Your Independent Neighborhood Garden Nursery

Beautiful Plants and Inspired Designs since 1954

Dear Friends of Anderson's La Costa,

Happy May and Happy Mother’s Day!



It's really happening! We are inching towards summertime! What a gorgeous spring we are having, with sunny days mixed in with our usual springy cloudy skies. The colors at the nursery are popping with the enormous quantity of flowering plants in stock. It is such an exciting and beautiful time of the year.

Thank you to everyone who attended Mia's Citrus in the Garden Talk last Wednesday evening. It was a beautiful, informative, and fun event—even if the birds were making a racket! Mia shared wonderful tips, samples, and a helpful handout. Please let us know if you have any questions or feedback about the event.

Next up on the summer event schedule...please save the date for our annual "Midsummer Night's Dream" Sip, Paint & Plant event on Wednesday, June 25 at 6:00 p.m. Always a fun and creative evening, Aloha Art's Kathleen a.k.a. Coconut Mommy will guide us through a terra cotta decoupage planting project. Tickets are $40 each (including sips and snacks), two for $70, and an early bird special of $5 off for any single reservations made before May 15th.

20% Off

Dahlias, Lavender & Hoyas

Ready for a blast of color and beauty? With two items for sunny spots in your garden and another to grace the inside of your home, this trio will bring you smiles and beauty no matter where you place them. Dahlias are in season and aplenty, lavender will attract pollinators to your yard, and hoyas are just about the perfect indoor plant with light watering needs—great for hanging baskets and bookshelves.

Well, as good as April was for gardening (and it was good!), May is shaping up to be really lovely as well. The weather is staying in this warm but not too warm pattern that we can all enjoy, including the plants. This is one of the months when I get to do a rare thing, and that is to enjoy the garden. All the difficult tasks from the previous months, including weeding, fertilizing, trimming, and watering, now show the glorious results of a garden in its prime. It’s time to appreciate the little things, like all the pollinators enjoying the flowers and the beauty of the plants in my garden.

I just found a few ladybug larvae on my citrus trees. (Yes, the adults fly away, as everyone tells me when they buy ladybugs, but this is what you hope for as the larvae are the bug-eaters!) I will be harvesting all my cool-season vegetables, whether they are done or not, and plant all my favorite warm-season veggies as soon as possible.

The pollinators are out as spring is now at its peak. Plenty of very happy honey bees enjoy some of their favorite plants such as lavender (now on sale 20% off!) Spanish lavender is still in bloom, sweet lavender has one of my favorite scents, and shorter English types are best for teas and oils and are starting to bloom.

African blue basil is a magnet for bees and quite an impressive flowering plant (almost year-round, I prune mine 3-4 times to keep the shape), citrus blossoms (the best smell!), Tagetes (Mexican marigold) and Calylophus (bright yellow flowers), Leucospermum (pin cushion proteas still in bloom), Scabiosa (also a butterfly favorite), and Star jasmine and Bougainvillea vines are also in bloom.

The hummingbirds are zipping around this time of the year as well. Some of their favorite flowers around the nursery are salvias (so many varieties!), pentas (so many colors, a butterfly favorite), cuphea (always flowering, hummingbird magnet), and Tecoma hybrids (will bloom almost year round), plus Fuchsia (hanging baskets and bushes) and Streptosolen (Marmalade bush, another hanging basket favorite). Butterflies tend to prefer bright colored flowers that bloom during late spring/summer, which is their life cycle.

As for the butterflies, Asclepias (milkweed) of all kinds are available now, as planting them before the monarchs arrive in full force will give you a slight edge at having more mature plants for them to devour. Buddleja (butterfly bush) are sure to lure in many types of butterflies with their colorful, sweet-smelling flowers. Zinnias are great bedding plants that thrive in warm weather and attract many kinds of butterflies.

Gomphrena 'Fireworks', I've noticed over the years, is a favorite of the monarch butterfly adults and others for nectar. Pentas attract the giant swallowtail butterflies. Dill is a host plant for swallowtail butterflies, and citrus trees will host the giant swallowtail butterfly. Scabiosa was one of the flowers my mom and I saw in the butterfly exhibit at the San Diego Safari Park. They were all over it. Happy Mother's Day to the best mom in the world.

I'm happy we finally found a local source for half and quarter wine barrel planters! We will now have a steady supply of these wooden barrel planters made of American oak, which are great for roses, blueberries, edible gardening, and more. We also just received a new shipment of beautiful and unique pottery, including our much-anticipated glazed and unglazed bonsai pots. They come in many shapes and sizes, so be sure to come in and check them out!

Here are a few worthy mentions of our current unique plants in stock. Dendromecon harfordii (Island bush poppy pre-bloom, in one-gallon size pots from San Marcos Growers-while supplies last), Satsuki azaleas in many colors (great for bonsai or a small compact shrub), Alstroemeria 'Indian summer' (one of the few taller varieties available, dark leaves and sunset colored flowers), Athanasia dentata (another great South African plant from San Marcos growers before they are gone at the end of this year), Salvia x Savannah blue (African blue sage, I have to get one for my garden), and probably the last batch of one gallon size Leucospermum and Protea for the year (the growers are sold out!)

Don't miss the Indoor Greenhouse, stocked with the best-quality tropical greenhouse-grown plants, including 20% off hoyas. We've expanded our basket and pottery selection inside the greenhouse with hand-woven African baskets via Amsha (the coolest brand ever) and stunning new indoor pottery from Lotus International.

Don't miss our amazing sale this month, including 20% off dahlias, lavender, and hoyas- gorgeous flowering plants you can find in sunny areas outside at the nursery, and hoyas inside the greenhouse.

Thank you to all of our newsletter subscribers. We appreciate you! I hope you have a very Happy Mother’s Day, and I look forward to seeing you at the nursery soon.

Your Local Horticulturalist,

Steven

May usually brings prime planting conditions to Southern California gardens and landscapes. Temperatures are mild, the soil has warmed up, and we often have high, overcast skies that help new plants gradually acclimate to warmer weather conditions.

May is the best time to plant summer-flowering shrubs and to start transplanting indoor plants outdoors. If temperatures cooperate, this month will be your busiest until September, with planning, planting, and projects to prepare for summer. We could not find a more pleasant place or time of the year to be out working in the garden in our area than during the month of May!

May can also be a frantic month in our gardens, which we’ve already experienced with our recent and much-needed rainfall. Additionally, warm climates can rapidly transition to hot climates. Colder, inland gardens can suddenly appear out of nowhere and demand immediate attention. You may not need a list of what to do in the garden because it is staring you in the face every time you walk into it. But here are some reminders of what you can do:

To continue reading May Gardening Tips, click here.

N E W S L E T T E R

S P E C I A L S

20% Off

Dahlias, Lavender

& Hoyas



Offer good through May 31, 2025