Posts Tagged ‘san diego county’

A mossy foun­tain at Laguna Nursery

This is a dif­fi­cult post to write because most nurs­eries are spe­cial in some way. Every com­mu­nity needs and deserves a gen­er­al­ized “gar­den cen­ter” for obvi­ous rea­sons (espe­cially since Tar­get has closed all of theirs — yea!). So I’m not nec­es­sar­ily talk­ing about ser­vice, selec­tion or price. With des­ti­na­tion nurs­eries some­thing more inde­fin­able is usu­ally in play, start­ing with the pas­sion of the owner. Most of the nurs­ery men and women I’ve met love what they do — which is lucky for us in this harsh eco­nomic cli­mate. But it is much harder to spe­cial­ize because it cuts down on clien­tele. So, need Aus­tralian plants? Go to Jo O’Connell’s Aus­tralian Native Plants Nurs­ery in Ojai. Jo pro­vides Aus­tralian plants to the Hunt­ing­ton Botan­i­cal Gar­dens, among many oth­ers. Want your roses grown locally and accli­ma­tized — Otto and Sons in Fill­more has an enor­mous selec­tion. How about a cus­tom top­i­ary spelling out your name? Get it at Eden Nurs­ery in Orange County. Two nurs­eries that spe­cial­ize in jaw drop­ping foun­tains, planter arrange­ments, orchids, gar­den fur­ni­ture and acces­sories: Laguna Nurs­ery in Orange County and Rolling Greens Nurs­ery in Cul­ver City. Upland Nurs­ery in Orange County has 350 vari­eties of plume­ria. Does your spouse want to see a phe­nom­e­nal car col­lec­tion while you shop for petu­nias? The only place for that is Simpson’S Gar­den Nurs­ery in San Diego County. Also in San Diego County: Botan­i­cal Part­ners with every bam­boo imag­in­able, and Jun­gle Music for collector’s palms. The own­ers of these nurs­eries (Ralph Evans and Phil Bergman, respec­tively) will give you help in decid­ing what will do best in your gar­den — they want you to suc­ceed and come back for more. Of course, that is true of all nurs­eries, large and small, gen­eral or specialized.

I have a “Des­ti­na­tion Nurs­ery” list­ing at the bot­tom of my cat­e­gories on Socal​nurs​ery​plants​.com. For more infor­ma­tion on each nurs­ery, go to the cat­e­gory for that nursery.

A mon­ster at Ran­cho Soledad Nurs­ery in Ran­cho Santa Fe

Sur­vey­ing the nurs­eries of Orange and San Diego Coun­ties so I could add them to Socal​nurs​ery​plants​.com was a labor of love. I couldn’t have done it with­out my GPS. It would have been nice to take a cou­ple of weeks to do it instead of just 5 days, which were bro­ken up by dri­ving home every night…except for one. That one was spent in La Jolla, a relax­ing respite. I look for­ward to vis­it­ing and revis­it­ing nurs­eries all over South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. I espe­cially appre­ci­ate any help you give me find­ing the ones I may have missed. And I will con­tinue to delve into the magic and mys­tique of gar­den­ing in our unique cli­mate.

• Click to see my slide show video
  of the var­ied and inter­est­ing nurs­eries of Orange and San Diego Counties.

Bird­houses at Mis­sion Hills Nurs­ery, San Diego

I’m going to try to time my updates on my web­site to the President’s State of the Union Address every year because it adds grav­i­tas. Not that this is such a seri­ous endeavor; it’s a lot of fun, and the best idea I’ve ever had. Since Socal​nurs​ery​plants​.com went active last Sep­tem­ber I have vis­ited and/​or researched over 100 nurs­eries. Soon Orange County and San Diego city and county will be online. I’ve also decided to add the Santa Bar­bara area since vis­it­ing nurs­eries is my pas­sion (tech­ni­cally SB may be Cen­tral, not South­ern, Cal­i­for­nia). There is also the thrill of dis­cov­ery: every once in awhile I’ll be tool­ing down the road and dis­cover a nurs­ery I can add to my web­site that wasn’t on any of the data bases I’ve researched. It’s also fun to answer the queries that come in, includ­ing where to buy a cer­tain kind of per­sim­mon tree in Orange County and a good source for procur­ing 24 Bay Lau­rel trees.

I’m also dis­cov­er­ing the nurs­ery busi­ness is a vibrant and pro­fes­sional indus­try. Just visit the fol­low­ing web­sites for inspi­ra­tion: www​.proven​win​ners​.com, www​.mon​rovia​.com, www​.burkard​nurs​eries​.com, www​.sgnurs​erynews​.com, www​.greenar​rownurs​eries​.com, www​.sper​lingnurs​ery​.com, and www​.arm​strong​gar​den​.com. All are infor­ma­tive and give sea­sonal and design advice. There are nurs­ery men and women who are pas­sion­ate about bam­boo, orchids, cacti, suc­cu­lents, top­i­aries, roses, palms, bon­sais, Cal­i­for­nia natives, plume­ria, trop­i­cals and more. Some South­ern Cal­i­for­nia nurs­eries are 60 to 100 years old (Mis­sion Hills Nurs­ery in San Diego). And don’t think of nurs­eries solely in terms of “plant­ing your patch”. They are great places to go for an unusual gift (many have gift shops) or an inspi­ra­tional stroll on a sunny day.