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Your Independent Neighborhood Garden Nursery
Beautiful Plants and Inspired Designs since 1954
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Dear Friends of Anderson's La Costa, | |
Happy Mother's Day! We hope you are having a wonderful start to May and finding lots of time to spend in your garden. We have stayed busy at the nursery making a few improvements here and there. We hope you'll stop by and take a look at not only all of the healthy, blooming plants filling up the nursery, but also the updated display areas. It has been an ongoing endeavor over the past year, but we hope it makes it easier and more pleasant for you to browse when you stop in. | |
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May Newsletter Special
20% Off
Alstroemeria
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4-inch and 6-pack Bedding Plants
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This month in honor of Mother's Day and Memorial Day Weekend, our bedding plants are on sale. It's a perfect way to beautify your entryway, pots, garden beds, and hanging baskets. We currently have a huge selection of bedding color for sun and shade, including many flowering plants the bees, birds, and butterflies will love.
Speaking of, we love pollinator plants, and right now many of our native and drought-tolerant plants are in bloom. We hope you will consider drought-tolerant plants for your gardens to keep your watering needs to a minimum.
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Next up, Steven has great plant info to share in "What's New at the Nursery," followed by May Gardening Tips. Then, Old Ben
gives us an overview of bluebirds.
Please join us on Wednesday evening, May 18 for our Sip, Paint & Plant event with Aloha Art! More details below...
We hope you are thoroughly enjoying our beautiful spring as we inch towards summer. We hope you will stop by the nursery very soon.
Warmest regards,
Marc, Mariah, Steven, and the Team at Anderson's
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Sip, Paint & Plant with Aloha Art!
Wed, May 18, 6-8 p.m. at Anderson's La Costa
Please join us for our Sip, Paint & Plant after-hours event hosted by Kathleen of Aloha Art and Instagram's #coconutmommy. We will be painting and planting a beautiful hand-crafted herb box. Everything is included for an evening of fun and creativity. You can make a salsa box, you can choose herbs for a spaghetti sauce, whatever you dream up all while enjoying sips and snacks and the company of others. The possibilities are delightful.
It's the perfect date night, girls' night out, or just join us and meet a few new friends! The cost to participate is $45 per person. Please RSVP by calling or stopping by the nursery to make payment. You may email us here to reserve your spot. We look forward to sharing this special evening with you!
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What's New at the Nursery...by Steven Froess
Hello everyone!
May is here, I sure will miss April. Time flies by for me, especially during the spring. There is so much going on in my mind (and body) I hardly have time to catch up. I had a great birthday on April 16th...I took my mom to the Huntington Library Botanical Gardens for the first time for her. I am a member, I highly recommend going if you haven't been! There is something truly special about that place that I just can't get enough of. I think my mom truly enjoyed it, as pictured above. May has begun and we have Mother's Day to look forward to as well as some longer days and nice weather.
As much as I enjoy talking about more positive things, the recent article I read on California's drought situation has me worried. We all must do our part to try and conserve water wherever possible. You can still have a beautiful garden while conserving our precious water supply. Simple things like using a bucket to collect the water in the shower as you wait for it to warm up and taking very brief showers can save significant amounts of water (on average about 10-15 gallons per shower).
Garden-related water-saving methods begin with irrigation systems. Begin by running your system and checking for leaks or unnecessary runoff as these are easy fixes in conserving water supply. Wherever possible, choose more drought-resistant plant species over water-needy types. Fruiting trees, fruit-bearing bushes, and vegetable gardens may need regular watering to be successful but I believe the farming/producing of food is a necessary use of water, especially when that usage can be offset with other methods of conserving water.
The addition of mulch can help soils retain moisture by providing a barrier between the soil surface from the sun and wind. Remember to add compost or a source of nitrogen (leaves, grass clippings, etc.) because wood mulch depletes nitrogen from the soil temporarily before breaking down and increasing the nitrogen levels of the soil. Irrigating during the early morning is also helpful so that there is less wind and the soil has time to correctly absorb the water before the roots begin to uptake the water. Hopefully, we can change/create new methods to keep our reservoirs and lakes full, but until then we must try and conserve our water supply as much as possible.
