Archive for the ‘Nursery Information’ Category

A park in Savannah

What am I grate­ful for? Most def­i­nitely that I get to travel as much as I do, and that I got to Greece and Egypt before those coun­tries imploded. Of course I love my fam­ily and try not to take them for granted. My world would def­i­nitely be a sad one with­out my dog chil­dren. And I love work­ing on my web­site; it wouldn’t exist with­out the 170+ nurs­eries of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Sat­ur­day is Small Busi­ness Day, a chance for us to sup­port our local nurs­eries, by def­i­n­i­tion small busi­nesses. I know you will do that Sat­ur­day and through­out the year!

This quote from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” is by way of the Golden Gecko blog by Trey Pit­sen­berger at www​.gold​engecko​.com. Trey speaks for the inde­pen­dent nurseries.

Roger The Shrub­ber Speaks!

Roger the Shrub­ber: “Oh, what sad times are these when pass­ing ruf­fi­ans can say Ni at will to old ladies. There is a pesti­lence upon this land, noth­ing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrub­beries are under con­sid­er­able eco­nomic stress in this period in history.”

King Arthur: “Did you say shrubberies?”

Roger the Shrub­ber: “Yes, shrub­beries are my trade. I am a shrub­ber. My name is Roger the Shrub­ber. I arrange, design, and sell shrubberies.”

I just love that! As they would say in Savan­nah, Happy Thanks­giv­ing Y’All!

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)

C of C campus

The first leg of my Sep­tem­ber trip to the Low Coun­try was booked through Road Scholar (for­merly Elder Hos­tel — I really love their new name). Road Scholar is a non­profit tour com­pany ded­i­cated to “life­long learn­ing”. They have a mouth­wa­ter­ing array of trips in their cat­a­log, many involv­ing some type of vol­un­teer­ing. My Charleston leg was orches­trated by the Col­lege of Charleston, a very old (1770) and won­der­ful pub­lic lib­eral arts and sci­ences school. We stayed in a lovely hotel, the Fran­cis Mar­ion, and ate our meals in the stu­dent din­ing room. That was so much fun; carbo load­ing and enjoy­ing the high energy of the stu­dents. In the morn­ing we would hear talks given by experts on the his­tory of the Civil War, Charleston, cook­ing, music and more; after­noons were devoted to sight­see­ing. Many of our group had enjoyed 6 or more trips with RS. I would have to give Road Scholar and Col­lege of Charleston an “A” for my experience!

The C of C cam­pus has amaz­ing old oaks

• www​.fran​cis​mar​i​on​ho​tel​.com
• www​.road​scholar​.org
• www​.cofc​.edu/

On the web:

Aus­tralian Native Plant Nurs­ery has a new ship­ment of books from…Australia! Click on their web­site to the right of this post.

Thurs­day, Novem­ber 10: Hunt­ing­ton Gar­dens (hunt​ing​ton​.org) Talk and sale on Native Trees for Native Gar­dens by Lili Singer

Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 12:

• Des­canso Gar­dens (Des​can​sog​a​r​dens​.org) La Canada: Flower Mar­ket Tour, Fruit tree prun­ing and Fall color walk
• San Diego Botanic Gar­den (sdb​gar​den​.org) San Diego County: Bromeliad Bash
• Theodore Payne Native Plants and Flow­ers (theodor​e​payne​.org) Sun val­ley: Irri­ga­tion 101 and Native Plant Horticulture

The pump­kins every­one is gaga for!

These are THE pump­kins every­one is gaga for! Cre­ated by Laura Eubanks of San Diego, they are the per­fect com­bi­na­tion for a South­west­ern Thanks­giv­ing. I took Laura’s class at Green Gar­dens Nurs­ery in San Diego last Sat­ur­day, and now I’m going to share what I learned. First of all, it’s easy to get ter­rific results! Assem­ble the fol­low­ing: clear gel craft glue (Laura uses Aleene’s brand), a glue gun, spray glue, a pump­kin with a bowl shaped top, moss, small and mini suc­cu­lents, seeds, pods and dried buds (can be col­lected under trees).

Glu­ing on the moss

As you can see, the moss is ordi­nary — spray the top of the pump­kin well with the spray glue. You don’t want to glue any­thing on the sides as they won’t stick: con­fine the moss to the top. The moss should be ¹⁄₂ ” thick, pat­ted down.

A sam­pling of the materials

Now you are ready to start glu­ing on the larger suc­cu­lents and buds with the clear gel glue. The larger pieces should be glued first, towards the cen­ter. It’s best to have no stems or cut them very short and to have a vari­ety of col­ors if possible.

Next glue in the smaller suc­cu­lents, buds, pods, etc. with the same gel glue. Tuck lit­tle pieces in all over, mix­ing up the col­ors. You can see the first photo for guid­ance. It’s best to have a lot of stuff as that makes the pump­kins inter­est­ing. Seeds and pods around the perime­ter should be attached with a glue gun.

The pump­kin should dry for about 12 hours. Laura rec­om­mends the fol­low­ing care: keep out of direct sun­light, Mist with tap water once a week, keep indoors for up to one week at a time, best out­doors in a semi-​shady loca­tion. Laura had a pump­kin last for almost 9 months, although there are no guarantees!

Laura is sell­ing these along with Christ­mas pump­kins on her web­site, www​.design4seren​ity​.com. There is a lim­ited deliv­ery area as they are too heavy and frag­ile to ship. Laura and hus­band Greg Eubanks are both Mas­ter Gar­den­ers, and they offer “design and imple­men­ta­tion of inti­mate gar­den set­tings.” In addi­tion, Laura is a Mas­ter Com­poster (!), gar­den lec­turer, and con­ducts work­shops. Thank you, Laura, for your gen­eros­ity in shar­ing your pump­kins with my readers!

Green Gar­dens Nurs­ery is a won­der­ful neigh­bor­hood busi­ness in Pacific Beach, a sub­urb of San Diego. They are get­ting geared up for the hol­i­days with exten­sive offer­ings. Their web­site is www​.sdgreen​gar​dens​.com. They have a ter­rific suc­cu­lent col­lec­tion for sale, as well as some of Laura’s pumpkins.

On the web:

Fri­day, 11/​4 — Sun­day ¹¹⁄₆ Green Gar­dens Nurs­ery (see above) will be hav­ing their Annual Hol­i­day Open House with refresh­ments and a 15% dis­count on gift shop items. Fri­day 4 — 7pm, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day 8am — 5pm. (858) 483‑7846