Portland plant people, designers and daring dirt-diggers: in June, 2013, coveted wholesaler Xera Plants is opening a retail shop in Southeast Portland’s Central Eastside Industrial District.

The new retail nursery will be located at 1114 SE Clay Street between SE 11th & 12th Avenues, just south of SE Hawthorne's food pod and will include space for designer Bob Hyland's new venture, Potted, which will carry a selection of modern-inspired containers and pre-planted pots with an emphasis on low-water use.

Xera Plants is a diminutive but power-packed Tualatin wholesale nursery that, for the past 13 years has sold adventurous and uncommon plants to designers and a small stable of regional retail nurseries. They will continue to grow in Tualatin and serve wholesale customers from the greenhouses, as well as sell plants to your favorite local nurseries. But starting June 6, 2013 will have their own Xera-only retail shop as well.

The nursery offers a curated, ever-changing selection of particular genera of design-worthy, climatically appropriate plants that do well in the warm to hot summers and cold, wet winters characteristic of our region. Specialties include manzanita (Arctostaphylos), bishop's hat (Epimedium), Pacific Coast iris, jasmines, crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia), poker plants (Kniphofia), and climatically-adapted and drought-tolerant plants in general including wild lilac (Ceanothus), rock rose (Cistus), california fuchsia (Zauschneria syn. Epilobium) and more.

Owners Paul Bonine and Greg Shepherd started business as Viva Plants in January of 2000, selling plants at the Beaverton Farmers Market and small plant sales. A few years later, they became Xera Plants, as the two began emphasizing more climate-appropriate gardens.

Keep an eye out on the space as Xera starts setting up. Stop by on June 6 for opening day and for the grand opening party on Saturday, June 8, 2013.

Xera Plants' future home: 1114 SE Clay, Portland, OR 97214