Archive for the ‘Orange County’ 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.

Tree of Life Nursery

If you are like me, you have fan­ta­sized about work­ing at a spe­cial nurs­ery — or hav­ing your own. Tree of Life Nurs­ery is just such a spe­cial place for me. Located on 40 acres off Ortega High­way in San Juan Capis­trano, TOLN was started over thirty years ago by own­ers Mike Evans and Jeff Bohn. Their mis­sion was to prop­a­gate Cal­i­for­nia native plants with the view to return­ing Cal­i­for­nia habi­tat to its nat­ural form. Since then TOLN has become the largest native plant sup­plier in the state. Both the set­ting and the build­ings on the prop­erty are won­der­ful. The staff  “has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in eco­log­i­cal restora­tion, habi­tat enhance­ment and authen­tic land­scap­ing.”  Tree of Life natives are made avail­able to the gen­eral pub­lic through the charm­ing Casa “La Paz” Plant and Book Store. They also offer ter­rific work­shops, includ­ing: Native Designs: Color Year Round in the Cal­i­for­nia Native Gar­den (April 3), Native Design: Cre­ate a Hum­ming­bird Con­tainer (April 10), Native Design: Incor­po­rat­ing Desert Plants (April 17), Native Design: Design Prin­ci­ples for Suc­cess (April 24), and Native Design: Plant Tour of Nurs­ery Gar­dens (May 1). They also have a 4 part work­shop in May on how to get rid of your lawn. For more infor­ma­tion go to their web­site: www​.Cal​i​for​ni​a​na​tive​plants​.com.

Water plants at Upland Nursery

I may have to move just to get closer to Upland Nurs­ery in Orange. What a trip this place is. The day I dropped in I was for­tu­nate enough to run into one of the own­ers, the ebul­lient Jerry Hsu. For me, it was an E-​​ticket at Dis­ney­land. Jerry is the most enthu­si­as­tic busi­ness owner you’ll ever encounter. His pri­mary pas­sion is plume­rias — he has 350 vari­eties. Stretch­ing a mile deep along a nar­row space under power lines (like many nurs­eries), Upland doesn’t so much reveal itself as unfurls. A green­house here full of suc­cu­lents, a row of 30 vari­eties of Japan­ese maples there, cacti, bon­sai, it is a collector’s dream come true. Not a place to buy pan­sies or impa­tiens (do that next store at Vil­lage Nurs­ery), this is the place to stretch your gar­den­ing mus­cle. I (almost) never buy plants when I’m research­ing for Socal​nurs​ery​plants​.com, but I bought some­thing here. I’ve been informed it’s called a Princess plant but to me it looks mar­t­ian. Regard­less, it is fab­u­lous and now resides hap­pily in my suc­cu­lent gar­den. Shop here, you’ll be in good com­pany: William Shat­ner does, as well as the Bel­la­gio Hotel of Las Vegas.