A Visit To Two LA County Towers of Power Nurseries

 

The only good kind of garden rabbit 

Or maybe the table is so empty because  bunny ate most of the plants.

Over the Memorial Day holiday weekend we ventured out to a couple of Los Angeles county nurseries.  H&H Nursery in Lakewood has been in business since 1976 and offers a large selection of indoor and outdoor plants and garden supplies.   

It's one of those Under-The-Powerlines places, which are common locations for plant nurseries in our increasingly crowded Southern California.  Land has become so valuable, the modest profits to be had producing plants can only be done on cheap-rent lots that are useable for just about nothing else.   

Beloved graciously took phone-tos while I gawked at all the plants.  

One purchase was a 'Design-a-Line' Cordyline.  I planted it on the terrace where the transplanted Lomandra 'Platinum Beauty' died.  

They also had an Aloe I was surprised to see at a general nursery:  Aloe castilloniae.  A. castilloniae is endemic to cliffs and rocky locations on the Mahafaly plateau of southwestern Madagascar, a semi-arid region.  A. castilloniae was first described in 2006 so is still rarely seen.  Being fairly new to commerce and slow growing, the plants for sale at H&H are likely tissue-cloned.  This species will be a challenge to grow, so I spent some time reading up on it, to figure out where to plant it for the greatest chance of success. 

A. castilloniae are the two in the square pots.  The other plant is Aloe raimossima , purchased at the second nursery we visited.

Elsewhere at H & H,  one species in the houseplant poly house was putting on an impressive floral show.  Cordyline fruticosa 'Glauca' has amazing deep mauve flowers in massive clusters.  I asked Beloved to take some photos, which he graciously did:

While the entire place is paved with gravel, all the plants were incredibly well cared for and were displayed in a clean and tidy fashion.  It was a pleasure to shop there.  Happy plants--don't they make you happy, too? 

Plant shopper in habitat

The houseplant area

Smaller succulents area

Shade plant area

H & H is at 6220 Lakewood Blvd, Lakewood, just off the 91 freeway.  Only six tenths of a mile away is Green Touch Nursery.  Two other bloggers visited Green Touch recently,  SucculentsAndMore, and AGrowingObsession.  (Click on the links for their visits.)

Again, Beloved graciously took photos while I shopped.  To be honest, I missed most of the place, focusing on two tables of not-so-ordinary plants.  

Yes, another Under-The-Towers-Of-Power nursery:

Under the historic Earl Scheib sign.  ("Historic" in Southern California is a whole different thing than "historic" in, say, London, England.)
 

A very focused shopper:

Still focusing:

Where all those tidy little pots got filled:

Unpretentious, happy place.  You felt like you were in someone's garden, in a way.  

Hey, there's Euphorbia stenoclada (silver spiney sticklike treelike thing, lower right).  I read up on E. stenoclada while I was looking for information on growing Aloe castilloniae.  I was really surprised to learn E. stenoclada is an important dry season fodder plant for Zebu cattle in Madagascar--so important the species is beginning to decline because it is being eaten up.  That a Zebu can eat this plant as food is rather--amazing.  A European non-profit in collaboration with WWF is helping locals propagate and sell this E. stenoclada, so it does not disappear.  No, really!  See the link.  The locals call it "samata". 

Still shopping...I didn't really get much past that table. 

Still there...

Under the Earl Scheib sign.  It was a fun little excursion.  After all the focusing, we came away with Aloe ramosissima, a shrubby Aloe similar to the tree-habit Aloe dichotoma.  

Focused, to the last.  A cool May-Gray day makes focusing easy.

Green Touch is at 8842 Park St, Bellflower, CA 90706, six tenths of a mile north of H&H.  

What are the plant nurseries or garden centers like in your area?