Rare Plant Research 2; The Place

From the Rare Plant Research "About Us" page come these words:

"Burl Mostul founded Rare Plant Research, a specialty nursery, in 1987.  In the early years the nursery focused on plant research, collector plants and varieties new to science.  About ten years ago the nursery shifted focus to garden plants and now Burl travels the world looking for new plants as well as developing new hybrids for Northwest gardeners."

The nursery where we saw all the cool plants in yesterday's post is behind us and the driveway, house, and vineyard are before us.

"Rare Plant Research is open to the public only one or two weekends a year and [this] thas become an event attracting 1,000 or more people.  In 2008 Burl and his wife built a stone chateau modeled after a 12th century Romanesque church, surrounded by ponds and gardens featuring many rare and unusual tropical and temperate plants.  The most recent addition is a bromeliad garden filled with boulders, olive trees and landscape bromeliads."



I beg your forgiveness for including so many pictures of this place but there were visual treats at every turn.  It was difficult to narrow this down from the many images I took.  Isn't digital photography fun?



I'm thinking an early evening wedding here, reception happening as dusk descended, would be very special!












Note the Musa 'Ai Ai' I'm picturing that door going to a bedroom.  How amazing would it be to awaken and see the Pacific Northwest out one window and the tropics out of another?
 A little wine makes any garden visit more interesting.  This space, a wine tasting room,  is perfect for lots of people but I'd be tempted to have more space for plants.  Who am I kidding?  There's no space for people in my garden.  It works well for a curmudgeon who likes plants more than people most of the time.



 Loree noticed the tree on the right.  It's an Aesculus hipposcastanum 'Laciniata' which I just got at Hortlandia earlier this year.  You may recall it from this post.


This moat doesn't look deep and wide enough to drown would-be intruders. I'm imagining that modern laws don't allow for the drainage of sewage into moats anymore.  Our noses are grateful.








 Those silly Romans left debris everywhere.  I guess there weren't laws about littering a few centuries ago.




Exciting news  from RPR's website - "We are having a special one day open garden and nursery plant sale, June 21st from 11am to 4pm.  Join us for lunch with caterer Dave Clark's tasty creations, wine tasting with Villa Catalana Cellars in the garden conservatory tasting room.  Tour the gardens and enjoy a glass of pinot noir.