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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, | |
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Happy Fall!
Welcome to the best planting season of the year. We have had an absolutely beautiful summer, heat waves and all, and now it is a wonderful relief to have a week of mild temps and overcast skies at the coast. A perfect time to start working on fall gardening and planting.
We are pleased to announce our next sale for October: 20% Off Fiddle Leaf Figs (Ficus lyrata) and all Deciduous Trees. That is, trees with leaves that fall in the autumn and winter, and produce new leaves in the spring and summer. Here's the caveat - since it's the best time of the year to plant, it is the perfect time to get these trees in the ground and established before they lose their leaves for winter. This is a HUGE sale, including roses, plumeria, hydrangea, apple and all stone fruit such as avocado, peaches, plums, nectarines, spice zee nectaplums, certain 15-gallon and 24-inch boxes, and many more.
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October Newsletter Specials
20% Off All
Indoor Fiddle Leaf Figs (Ficus Lyrata)
and Deciduous Trees
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You will find Steven's update in the next section in, "What's New at the Nursery." Next, a few tips and updates for what to do in the Garden in October. Then, Old Ben has a super interesting article on bats.
Thank you for being our favorite customers! Please let us know what we can do for you. We look forward to seeing you very soon.
Warmest regards,
Marc, Mariah, Steven, and the Team at Anderson's
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What's New at the Nursery...by Steven Froess
Greetings Everyone,
The October newsletter has arrived! There is definitely a fall-feeling in the air. Shorter days, cooler mornings, football season, and plants such as violas, pansies, mums, and cyclamen have started to make their way to the nursery. Fall is one of our best seasons for planting, so be sure to take advantage of this beautiful season.
Cool-season herbs and vegetables are now starting to come in regularly. If your summer crops are still producing, there is no need to hastily pull them out yet. There is plenty of time to begin your cool-season garden. If your summer-garden has stopped producing, now is the time to prep and amend the soil and plant the first wave.
Whether you choose to plant seeds or starter plants, the soil prep is a very important step for a successful garden. Since nutrients are used up constantly throughout the growing season, they can be replenished in several ways. The first would be to add some of your own compost if you have some available. If you choose this method, you may need to add some fertilizer as well. The method we recommend is a combination of worm castings and E.B. Stone Recipe 420 potting soil- you could grow anything with this combination! Plus, organic planting mix or raised-bed mix. If you need some additional drainage add a bag or two of the citrus and palm soil. Add some organic fertilizer (we have several to choose from) and voila! Rich, “smelly” soil that will make your seeds and starters so happy.
Next comes the fun part: choosing what you want to grow and planting! If you haven't grown a variety of herbs and vegetables before, I highly recommend trying because it's fun and you learn a lot! The smartest thing to do is growing what you like and know you will eat. Space can be limited but you will be surprised how many plants you can fit into some raised beds. This season we will see a lot of leafy plants: lettuces, chard, kale, spinach, Asian greens such as Bok choy, mizuna, cabbage, celery, and more. Then there’s root vegetables such as beets, carrots, onions, leeks, parsnips, radishes, and turnips. Other cool-season vegetables include Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, and asparagus. We will continue to have a selection of these veggies now and through the winter months.
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It is so exciting to see some of the cool season flowering plants that are beginning to arrive: pansies and violas come in so many different colors and even though they are annuals, add a great variety of flowers to a garden during the cool season. Besides, the flowers are edible! Cyclamen will be coming in regularly now as well. They are great in shade to partial sun and come in a variety of colors. Ornamental peppers in oranges, yellows, and reds will add a splash of color to any container or small area. Meanwhile, we still have a wide variety of flowering perennials including pentas, yarrow, salvias, guara, leonotis, cuphea, and more. | |
Here are some noteworthy plants that I enjoy seeing in our nursery. Leucophyllum is a great drought tolerant plant with loads of purple flowers in the summer (try compacta for grey leaves and a tighter habit, or 'Cimmaron' for almost white leaves). Banksia ericifolia compacta also fits into the drought resistant category of plants with some unique and showy flowers that last for a long time. Pedilanthus bracteus really come to life when we get heat waves showing off their broad leaves and reddish flowers that attract hummingbirds. We have both one-gallon and five-gallon at the moment. A pink flesh dragon fruit called 'Tricia' in both one-gallon and five-gallon size. | |
Hesperaloe (funifera) is a unique plant we have in a limited supply. Pearl Acacia and Eucalyptus kruseana have that stand-out blue foliage not many plants have. If you need a more drought tolerant plants to provide some privacy, try grevillea 'Moonlight' which almost always has some flowers on it, and is great for hummingbirds and bees. | |
We recently restocked the succulents and staghorn ferns. There are so many standouts however, one of my favorites, Pachypodium geayi (purple leaf pachypodium) makes a nice container specimen or statement in a low water garden. So does Aloe Plicatilis with its unique fan-like structure. | |
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Enjoy the October sale on deciduous trees and indoor Ficus lyrata, there is such a great selection right now. At the end of this section you'll find a good list of the deciduous trees we currently have in stock. Not pictured but also included in the sale are apple, avocado, and stone fruit trees, jacaranda, tabebuia impetiginosa, and more.
