Archive for the ‘East Valley Nurseries’ Category

Glo­ri­ous Gar­dens Nursery

Any­one who has known me for more than a minute soon real­izes I have an obses­sion with suc­cu­lents. It seems as if the rest of the world is join­ing me — hence we have more suc­cu­lent­cen­tric nurs­eries such as Glo­ri­ous Gar­dens Land­scape. Located in Leu­ca­dia in San Diego just off the 5 free­way, Glo­ri­ous Gar­dens Land­scape may carry the largest vari­ety of suc­cu­lents, cacti and tilland­sia in San Diego County. Started by land­scape design­ers Emma Almen­darez and Linda Fox 2 years ago, they spe­cial­ize in the unusual, whim­si­cal and unique. Cus­tomers can select plants and pots and the nurs­ery will plant them while you wait. They are going to be offer­ing classes; the first will be in Feb­ru­ary and will demon­strate glass blow­ing. Go to their Face­book page (www​.face​book​.com/​g​l​o​r​i​o​u​s​g​a​r​d​ens) to see their land­scape projects. (www​.aglo​ri​ous​gar​den​.com)

By the way, I know it’s painful for my east coast/​midwest read­ers to see be able to look and not touch these suc­cu­lents year round. While it’s always best to sup­port your local nurs­ery, in a pinch the West Elm (www​.west​elm​.com) web­site is offer­ing boxes of very inter­est­ing smaller suc­cu­lents for sale. They also have infor­ma­tion on plant­ing a terrarium.

How to repur­pose your used vehicle.…On the web:

Sales:

• Plant Depot/​San Juan Capis­trano has an inter­net coupon thru ³⁄₁₆ for $10.00 on a 50.00 pur­chase. (www​.plant​de​pot​.com)
• Sheri­dan Gar­dens Nursery/​Burbank starts a Super­bowl Sat­ur­day sale today — 25% off almost every­thing (www​.sheri​dan​gar​dens​.com)

On the web:

Sat­ur­day, ²⁄₄:

• Annual Camelia Fes­ti­val @ Des­canso Gardens/​La Canada/​Flintridge: Come and see the largest camel­lia col­lec­tion in North Amer­ica in full bloom. Also: Faery tours of the enchanted for­est, walk and talk, tea time and more. (www.descanso gar­dens and more)
• Theodore Payne Foundation/​Sun Val­ley: “Natives: The big pic­ture” with Lisa Novich (www​.theodor​e​payne​.org)
• Los Ange­les Arboretum/​Arcadia: Pacific Rose Soci­ety Annual Auc­tion (www​.arbore​tum​.org)

An entry from last year

First of all, thank you to my friend Alice for point­ing out that the Rose Parade is never on a Sun­day; there­fore it will be held Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 2nd. For those of us who like to see sparkling fresh flower cov­ered floats, I rec­om­mend going out to Pasadena Sun­day night some­time after about 9pm. All the floats are pulled up on Orange Grove Avenue in front of the Wrigley Man­sion wait­ing for the parade to start the next day. (What did you think, they wait until the last minute?) They are spotlit and it is a fes­tive scene…and you can get really close and see the detail. I took these pho­tos last year between about 10:00pm and 1:00 am. I can only tell you my expe­ri­ence, and hope that noth­ing has changed. I drove north on South Arroyo Park­way and parked as close as pos­si­ble to Orange Grove Blvd. between East Col­orado Blvd. on the north and East Del Mar Blvd. on the south. The streets are closed off to the east so you will have to walk up a hill but you will see some great old homes. Take some hot choco­late, have an adven­ture and let me know how it goes! Happy New Year to us all!!!

