Archive for the ‘Ventura County Nurseries’ Category

Thig­amotrope Satel­lites with Air Plants from Flora Grubb

Thig­motrope Satel­lite is the eas­i­est way to make a ver­ti­cal gar­den indoors. Just screw it in the wall and your tilland­sias have a styl­ish new home. Thigmotrope Satel­lite is a steel tri­pod with a threaded base, designed to be a screw-​in perch for tilland­sia air plants.

A close up thigamotrope

A Christ­mas orna­ment from Laura Eubanks

On the Web:

Aus­tralian Native Plants Nurs­ery (Ojai) is fea­tur­ing a very beau­ti­ful plant this week called Euca­lyp­tus “Moon Lagoon”. Owner Jo O’Connell also has a new ship­ment of books for hol­i­day gift­ing. Check out her web­site by click­ing on the but­ton to the right.

Atten­tion: Palm and Cycad lovers: Owner Phil Bergman of Jun­gle Music (Encini­tas) is offer­ing a very desir­able selec­tion of palms and cycads, many of them new to his nurs­ery. Some are col­lec­table; there are cold tol­er­ant plants on offer. Phil is very help­ful to begin­ners and will make sure you get the right plant for your needs. He is also well known to col­lec­tors, and car­ries spec­i­mens from all over the world. Go to www​.jun​gle​mu​sic​.net (619−291−4605) for pho­tos and info.

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 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)