Author: Michael Geffel

PBG board members Ben Ngan and Sean Hogan first met one another in 1996 during the design of the @lansuchinesegarden where they assisted with fundraising and horticultural curation. Working with the Chinese Garden board and horticulturalists in our sister city of Suzhou, the two sought to showcase Portland’s prominent Asian-American communities through the authentic use of Chinese plants. Many of the specimens in the garden came as clones from Suzhou, with a focus on winter flowering and evergreen species.

This May we celebrate the legendary Sadafumi (Sada) Uchiyama, Curator Emeritus of the @portlandjapanesegarden. A fourth-generation Japanese gardener, Sada’s accolades are numerous and include receiving the “Exceptional Achievement” award by the Garden Society of Japan on their 100th anniversary – the first year the grand prize was awarded to a designer living and working outside the country.

This month we are featuring Rosa chinensis, native to Southwest China. China is the distribution center of the genus Rosa, and there is fossil evidence that R. chinensis was present there 40 million years ago. In the words of Japanese Botanist, Mikinori Ogisu, the “Rose is a Chinese flower rather than a European flower.”