Archive for the ‘Malibu Nursery’ Category

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!