Mark your calendars! Saturday, January 18th, from noon to 3:00pm, author Leslie Buck will be at the shop, having her lunch, answering your pruning inquiries! (Please don’t bring any plant material, just photos, and your questions on how to maintain your California Native Shrubs!)

Leslie’s expertise is in ‘Natural Pruning,’ a technique she honed in Japan, to create a natural-looking, but healthy and thriving, garden.

Many of our fav native shrubs can get quite large for the home garden, and Leslie is very good at helping you take things back without losing the natural feeling of your garden.

More on Leslie: https://www.lesliebuckauthor.com/home

We hope your New Year is going well.

See above for the pruning Q and A.

While we enjoy some sunny days this month, let’s send some healing energy to our community to the south. I lived in LA for a couple of years and I can tell you the damage will be enduring…what a terrible loss! Wildfire in the Chaparral is necessary and natural, but when large swaths go, with adjacent urban areas, the results are toxic and hard to restore. My heart goes out to all who lost childhood places, families facing the loss of their homes, and let’s all remind affected friends in the Southland to apply for Disaster support from the Feds.

If you have a tough spot that you’d like to plant but the ground was too hard, after this round of storms you may be able to get that done! Don’t forget: explore any new sites, especially in urban areas, for what kind of soil you’re dealing with. Parking strips in particular often hide old, buried concrete, big lumps of builder’s fill, and other gardening nightmares…make sure you have good (at least 18″) planting depth and don’t hesitate to amend a little in these poor urban soils.

We are well stocked with California shrubs that love to be planted now, to set their roots down in the Winter rains, and bloom in your gardens late Winter/early Spring. We have a good amount of Ceanothus in stock: Ceanothus ‘Anchor Bay’ takes clay soil and a lot of sun… so does Baccharis (Coyote Brush). Baccharis in particular puts down a very strong tap root that holds soil on slopes.

We are also carrying a good selection of Salvias; we have a great crop of Cercocarpos betuloides, Mountain Mahogany; Coffeeberries, and Rhus aromatica, a very interesting bird-friendly, berry-bearing shrub, nice on a slope. Come see us soon for the tools to put together an affordable California Native Garden!

We are committed to bringing you the best quality plants for your garden or restoration project! We also can offer in-store consults if you bring in some photos. See you soon!