Peaceful Places in Portland:
Leach Botanical Garden

This place is featured in my book, Peaceful Places: Portland. Buy it now from Powells.com!

Peaceful Places in Portland: Leach Botanical Garden

Leach Botanical Garden Portland

 

One way to look at Leach Botanical Garden is that it’s a beautiful little piece of creek-side nature just a couple minutes from the Pick-n-Pull on SE Foster. In that respect alone, it’s remarkable. That so few Portlanders seem to know of its existence adds a certain air of discovery to your first trip.

 

Leach Botanical Garden Portland

 

Walk around its pleasant paths, and you’ll find yourself surrounded by several gardens in one: a native plant collection, a historical collection, and designed to simulate different ecosystems around the Northwest, plants from the Southeast, a camellia collection, a fern collection.

 

Leach Botanical Garden Portland

Down at the bottom of the hill is Johnson Creek, which offers yet another surprise. Did you know that this 26-mile-long creek has salmon and steelhead runs? Right here in the city, no less.

 

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But what really strikes me about the place is that it still feels like a home we’re allowed to visit. In fact, the owners, John and Lillia Leach, left the place to the city. They were grandchildren of Oregon Trail pioneers, he a druggist and she a botanist. They bought this place in the 1930s, built the stone cabin and later the house, and named the place Sleepy Hollow. He died in 1972, she in 1980, and they left the place to the city — to us.

 

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I think you’ll find it easy to feel like their guests as you stroll through the woods, sit by the creek, and enjoy visiting their home.

Essentials

6704 SE 122nd Ave., Portland, OR — 503-823-9503 — leachgarden.org

Admission: Free. Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday 1 to 4 p.m.

TriMet #10 or #71 to SE 122nd and Foster. Plan your trip to this stop.

Read more about Peaceful Places in Portland. Or just buy the book.

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