Archive for the ‘Ventura 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.

Grass tree (Xan­th­or­rhoea australis)

I am pleased to announce the inclu­sion of Ven­tura County and envi­rons in the Socal​nurs​ery​plants​.com fam­ily! The area between the West Val­ley and Santa Bar­bara County is home to some splen­did nurs­eries, none more so than Aus­tralian Native Plants. Located in the foothills of Ojai, the nurs­ery was estab­lished in the early 1990’s by Aus­tralian hor­ti­cul­tur­ist Jo O’Connell with the help of her hus­band Byron Cox.

Jo has an extremely inter­est­ing back­ground, hav­ing worked in Zoo Hor­ti­cul­ture in Aus­tralia and the US. She is ded­i­cated to intro­duc­ing new and diverse plant mate­r­ial for drought prone areas. “From the begin­ning, our vision was to pro­vide plants that are hardy, drought tol­er­ant, cut flower pro­duc­ing and bird attract­ing.” Whew, that’s a tall order, but hav­ing vis­ited her nurs­ery recently I can report “Mis­sion accom­plished”. It would be hard to walk out of this nurs­ery with­out buy­ing some­thing (I didn’t). Most of us are famil­iar with pro­teas and kan­ga­roo paws, but that is just the tip of the ice­berg at Aus­tralian Native Plants. (How can you not love a plant that goes by the moniker Arthropdium stric­tum?) Jo has some great demon­stra­tion gar­dens, as well as tons of plant mate­r­ial that she grows from seeds and cut­tings. She also resources new plant mate­r­ial every year when she vis­its Australia.

Alas, you won’t find most of these plants at other nurs­eries. Jo has a list of all avail­able plants on her web site: www​.aus​tralian​plants​.com. She also sells some won­der­ful books there. This is def­i­nitely a des­ti­na­tion nurs­ery; if you want to expand your hori­zons to Aus­tralia — go to Ojai.

It is rec­om­mended tha you call ahead for an appoint­ment and directions.