We have a great selection of both indoor and outdoor ficus. Indoor we have Ficus 'Audrey', Ficus triangularis, and all the varieties of Ficus elastica. The outdoor ficus features some unusual specialty varieties like the Baja rock fig (Ficus palmeri and petiolaris) as well as some rare species like tettensis, socotrans, arbutifolia, and menabeensis.
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Of course, there is always more to see than we can describe in one newsletter. We hope you will make your way in during our best season of the year.
That's all for now. Looking forward to seeing everyone.
Your local horticulturalist,
Steven
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On Sale: Deciduous Trees 20% off... | |
Forest Pansy (Cercis canadensis) | |
African Tulip (Spathodea) | |
Bloodgood Maple (Acer palmatum) | |
Caribbean Copper Tree (Euphorbia cotinifolia) | |
N E W S L E T T E R | S P E C I A L S | |
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October
Nursery Specials
20% Off
Fiddle Leaf Figs
(Ficus lyrata)
&
All Deciduous Trees
Offer expires Oct. 31, 2022
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October Gardening Tips
October is when we start to see our first true days of autumn. We have already experienced some cooler nighttime and morning temperatures.
In Southern California, our mild Mediterranean climate makes it possible to plant year-round, but fall is one of the best times of the year to garden: the soil is still warm and the cooler season is soon upon us. As the temperatures start to cool down, working in the garden becomes even more glorious.
October is the peak month for planting cool-season flowers and vegetables. Although you won't be able to enjoy their color until next spring, October is also a choice month for planting perennial flowers, shrubs, and trees. By planting now, they will develop a strong root structure during our cool weather and then burst into glorious color in the spring.
To continue reading October Gardening Tips, click here.
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From the Desk of
Old Ben...
Facts About Bats
Bats are the only mammals capable of true flight. With extremely elongated fingers and a wing membrane stretched between, the bat's wing anatomically resembles the human hand. Over 1,200 bat species can be found worldwide. Bats make up a quarter of all mammal species on earth.
Diet
70% of bats consume insects, sharing a large part of natural pest control. There are also fruit-eating bats, nectar-eating bats, carnivorous bats that prey on small mammals, birds, lizards, and frogs, fish-eating bats, and vampire bats in South America.
Population/Range
Some bat populations number in the millions, others are dangerously low or in decline. Bats can be found almost anywhere in the world except the polar regions and extreme deserts.
Behavior/Echolocation
Bats have evolved a highly sophisticated sense of hearing. They emit sounds that bounce off of objects in their path, sending echoes back to the bats. From these echoes, the bats can determine the size of objects, how far away they are, how fast they are traveling, and even their texture, all in a split second. Bats find shelter in caves, crevices, tree cavities, and buildings. Some species are solitary while others form colonies of millions.
Reproduction
Gestation is 40 days up to 6 months for the larger bats. Litter size is usually one pup. For their size, bats are the slowest reproducing mammals on Earth. At birth, a pup weighs up to 25% of its mother's body weight, which is like a human mother giving birth to a 31-pound baby. Offspring are cared for in maternity colonies, where females congregate to bear and raise the young. Male bats do not help to raise the pups.
Some Amazing Bat Facts
*Bats are more closely related to humans and other primates than they are to rodents.
*The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand which weighs about as much as a dime and is critically endangered due to habitat loss.
*Giant flying foxes (Fruit Bats) that live in Indonesia have wing spans of nearly six feet.
*Bats are VERY clean animals and groom themselves almost constantly to keep their fur soft and clean.
*The Pallid Bat of western North America is totally immune to the stings of scorpions and centipedes upon which it feeds.
*Providing bat houses can help build populations of many valuable bat species that eat many crop-damaging insects. Bat houses furnish places for bats to roost, hibernate and raise young, in addition to the dwindling number of natural sites available to them.
|  | 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 Workshop and Wild Birdseed. | | | | | | |
