Posts Tagged ‘Los Angeles Nurseries’

Mex­i­can feather grass

Why is it impor­tant to know which plants can be inva­sive? Inva­sive plants are a lead­ing threat to bio­di­ver­sity, sec­ond only to habi­tat destruc­tion. And $80 mil­lion is spent each year to pro­tect Cal­i­for­nia from inva­sive species. A quote from the Cal­i­for­nia Inva­sive Plant Coun­cil (www​.cal​-ipc​.org/): Across Cal­i­for­nia, inva­sive plants dam­age wildlands.….displace native plants and wildlife, increase wild­fire and flood dan­ger, con­sume valu­able water, degrade recre­ational oppor­tu­ni­ties and destroy pro­duc­tive range and tim­ber lands. I was shocked at some of the plants that are listed as severely inva­sive (as opposed to mod­er­ate or lim­ited), such as the Mex­i­can feather grass seen above. This plant is a dar­ling of land­scape pro­fes­sion­als. Other com­monly used severely inva­sive plants include some ice­plants, foun­tain grass, pam­pas grass, French, Span­ish and Scotch brooms, fen­nel, and Eng­lish and Alger­ian ivy.

The inva­sive plant coun­cil pub­lishes an inven­tory of inva­sive plants and alerts on their web­site. The IPC says Cal­i­for­nia is the home to 4,200 native plant species and is con­sid­ered a “bio­di­ver­sity hotspot”. Approx­i­mately 1,800 non-​native plants also grow in the wild in the state. The web­site, www​.plantright​.org, is help­ful and pub­lishes a form let­ter you can send to nurs­ery pro­fes­sion­als ask­ing them to pro­mote alter­na­tives for the prob­lem plants in each region of the state, such as the native deer grass shown below, a good replace­ment for pam­pas grass and Mex­i­can feather grass.

Native deer grass

Good places to buy native plants as listed by area to the left on my web­site: Ven­tura County: Matil­ija Nurs­ery, Nopal­ito Native Plant Nurs­ery; East Val­ley: Theodore Payne Foun­da­tion; Los Ange­les: Grow Native Nurs­ery at the VA; Orange County: Tree of Life Nurs­ery; San Diego County: Las Pil­i­tas Nurs­ery. Many gen­eral nurs­eries will carry native plants and they will iden­ti­fied as such.

For SoCal event infor­ma­tion: www​.paci​fi​chor​ti​cul​ture​.org/​c​a​l​e​n​d​a​r​/​s​o​C​al/

Matil­ija poppy, a Cal­i­for­nia native, is avail­able at the VA native nursery.

There is a new native plant nurs­ery in West Los Ange­les. As recently reported in my local news­pa­per, the Palisadian-​Post, it is oper­ated in con­junc­tion with the Ran­cho Santa Ana Botanic Gar­den. The nurs­ery is on the cam­pus of the Vet­er­ans Admin­is­tra­tion com­plex in West Los Ange­les near the 405 Free­way and Wilshire Blvd. The man­ager, Kata­rina Eriks­son, will be train­ing the vets in the pro­poga­tion, care and main­te­nance of Cal­i­for­nia native plants. The train­ing will offer them the oppor­tu­nity to con­tinue in this field once they leave the VA. The nurs­ery will ini­tially be stocked with 10,000 plants. They will also be sell­ing roses and cym­bid­i­ums left over from a prior pro­gram. Palisadian-​Post writer Sue Pas­coe writes “Adja­cent to the pro­gram is the first ani­mal ther­apy pro­gram on VA grounds in North Amer­ica. Res­cued exotic birds are cared for by vet­er­ans in a mutual ther­apy pro­gram, which involves vets feed­ing, talk­ing and work­ing with the col­or­ful, noisy avians.” Bot­tom line: West Los Ange­les gar­den­ers don’t have to drive as far to find native plants, while con­tribut­ing to a very worth­while pro­gram. Who wouldn’t want to do that!

The nurs­ery is located at Con­sti­tu­tion Avenue where it inter­sects with Sepul­veda Blvd, just north of Wilshire Blvd and next to the 405 free­way. Hours: opened on week­ends, Wedns­days to Sun­days 9am to 5pm. The man­ager, Kata­rina Eriks­son, can be reached by email at keriksson@​rsabg.​org.

Otto and Sons rose nurs­ery in Ven­tura County

Nurs­ery geek — that would be me. I’m proud of it too –gave me the idea for SoCal​Nurs​ery​Plants​.com! Over the last year I’ve vis­ited almost every nurs­ery out of the 141 nurs­eries on my web­site. I plan to see them all. The list below is just for fun; feel free to con­tact me and add to it! Or you can add a com­ment that will be seen by thou­sands of readers.

