Archive for the ‘Los Angeles Nursery’ Category

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.

Ah, Christ­mas in Los Angeles.….….US  Cus­toms got a sur­prise when they found 316,000 glass bongs dis­guised as Christ­mas orna­ments at the Los Ange­les har­bor. The cargo had been described as glass fig­ures and Christ­mas orna­ments.  But I digress.….

I love red and green, in fab­rics, jew­elry, flow­ers, suc­cu­lents, really every­thing. But the color com­bi­na­tion is so often asso­ci­ated with Christ­mas that I feel like I can’t use it as freely as I would like. I love using red and green over the hol­i­days but in a fresh way. In the arrange­ment in my kitchen I have com­bined red and green glad­i­o­las with a South African plant I grow in my gar­den, leu­ca­den­dron. A mem­ber of the pro­tea fam­ily, this plant is delight­ful with it’s red stems and green foliage and flow­er­like bracts. It’s car­ried exsten­sively at the LA Flower mar­ket for use as a fill in for flo­ral arrange­ments. Leu­ca­den­dron is easy to grow with full sun and mod­er­ate water, and read­ily avail­able at most SoCal nurs­eries right now. Another gor­geous red/​green flower com­bi­na­tion is a vari­ety of  kan­ga­roo paw, if you can find it.  I got mine at Aus­tralian Plant Nurs­ery in Ojai — you can see a photo in the Ven­tura Nurs­ery category.

I called some nurs­eries on my data­base and the fol­low­ing have a selec­tion of leu­ca­den­drons: Burkard Nurs­ery, San Gabriel Nurs­ery, (East Val­ley), Sper­ling Nurs­ery (West Val­ley), Marina Gar­den Cen­ter (Los Ange­les).  And if you are near Ventura/​Ojai, Jo O’Connell of Aus­tralian Native Plant Nurs­ery has an unpar­al­leled inven­tory. It’s best to call ahead to be sure.

Grow in Venice and Cosentino’s at Pacific Coast High­way and Los Flo­res in Mal­ibu tell me they have ter­rific wreaths among many hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tions. Rolling Green Nurs­ery always has the great­est hol­i­day plants, wreaths, orna­ments — it just goes on and on! They just opened a sec­ond loca­tion: 7505 Bev­erly Blvd @ Gar­dener, Hol­ly­wood, 90036, (323) 934‑4500.

Last but not least, all the employ­ees at the nurs­eries I called while look­ing for leu­ca­den­drons and hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tions were so help­ful and some of them called me back - try that at Home Depot! Hope you have happy hol­i­days no mat­ter what you cel­e­brate, even if you just love red and green like me!!!!