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Drought-resistant plants can still be attractive, it doesn't have to look like a desert. That being said, cactus and succulent gardens only require minimal watering. For leafier drought-resistant, try Tecoma 'Bells of fire', 'Oompa Loompa', and 'Mayan Gold' for some heat-loving perennial shrubs that attract hummingbirds. Grevillea show some wonderful flowers for plants that don't need lots of water. We currently have 'Long Jon, 'Magic lanterns', 'King's celebration', and 'King's rainbow'. | |
Lomandra is a genus of grasses that are heat and require moderate amounts of water but don't go dormant, try 'Pacific sky' or 'Platinum beauty'. Dwarf carpet of stars is an increasingly popular succulent ground cover that can even take some walking traffic. Silver leaf Santolina are starting to flower- it's a great mounding Mediterranean shrub with dainty white flowers. | |
We just stocked some unusual Acacia including aphylla (wire shrub), denticulosa (sandpaper Acacia), and hubbardiana. Acacia do well in all soil types with moderate to low amounts of water. Melaluca is another great genus of extremely durable plants for all soil types. In stock, we currently have steedmanii, nesophila, diosmifolia, and elliptica. A few other mentionable favorites of mine are Sonchus canariensis and Cussonia paniculata. | |
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Don't forget mother's day is early this year, this coming Sunday! We have lots of great gift ideas including a great selection of pink, white, and blue hydrangeas, roses of all sorts in bud and bloom, fuchsia hanging baskets that are in their prime bloom stage, and as always, a stellar selection of indoor plants.
If none of those work, we have lots of vegetable and herb starters, fruit and citrus trees, a huge selection of pottery, and we offer gift certificates as well.
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Thank you to everyone, both new and loyal repeat customers, for choosing us as your favorite nursery. We will continue to provide the best quality plants and service that we are able to. I look forward to seeing you at the nursery soon!
Your local horticulturalist,
Steven
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May usually brings prime planting conditions to Southern California gardens and landscapes. Temperatures are mild, the soil has warmed up, and we'll often have high overcast skies that will help new plants ease gradually into warmer weather conditions.
May is the best month to plant summer flowering shrubs and to start transplanting indoor plants to the outdoors. If temperatures are cooperating, this gorgeous month will be your busiest until September with planning, planting, and projects heading into summer. We could not find a more pleasant place or time of the year to be working in the garden in our area than during the month of May.
To continue reading May Gardening Tips, click here.
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N E W S L E T T E R | S P E C I A L S | |
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May Nursery Special
20% Off
Alstroemeria
&
4-inch & 6-pack bedding for sun and shade
Offer expires May 31, 2022
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From the Desk of
Old Ben...
The Western Bluebird
Can you imagine eating bugs and berries and living inside a tree? Western bluebirds do just that. They are members of the thrush family, meaning that they are related to robins. Bluebirds eat mostly insects. Grasshoppers, earthworms, snails and beetles are among their favorite foods. They sit on perches and drop quickly to the ground to catch their food or they can catch insects in the air. Bluebirds also eat fruit and berries, especially during the winter when there are fewer insects.
Why Bluebirds Need Our Help
Populations of western bluebirds have declined over the past 50 years. The main reason for their decline is competition for nest holes from
European starlings and English house sparrows. Starlings and house sparrows are exotic species, meaning they came from somewhere else and don't occur naturally in North America. These birds were brought here and have multiplied very quickly. They out-compete many of our native birds for nesting habitat.
Creating Habitat
Bluebirds need places to nest. Old trees often have many woodpecker holes that they can use. Don't remove all of the dead trees in your area if possible. They are important for wildlife. Nest boxes have greatly helped increase populations of bluebirds in many areas. Bluebirds will nest in boxes if they are well made and placed in a good location.
Building bluebird trails is popular throughout the country. You might like to build one too! A bluebird trail is a series of bluebird nest boxes along a path planted with berry plants. The path should be near an open area where bluebirds can forage for insects. Small shrubs and trees with berries are important for bluebirds, especially in winter when insects are harder to find. Elderberry, juniper, red cedar, bayberry, cherry and sumac have berries that bluebirds like. Western bluebirds are mainly insectivorous and can be attracted to feeders if you offer mealworms.
Bluebirds need places to perch while they look for insects. Tree limbs and brush piles near open areas make great perches. Don't forget a birdbath. Bluebirds like shallow birdbaths lined with flat rocks, Place the birdbath in an open area with a perch nearby so bluebirds feel safe.
Bluebird Facts
Nesting occurs from March through August. Only the female incubates four to six eggs, which she maintains at a temperature of 98 - 100 degrees F.
Both sexes defend territories, the males tend to defend territory edges while females primarily defend the nest.
A bluebird can spot caterpillars and insects in tall grass at a distance of over 50 yards!
Bluebirds can fly at speeds up to 45 miles per hour if necessary!
Bluebirds have no blue pigments in their feathers. Instead, each feather barb has a thin layer of cells that absorb all wavelengths of color except blue. Only the blue wavelength is reflected and scattered, resulting in their blue appearance to our eyes.
The bluebird is a symbol of hope, love, and renewal and is also a part of many Native American legends. Dreaming of bluebirds often represents happiness, joy, fulfillment, hope, prosperity, and good luck.
|  | Please check out our full line of local bird seed and wild bird products at Anderson's La Costa Nursery, your North County supplier of Old Ben's Wild Birdseed. | | | | | | |
