Q and A Debut on Socal​nurs​ery​plants​.com

A con­tainer pho­tographed on my recent trip to Michigan

I get many ques­tions by phone and email for Socal​nurs​ery​plants​.com. Many peo­ple from for­eign coun­tries want to know where they can get seeds for exotic plants (I’m no help there!). Oth­ers have prac­ti­cal con­cerns and can be referred to experts on bam­boo, suc­cu­lents and the like. Then there are ques­tions like Sarah’s below, which is quite spe­cific. I’m hop­ing my won­der­ful read­ers, gar­den­ers and nurs­ery pro­fes­sion­als alike will be able to par­tic­i­pate in my new Q and A feature:

Hello Susan,

I’m a grad­u­ate stu­dent at UC Irvine, and I’m seek­ing some advice on nurs­eries and plants in gen­eral. I live on cam­pus and have an unen­closed patio space. I want to keep my neigh­bors off my patio for pri­vacy rea­sons (since we are not allowed to put up fences), and I would like to get some plants to block my neigh­bors from com­ing into my space, as well. I have been con­sid­er­ing get­ting some rea­son­ably sized cacti, but I know that this would not give me all the pri­vacy I want (since my plants have to be pot­ted and wouldn’t get that large). My patio is 10 feet by 3 feet. Do you have any plant rec­om­men­da­tions that would cover that space, pro­vide pri­vacy and help pre­vent peo­ple from com­ing onto a patio, be able to be pot­ted, and are rea­son­ably priced? I know that is prob­a­bly a tall order to fill, but if you had any ideas of what to buy and where I could buy it, I’d sin­cerely appre­ci­ate it.