The Illahe Story

It all started many years ago as I was a young man, just finishing up my undergraduate studies at Oregon State University.

As I walked away from school with a head full of knowledge mostly geared towards the operation of those massive production scale nurseries that churn out a billion pansies and petunias a year. As luck would have it, a local Portland botanical garden, specializing in the rare and uncommon, found my abilities as an intern were worth paying for and I was hired as the propagator at the Rae Selling Berry Botanic Garden. Jack Poff, the aging old wizard who had gardened for Rae herself took me under his wing. His sage advice when I walked through the door on my first day was "Get Propagation of Alpines, by L.D. Hills, read it and then do everything it says". I procured a copy and attacked the massive collection of alpine plants at the garden, combining the ageless wisdom of Mr. Hills treatise, Jacks' sage advice and the production scale techniques that I had borrowed lots of government money to learn. This environment was absolutely perfect for a budding propagator, a largely neglected collection of rare plants, a great facility to propagate with, and every so often a knowledgeable assortment of Portlands Horticultural patrons would stop by and offer suggestions or nod at plants that they wanted to see on the sale table..

This where a love of rock gardening was born. I was lucky to meet so many great folks at the Columbia-Willamette Chapter of the North American Rock Garden society who showed me what can be done with the wonderful plants of the alpine flora.