V&N Nursery in Venice, CA review

I went to V&N Nursery in Venice, CA recently.  The staff is friendly and helpful.  The grounds are clean and organized.  This is definitely a nursery for succulent gardeners and collectors.  Nothing is tagged with a price or plant ID so you have to ask how much everything costs.  Their prices are pretty fair.  I would still stand behind the "if you can buy a plant at Home Depot, then do it" rule because they usually have the lowest prices and the plants are guaranteed for a year.  Their webpage is not helpful at all other than to get their address.  The nice thing here is that it's usually very cool weather here since it's very near to the beach.  San Diego has some awesome succulent gardens but boy are they scorching especially in the summer.

 This is an interesting vertical succulent frame display they made.

 They have a few decent succulent arrangements on display.

 They sell some decorative gravel and rocks for potting arrangements and terrariums.

 Succulents are good for relieving itching.

 Everyone needs a giant dinosaur in their garden.

 They carry several landscape sized plants including these large golden barrels that grow super slow.

The quality that makes this nursery stand out is the fact that they have some nice landscape sized plants for decent prices.  I mean plants that are probably not going to randomly show up at the Home Depot.  These include a Aloe barbarae, Aloe marlothii, Aloe ramosissima, and Yucca rostrata.  There are probably several more.  They also have Totem Pole cactus but that seems to be expensive everywhere unless you buy a tiny piece.  There are no discounted bargain bin plants here.  Overall, this is a pretty good nursery for succulents in the L.A. area that I've been to with a decent selection and prices.

Grigsby Cactus Gardens review

Grigsby Cactus Gardens is located in Vista, California.  This is my favorite place to buy desert plants.  The prices are very affordable and you can get stuff that you will never find at Home Depot. The staff is friendly and helpful.

They plant stuff into the ground at this nursery!

Cyphostemma Juttae (Desert Grape)

No you can't eat these grapes!

There is a "cash and carry" section where you can buy big established specimens (in a pot) for a very good price.

This is one scaly plant.

Golden barrel with cleistocactus in the back.

Two dragon's blood trees.  These are one of my favorite trees and are probably really old.

This looks like a shrub at first but it's actually large clumps of Euphorbia Resinifera.

Bottled palm (beaucarnea recurvata) planted in the ground.  These caudiciforms (fat plants) have an awesome trunk that retains a lot of water.

This is a growing area.  There are a lot of growing areas actually, so you can't always buy everything that you see.  I'm not certain what they are saving it for.  Nevertheless, your selection is still very large.

Desert bonsai materials are very attractive for those of us who want to water less.

Then there are small plants you just can't resist because they are so unique!

We call this the brain cactus.

These spines look like stars.

How can you say no to a cactus with a red cap?

 This one is a show stopper with it's dense and compact spines and bright red color.

This one has nice leaves.

My wife said one of these totem poles looks like kermit the frog.

This mamillaria has a perfect crown of flowers!

This photo shows you how much pumice you need to use for desert plants soil mix.  Lots!  I would guess 60-70% pumice, with 30-40% cactus mix.  Their webpage is very simple but you can buy plants online and they will be happy to ship it to you.  I love this nursery for acquiring great plant material.  :)

http://cactus-mall.com/grigsby/

Rainforest Flora Inc. nursery review

My wife and I went to an awesome nursery that specializes in Tillandsia and Bromeliads in Torrance, CA. last weekend.

A common name for Tillandsia is "air plants" because they do not need to be embedded in soil. They absorb moisture and nutrients through their leaves and can have beautiful blooms.  You can wire them to a ball wire form and eventually they will grow around it.

My favorite ones are reddish with purple flowers.

This nursery has very beautiful displays and two huge rock boulders that a lot of their airplants are attached to.

They also have a very nice koi pond, and waterfall features.

The arrangement of these plants on deadwood creates a great color and texture contrast that is very pleasing to look at.

This topiary ball consists of Spanish Moss hanging from the top with Tillandsias on the bottom.  These plants can be glued and or wired onto the wire forms or deadwood without harming the plant.

They also carry some exotic tropical plants and a few succulents.

There is a large area where they farm these plants.  The plants that are on sale are clearly labelled with the plant name and description of their flowers and characteristics.

This is an awesome topiary ball with a color gradation due to sun exposure.  The plants that get more sun turn more reddish.

This is one of the island boulders standing in the giant koi pond in the middle of their greenhouse.

