Anne Jaeger
Diane Taylor’s gardening habit kicked into high gear when she moved to Northeast Portland. It didn’t hurt that she discovered the big Hardy Plant Society sale about the same time. The sale merely pushed the “plant pedal” to the metal. You don’t have to be a member to attend the sale that may be your undoing. The same volunteer supported plant sale is coming up this Saturday and Sunday 10 to 3 pm at the Washington County Fairplex in Hillsboro. The organization, called the Hardy Plant Society, can be a bit puzzling to the uninitiated. Even if you garden you might not understand what the name means. It’s like the Dead Poets Society only about plants. The Hardy Plant Society is a whole group, no, legion of people (about 2,000 currently) who love perennials. They have two big plant sales a year, bring celebrity garden speakers to town, hold study weekends, give tours of local gardens and communicate by newsletter, all for one purpose: to talk about plants. You can do it all or none of it. Your choice. Diane Taylor chooses most of it these days. In fact, the group was just what she’d been looking for. Taylor says “I wanted to find unusual perennials and be around like-minded people to learn from.” So that one spring plant sale put on by volunteers was all it took to turn a life long interest into an all consuming passion “It’s fun, people are crazy” says Taylor. Several years ago she won the drawing for $150 worth of free plants at the sale and ended up spending $450 “I had so many plants I couldn’t get them all in the trunk or in the car. It took me a long, long time to find them all homes in my garden.” Taylor admits many of the potted plants lived in her drive way until she found the right place for them. The old manta of “Right plant, right place” is right at home in Diane Taylors garden. Walking with her, Taylor points out treasures found at the twice yearly HPSO sale. Unusual varieties of salvia and hellebore are mixed in with the things Taylor remembers from her childhood; peonies, iris and roses. Diane Taylor has been gardening 40 years and still feels the quest for knowledge “Gardening is a quieting activity I like doing while I’m soaking up the sun, listening to the birds and getting back peace of mind.” You get the same feelings when you stroll through this gardeners yard. Just don’t get in Diane Taylor’s way at the plant sale this weekend, okay?