In no par­tic­u­lar order, nurs­eries that are the:

• Old­est : As far as I can tell, that would be Mis­sion Hills Nurs­ery (100+ years), in the San Diego sec­tion, fol­lowed by Belle­fontaine Nurs­ery (70+ years) and San Gabriel Nurs­ery (80+ years), both in the East Val­ley section.
• Most well known: Roger’s Gar­dens in New­port Beach.
• Biggest: My guess is Simpson’s Gar­den Town Nurs­ery @ 25 acres –also includes a car museum; in the San Diego section.
• Small­est: Laguna Hills Nurs­ery, because Gary Matouska is sell­ing out of his house: go to www​.lagu​nahill​snurs​ery​.com.
• Most unique: Eden Top­i­ary Nurs­ery: mostly top­i­ary, and M and M Nurs­ery: minia­ture and rail­road enthu­si­asts, both in the Orange County section.
• Most spe­cial­ized: Otto and Sons for all things rose, in the Ven­tura sec­tion and Nuccio’s Nurs­eries for camelias and azealias (East Valley).
• Nurs­ery with the most vari­eties of any one plant: West­er­lay Orchids: all orchids — in the Ven­tura sec­tion; Upland Nurs­ery has over 350 vari­eties of plume­ria; in the Orange County section.
• Num­ber of nurs­eries (that I have been able to locate) in each county/​area: Ven­tura — 13, East val­ley– 20, West Val­ley — 8, Mal­ibu — 3, Los Ange­les — 16 (does not include branches of Arm­strong and Anawalt — they are counted once), South Bay — 13, Orange County — 22, San Diego County — 21.
• My favorite nurs­ery: I’ll never tell; what’s yours? Tell me why and I’ll put it in a post!

FYI: I’m very for­tu­nate to be an attendee and a ven­dor at the Pacific Hor­ti­cul­ture Sym­po­sium Sep­tem­ber 23 — 26 at the Los Ange­les Arbore­tum in Arca­dia, CA. Titled Gar­den­ing under the Mediter­ranean Skies VIII: Style and Whim­sey in the Sus­tain­able Gar­den, this sym­po­sium is packed with infor­ma­tive talks, work­shops and gar­den tours. I will be shar­ing my expe­ri­ences and pho­tos in the com­ing weeks. There is still some last minute space; if you are inter­ested con­tact Susi Torre-​Bueno @ (760) 295‑2173 (after ⁹⁄₂₁ reach her at (619) 977‑0584) or go to the web­site @ www​.Paci​fi​chor​ti​cul​ture​.org/​e​d​u​c​a​t​i​o​n​-​e​v​e​nts.

Patrick Blanc’s Marche des Halles/​Avignon, France

Is there any­one out there who doesn’t love ver­ti­cal gar­den­ing? It makes me swoon!!!! Such a sim­ple but bril­liant con­cept, espe­cially as inter­preted by the French botanist Patrick Blanc (http://​ping​mag​.jp/​2​0​0​6​/​1​2​/​0​8​/​v​e​r​t​i​c​a​l​-​g​a​r​d​e​n​-​t​h​e​-​a​r​t​-​o​f​-​o​r​g​a​n​i​c​-​a​r​c​h​i​t​e​c​t​ure/​). If you want to see an incred­i­ble “gown” made entirely from plants, go on this web­site. And the lovely Patrick is work­ing on a San Fran­cisco school instal­la­tion that he plans to exe­cute in Cal­i­for­nia natives.

It is not so chal­leng­ing to cre­ate a ver­ti­cal gar­den at home if you avail your­self of WOOLLY POCKETS from Woolly Pocket Gar­den Com­pany (www​.Wool​lypocket​.com). Woolly Pock­ets are wall hung pouches that have two main com­po­nents: a breath­able felt exte­rior, and a built-​in mois­ture bar­rier on the inte­rior. The breath­able por­tion is made of 100% recy­cled plas­tic bot­tles that have been indus­tri­ally felted. The mois­ture bar­rier is made accord­ing to mil­i­tary stan­dards for imper­me­abil­ity. The web­site details sizes, instruc­tions and prices. The com­pany has 2 major instal­la­tions, both in Los Ange­les, on their web­site: Mar­vi­mom and SmogShoppe.

As far as plant­ing these pup­pies, suc­cu­lents seem like the per­fect solu­tion. Two excel­lent Los Ange­les nurs­ery resources for suc­cu­lents are Cosentino’s Nurs­ery in Mal­ibu (see Mal­ibu nurs­eries) and the Cal­i­for­nia Cac­tus Cen­ter (see East Val­ley nurseries).

Smogshoppe instal­la­tion using Wool­ley Pockets