Being in this nursery makes you feel like you're in a tropical location of the world, and not California.  However, Tillandsias are drought resistant.  You can place them in a terrarium and mist them once a week.  They prefer 70% bright light.  Not scorching afternoon direct sunlight, and not shade either.  I think this is a very agreeable condition for California gardens.

Eileen took a great close up shot of one of the flowers.  I couldn't help but buy a few to add to a our collection that started when my aunt gave me a cluster last year along with some Spanish Moss.  They are all in good health and are about to bloom soon.  The staff was friendly and helpful.  They sell deadwood, and small glass globes to house the plants.   I only wish that they would stock more of a variety of terrariums for display and arrangements.  I would definitely revisit this nursery and recommend that you do too if you are in the area.  If you are not in the area, you can visit their website which is also really nice to learn more and buy some plants.

http://www.rainforestflora.com/

California Cactus Center Nursery, Pasadena, CA

California Cactus Center is an awesome nursery in Pasadena.  Their nursery is organized and clean.  It's a good idea if you're a succulent lover to take a day to visit the Huntington Botanical Gardens Desert Garden before you visit CCC to get some ideas on how you can design your residential xeriscape!  However if you aren't sure if a plant is okay to use in landscaping, the friendly staff members will be happy to answer all of your questions.

There selection of succulents is gigantic here, but why not buy something you can't buy at your local Home Depot or Lowes?  Like this Aloe ramossissima.  :)

I was afraid to ask them how much some of the plants were because I think their prices are on the high side.  Perhaps there is a high demand for succulents and cacti in the area and people in the local neighborhood have deep pockets.  Nevertheless, this is a great place to get some inspiration for succulent dish gardens.  We love succulents because they offer a very wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors.  Look at this nice Discorea elephantipes:

They sold a couple of these plants that were a small fist size for $99 each.  The cauldex has fissured textures and makes you just want to touch it.  This guy will grow a vine, which sometimes people may consider putting it near a trellis so that it can climb up.  This is very slow growing so big ones are very expensive if someone is willing to sell them.

The plant below is called Euphorbia lactea variegata.  Now, I take it back.  On your lucky day, you may be able to find this at Home Depot for a very reasonable price.  Keep your eyes peeled.  This plant is a beautiful organic modern sculpture built by nature.  It looks very much like a piece of sea coral.

You can buy this at Home Depot but I just included it just for kicks.  This funny cactus is called Old Man of the Mountains (not to be confused with Old man of the Andes which is more green with curvy spines).  The rest is up to your own interpretation.  ;)

Try to say this ten times fast, "Operculicarya decaryi", from a 3/4 top view.

Now we are getting into a controversial area in the subject of Bonsai.  There is a term coined by Rudy Lime called S.M.O.L.A. which stands for succulents as a medium of living art, which brings us to a very interesting subject matter.  This is a recent phenomenon that can be called "American Bonsai."  The good news is that if you forget to water any of these succulent Bonsai for a couple of days, they will be A Okay!  In fact some prefer to be watered very little compared to traditional Bonsai in a well draining soil.  This is great news for Southern Californians.  The tiny leaves make this awesome plant look like a giant tree!  Here is a side view:

 The word "caudiciform" simply means large form.  These plants are also sometimes called "fat plants".  Some are very slow growing and some aren't.  I will now bombard you with one of my favorite caudiciforms called Fockea crispa and Fockea edulis.

These plants are rare so they are quite expensive!  I love the outer-worldly look of these plants and their movement.  I had to haggle the price down so that I could afford to buy a couple small ones shown below.  The awesome thing about CCC is that if you buy a pot and plant, they offer to pot it for you free of charge or if you feel inclined, you can do it yourself right there at their potting station, which is what I did. 

Fockea crispa looks the same as Fockea edulis except the edges of it's leaves are wavy.  Fockea edulis is considered to be the more rare plant.  CCC also has very nice pots, rocks, and toppings to dress your arrangement up.  Don't forget that the plant will take the shape of the pot over time so if you want a wide bodied plant, put it in a wide pot.  If you want it to grow the body downwards more, put it in a deeper pot.  Each time your re-pot these guys (each year or two), you can raise them a little bit to show off more of the fat body.  If you tilt the planting angle at every planting, eventually you can end up with a "reclining nude" style.  Take that traditional Bonsai!  :)  It's fun isn't it?

Overall, whether you buy something special or not, this place is definitely worth a visit because of their wonderful succulent Bonsai displays and rare plants.  To be honest, if you do plan to buy something, I recommend that you know what your Home Depot and Lowes stocks so that you don't pay premium for common succulents.  Do your homework and save more money!