The firm
Nine people, one yard, no franchise
Thistle & Verge has kept south-east Portland gardens since 2011. We have deliberately not grown into a company where nobody knows your garden — the round is still small enough that the person cutting your hedge remembers what it looked like in 2019.
The yard
4118 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland, OR 97206
Hours
- Mon – Fri
- 7:00am – 5:30pm
- Saturday
- 8:00am – 1:00pm
- Sunday
- Closed — messages answered Monday
OR LCB #9142 · Licensed, bonded & insured
How it grew
- 2011
Nine houses in Sellwood, one mower, one trailer.
- 2014
Second crew added; borders and pruning become their own trade.
- 2017
Moved into the yard on SE Woodstock with room for compost and seed.
- 2021
Replaced every two-stroke handheld with battery kit. Quieter streets.
- 2026
386 gardens under care, 9 people, no franchise.
Who turns up
The people who will know your garden
Aurelio Bettencourt
Founder, head gardener
Started the firm in 2011 with a second-hand mower and a Sellwood round of nine houses. Trained in the propagation department at Longwood Gardens; still draws every garden plan by hand.
Wren Castellanos
Borders & planting lead
Keeps the planting records. Knows which of our 386 gardens has the temperamental tree peony and exactly which week it wants cutting back.
Silas Merrifield
Turf & renovation lead
Runs the aerator and the seed drill through September. Owns the catch cups, and has strong views about how long people run their sprinklers.
Halina Dobrzycka
Scheduling & office
Builds the rounds so crews cover a neighbourhood at a time — fewer miles, tighter windows, and the reason we can tell you your day before we quote.
Standing rules
The four things clients actually notice
One crew, your garden
You get the same two or three people every visit and their crew lead’s cell number. Nobody has to be told twice where the water shut-off is.
No glyphosate, no blanket spray
Weeds come out by hand or by hoe. Where a treatment is genuinely the only option we tell you what it is, why, and what it costs to avoid it.
A written record per garden
Every plant we prune, feed or move goes in your garden’s record. It travels with the property if you sell.
A price that holds
Quotes are fixed for the season. If a job turns out smaller than we measured, the invoice gets smaller too.
Where the vans go
Rounds built neighbourhood by neighbourhood
Each crew covers one area per day. It keeps the driving down and means we can hold a fixed visit day for you across the whole season.
Check your street- Sellwood-Moreland
- Laurelhurst
- Multnomah Village
- Alberta Arts
- Eastmoreland
- Irvington
- Woodstock
- Mount Tabor
- Ladd’s Addition
- Milwaukie
- Lake Oswego (north)
- West Linn (by arrangement)