Archive for the ‘Orange County 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)

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 5 foot baby!

I took this on my recent tour of the Low Coun­try with my sis­ter, Mary Lynn. Not a great photo, but I didn’t want to get any closer. As per Wikipedia, since 1948 there have been more than 275 unpro­voked attacks on humans in Florida, of which at least 17 resulted in death. There were only nine fatal attacks in the U.S. through­out the 70s, 80s, and 90s, but alli­ga­tors killed 12 peo­ple from 2001 to 2007. In May 2006, alli­ga­tors killed three Florid­i­ans in less than a week. This photo was taken at Mid­dle­ton Plan­ta­tion out­side Charleston, South Car­olina. I was thrilled to see this guy out of the water as I had seen 3 in the water pos­ing as float­ing logs — not very excit­ing. I think he (or she) might be more of teenager than a baby. There were all sorts of fam­i­lies stand­ing around which didn’t phase him, but some­one closed the top on their stroller and bam, he was out of there!

An inter­est­ing fact: the range of alli­ga­tors is increas­ing north­ward along the Atlantic Coast towards Vir­ginia. Look out, Wash­ing­ton, DC! Our politi­cians may not be at the top of the food chain much longer!

And finally, I leave you with these words of wis­dom from nat­u­ral­ist and TV per­son­al­ity Jack Hanna: “The best thing to do is just leave them alone. Alli­ga­tors want to be away from you just as much as you want to be away from them.”

On the web:

Sales:

• The Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion for Wild­flow­ers and Native Plants Annual Native Plant Sale, Octo­ber 14 — 15 in Sun Val­ley (San Fer­nando Val­ley) (www​.theodor​e​payne​.org)
• San Diego Botan­i­cal Gar­den, Encini­tas: 29th Annual Plant Sale, Octo­ber 15 — 16 (www​.sdb​gar​den​.org)
• Jun­gle Music/​Encini­tas: owner Phil Bergman has posted a “new arrivals” sec­tion on his web­site show­cas­ing new palm trees, cycads and trop­i­cal plants (www​.jun​gle​mu​sic​.net)

Classes, etc:

• Hunt­ing­ton Gar­dens, San Marino: every­thing you wanted to know about Gingko, Oct. 11/ Iris: the Rain­bow Flower Talk and plant sale, Octo­ber 13/​Flower Arrang­ing: the Crafts­man Esthetic, Oct. 15/​Orchid Sale and Show, Octo­ber 14 — 15 (www​.hunt​ing​ton​.org)
• Des­canso Gar­dens, Flintridge: In Praise of Grasses event and Paint your Gar­den with Wild­flow­ers lec­ture, Octo­ber 15 (www​.des​canso​.org)
• Potted/​Atwa­ter Vil­lage is spon­sor­ing a weekly con­test for best ter­rar­ium with a grand prize of $500.00 (www​.pot​ted​store​.com)
• Los Ange­les Arbore­tum, Arca­dia: lec­ture on Nat­ural landscapes/​Garden Spaces with Amy Net­tle­ton, Octo­ber 12 (www​.arbore​tum​.org)
• Fuller­ton Arbore­tum, Fuller­ton: Eat the yard: Organic Edi­ble Gar­den­ing Part I, Octo­ber 15

The begin­ning of the journey

I believe Socal​nurs​ery​plants​.com may have scooped the national gar­den mag­a­zines on this one. Jo O’Connell, an inter­na­tion­ally known botanist, owner of Aus­tralian Native Plant Nurs­ery and author­ity on Aus­tralian plants, was kind enough to share these pho­tos of a project she worked on recently. Her client, Amy Gold­man, is the author of The Heir­loom Tomato — from Gar­den to Table, a book with a promi­nent place in my library. Ms. Gold­man is also the chair of the board of the Seed Savers Exchange. Ms. Gold­man recently com­pleted a con­ser­va­tory on her prop­erty in upstate New York.

The new con­ser­va­tory from across the duck pond

Ms. Goldman’a newly built, gor­geous con­ser­va­tory was in need of a col­lec­tion of Mediter­ranean plants; to this end she dis­patched her archi­tect Tom Pritchard to the West Coast. He pur­chased many at Aus­tralian Native Plant Nurs­ery and Jo was put in charge of their safe deliv­ery from the West Coast to the East Coast. She also super­vised the instal­la­tion, below.

Home sweet Home

• You can view Jo’s web­site by click­ing on the Aus­tralian but­ton on the top right of my web­site — it is won­der­fully informative.
• Amy Goldman’s web­site is www​.rar​eforms​.com. The Seed Savers web­site is www​.seed​savers​.com.
• Tom Pritchard’s web­site is www​.mad​der​lakedesigns​.com.

On the Web

• ⁹⁄₂₄: UC Irvine Arboretum/​Sat­ur­day Plant Sale (949−824−5833)
• ⁹⁄₂₄: Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion for Wild Flow­ers and Native Plants Hum­ming­bird Orna­ment Work­shop, No Lawn Work­shop (www​.theodor​e​payne​.org)
• ⁹⁄₂₄: Ship­ley Nature Cen­ter, Orange County — Annual Native Plant Sale/​Composting work­shop (www​.ship​ley​na​ture​.org)