Another 2011 float

On the Web:

• Thurs­day, 1/​5, Los Ange­les Cac­tus and Suc­cu­lent Soci­ety talk on “Places you’ve never heard of, plants you’ve never seen” 7pm @ Sepul­veda Gar­den Cen­ter, Encino (www​.lacss​.com)

Sat­ur­day, ¹⁄₇:

- Rose prun­ing work­shop @ Los Ange­les County Arbore­tum, Arca­dia (www​.arbore​tum​.org)

- Hunt­ing­ton Gar­dens sem­i­nar held in Pomona on Sam Mal­oof exhibit and sea­sonal gar­den­ing (www​.hunt​ing​ton​.org)

A locust pod wreath

OK, I admit it. I get a seri­ous case of the blahs over the hol­i­days. I can’t be a hyp­ocrite about it, although I do wish every­one else the happy hol­i­day of their choice. The majes­tic wreath above kind of fits my mood. It was fea­tured in The Wall Street Jour­nal Decem­ber 22. Every year the Berk­shire Botan­i­cal Gar­den presents their Hol­i­day Mar­ket Place fundraiser, includ­ing the leg­endary Gallery of Wreaths. Gar­den clubs, heads up — this appears to be an excel­lent way to raise funds. The design­ers com­pete to dis­play and sell their cre­ative wreaths.

I had never heard of the Berk­shire Botan­i­cal Gar­den. Estab­lished in 1934, it is in West­ern Mass­a­chu­setts (i.e. the area known as “The Berk­shires”). I was look­ing at the upcom­ing pro­grams being offered and would love to live near this group. Next sum­mer, my very favorite time of year, I hope to visit. www​.berk​shire​b​otan​i​cal​gar​den​.org

On the web:

Sales: there are sales going on..be sure to check with the nurs­eries con­cern­ing the particulars..

• Sheri­dan Gardens/​Burbank/​www​.sheri​dan​gar​dens​.com
• Pot­ted Store/​Atwater Village/​www​.pot​ted​store​.com
• Plant Depot in San Juan Capis­trano has a coupon on their web­site, www​.plant​de​pot​.com
• Green Gardens/​San Diego/​www​.sdgreen​gar​dens​.com

A hunt­ing estate in the South Car­olina backwoods

Imag­ine my sur­prise when I dis­cov­ered a chap­ter on this home in the book Low­coun­try Plan­ta­tions Today, given to me by my pre­scient friend Lisa some years before. Last Sep­tem­ber my sis­ter Mary Lynn and I were on our way to go kayak­ing at the ACE Basin near Beau­fort, South Car­olina when we passed this home out in the mid­dle of nowhere. Sur­rounded by 100+ year old oaks, the estate includes gor­geous barns as well. Accord­ing to my Low­coun­try book it is called Bonny Hall Plan­ta­tion and was built circa 1897 on the Com­ba­hee River. Once owned by the Dou­ble­day pub­lish­ing fam­ily, it is now reputed to be the domain of a Hol­ly­wood pro­ducer. Som­er­set Maugham wrote The Razors Edge in the guest house there in the 1940’s.

Our kayak­ing guide, Kim, owns Beau­fort Kayak Tours (www​.Beau​fortkayak​tours​.com) with her hus­band David. She is a local as well as a nat­u­ral­ist and very well informed about the area. We kayaked in the swamps where the land was used for rice pro­duc­tion before the Civil War. Now a lot of the land is owned by wealthy fam­i­lies who use it for hunt­ing part time. This is a good thing because it pre­serves the land and saves it from development.

That’s us, kayak­ing away!

On the web:

Aus­tralian Native Plant Nurs­ery (click on web­site at right) fea­tures Euca­lyp­tus “Moon Lagoon”, a col­lec­table drought tol­er­ant shrub.

¹¹⁄₁₈: Hunt­ing­ton Gar­dens (San Marino) offers an all day Ranch sym­po­sium on urban agri­cul­ture. (www​.hunt​ing​ton​.org)

¹¹⁄₁₉:

• Hunt­ing­ton Gar­dens (above): Thanks­giv­ing Flower Arrange­ment class.
• Theodore Payne Native Plant Foun­da­tion (Sun Val­ley): 3 part Native Plant Design Sym­po­sium (www​.theodor​e​payne​.org)
• Des­canso Gar­dens (La Canada): Her­itage Oak Walk (www​.des​canso​.org)