty garden center focused on sustainable organic gardening practices located in the heart of a densely populated residential neighborhood (they’ll serve cookies and refreshments just for you!).
Look for exuberant street-side plants—aka planting the “hell” strip, garden styles that complement a home’s architecture, lush and verdant containers, plantings with year round color, plus intimate garden spaces, as well as the gardens with whimsy.
More >> Tour Saturday
Sunday is World Class Nurseries day. Iseli Nursery is a pioneer in the production of dwarf and slow-growing conifers and Japanese maples which provide landscapes with distinctive structure, color and texture year round. Their demonstration gardens showcase more than 1,500 plants.
Terra Nova Nurseries is a world leader in breeding and genetics, with over 500 perennials and annuals propagated through tissue culture. You’ll get a glimpse into this process and see the results in their well-designed display gardens.
Photo opportunities at both nurseries will give your readers great ideas for their own gardens.
More >> Tour Sunday
Monday’s tour will highlight International & Local Flavors at public and private gardens.
Portland’s Japanese Garden and International Rose Test Garden offer tranquility and panoramic views of downtown Portland and the Cascade Mountains. The Portland Classical Chinese Garden is an authentic Suzhou urban garden and one of the largest such gardens built outside China, taking up a full city block.
Elk Rock Gardens of the Bishop’s Close was originally a 13-acre private estate garden now open to the public. The gardens are English in style and designed by New York’s Olmsted and Sons. Just down the road is the Bates Garden, developed from plans by pioneering Northwest landscape designers, Lord and Schryver. You will explore parkland, paths, a natural native garden, and a Chilean garden.
More >> Tour Monday
There’s just so much to see in Oregon that you’ll want to stay for one more day of tours. On Tuesday, choose from two.
Northwest Portland is home to two premier specialty nurseries and a private garden never before opened for a tour. Joy Creek Nursery and Cistus Nursery feature extensive display gardens that showcase unique, remarkable plants for the home gardener. The day will end on the terrace of a private garden in Portland’s historic West Hills.
More >> Tour Tuesday
Join Mary-Kate Mackey (award-winning Northwest garden writer) and Dan Heims (Terra Nova Nurseries’ plant breeder and self-avowed “hortiholic”) as they walk the upscale University Street neighborhood of Eugene, Oregon. The stroll includes a progressive gourmet lunch, served in several gardens, with hand-dipped chocolate strawberries to top it off. Back on the bus, you’ll finish the tour at the incomparable Northwest Garden Nursery to savor Oregon’s finest wines and beers.
Both tours will be back in Portland in time to catch the evening stroll at the Chinese Garden.
More >> Tour Tuesday
SYMPOSIUM EVENTS
Plant Shipping and Packing Service
Have you wanted to take plants home from a cross-country trip, but
- thought they wouldn’t fare so well in your luggage?
- didn’t want to risk carrying exotics across state lines?
- couldn’t find the right packing box?
- didn’t know where the FedEx office was?
Well, let Portland’s local committee help you out. We have arranged for phytosanitary inspectors to clear the plants you select and professional plant packer/shippers to get your plants home safely and legally.
Plant Nerd Night
Portland is known for its micro-brew beers, but this area has more than its share of micro-nurseries, too. Small, specialized, and, like the micro-brew beers, of unusual quality. Sunday evening you hear from a few of these specialists and have the opportunity to take home some of our PNW plant gems.
Plus, the Chorus of the Goddess Flora will perform choral works especially written for the Symposium. This group of musical plant enthusiasts has been delighting Portland’s gardening community for several years and is sure to captivate you.
More >> PNN
Awards Banquet
Wrap up your Symposium experience at the Portland Zoo. A stroll through the Great Northwest Exhibit will put you in touch with many of Oregon’s habitats – from the mountain goats of the Cascade Crest to the otters of the Stellar Cove - all before dinner. Zoo volunteers will be on hand to share the critical importance of horticulture to making Portland feel like home to all the zoo’s residents.
GETTING AROUND
Portland has lots to offer the visitor and we want you to see it all. Let us help you get around our town.
Getting to the hotel
The Symposium venue is the Doubletree Hotel – Lloyd Center
1000 NE Multnomah
Portland, OR 97232
Phone: 503-281-6111
From the airport:
Easy and cheap is the Portland light rail – MAX.
On the baggage claim level, proceed toward Carousel 1 (to the right, as you face the street), there will be signs.
Before going outside, purchase your ticket ($2.05 as of June 1; proposed $2.30 by September). The Red Line train is right outside the door. After about a 25-minute ride, get off at the Lloyd Center/NE 11th Ave. stop. As you step out, look to your left – that’s the hotel parking structure across the street. The guest registration area is about 1⁄2 block away.
The Red Line continues to the downtown area (another 10 – 15 minutes), where many other hotels can be found.
Taxis can be found across the lane of traffic outside baggage claim. Taxi fare is about $27.00, to the Doubletree, and takes 20 to 40 minutes (It’s 30 to 45 minutes to downtown).
Rental car shuttles are also on the island across from baggage claim.
More airport information is available at http://www.flypdx.com/
Getting around Portland:
If you choose a hotel other than the Symposium venue, Portland’s light rail MAX system can provide convenient transportation. MAX stops less than a block from the Doubletree Hotel and is free between the hotel and the downtown area.
MAX is also a great way to get to Portland’s downtown shopping and restaurants.
Find all the places you can go for free via Portland’s public transportation at http://www.trimet.org/fares/fareless.htm
For public transportation (light rail, bus, and streetcar) trip planning help, take a look at http://www.trimet.org/ or call 503-238-RIDE (7433).
FURTHER TRAVELS AROUND PORTLAND AND OREGON
Get more ideas for adding to your Pacific Northwest experience with Travel Portland. You’ll find suggestions for regional day trips to the Oregon Coast, the Columbia Gorge, or Oregon’s Wine Country.
At Travel Oregon, the Oregon Tourism Commission will connect you to all parts of our exciting state for a desert adventure, the southern Oregon Shakespeare Festival or a trip to the Oregon Dunes.
60th Annual Meeting