Posts Tagged ‘Malibu Nurseries’

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

Mal­ibu Gar­dens nursery

Why we should sup­port our local nurseries

Does any­one care if we lose a mom/​pop nurs­ery (except for me, of course)? Recently, a fan­tas­tic place near me, The Out­door Room, closed. They hadn’t been there very long and it’s not known why they closed. Their theme was mid cen­tury mod­ern with one of a kind plants, fur­ni­ture and acces­sories. It was a lit­tle more expen­sive to shop there but the selec­tion was stel­lar. Now my clos­est mom/​pop nurs­ery, Mer­ri­hews Sun­set Gar­dens, is about 5 miles away, or 1/​2 hour in our heavy Los Ange­les traf­fic, or I could drive even fur­ther to Home Depot. In all fair­ness, some­times a big box store is nec­ces­sary, although their plant selec­tion is pretty pre­dictable and lim­ited. (But what if you need sod — you’re not going to find it there!)

Sup­port­ing our local, eccen­tric and “des­ti­na­tion” nurs­eries will make for more excit­ing gar­dens and help the com­mu­nity thrive! We may even get accli­mated plants. And that lit­tle nurs­ery will still be down the street!