With six Evergreen Nursery locations (three retail/wholesale and three growing grounds) I spend a lot of time driving around the county. I always keep my eyes open for what’s in bloom or about to bloom and what looks really good in the landscape. At this time of year, especially with all the rain we have had, so many plants are just about ready to burst You can just see mother nature working her magic. It is starting to get a bit warmer, the days are getting longer and the soil is still damp deep from all the rain.

Drought Tolerant Plants

JANUARY IN YOUR GARDEN
 

This is a great month for planning and preparing for spring while the weather is cooler and much of your garden may be dormant.

Here are a few helpful tips:

Here at Evergreen, recycling has always been a part of our business plan. It was a part of our business plan way before it became politically correct and before everyone talked about ‘green’ this and ‘green’ that. One of the ways we recycle is by reusing plastic containers and the boxes we plant our trees in. So, next time you consider looking around for some garden products, remember, check your garage or out in the back and bring us those hard plastic containers.

The other day, I was driving along in Mission Beach, near the Catamaran Hotel, and I happened upon a hedge that I myself had planted nearly 30 years ago. Remembering that I planted it, I decided that I ought to stop and take a look at it. What a magnificent thing – here’s a little hedge, only about three feet tall, made from a plant called Natal Plum, botanically known as Carissa. It’s bright green, and for 30 years it’s been sitting in the same spot.

People are always calling us up or sending us emails in search of a plant they can put in a really shady spot. Well, there are a couple of really wonderful plants that will work good for that. One of them is a Clivia miniata, better known as the Kaffir Lily. You may have seen it in other people’s yards as you’ve gone into the shaded entry of friends houses, and you see in the fall or winter it blooms with a bright orange flower like a lily.

Nothing frustrates me more than picking up the evening paper and reading about yet another government program for recycling that really takes more effort environmentally than it saves. It seems like everybody’s dying to do something ‘green’ and politically correct. Well, here at Evergreen, part of what frustrates me is we’ve been doing recycling for more than 30 years, and we have never done it because we wanted to be politically correct. We did it because it made good business sense and it was good for our own environment.

A Vine for Shade

Often at info@evergreennursery.com we get request for what to do to plant a vine in a shady area or on a shady patio. Well, the two things that come to mind are Madagascar Jasmine (Stephanotis) and the other is the Violet Trumpet Vine (Clytostoma callistegoides).

Wow!  We are up in Washington state. It is really beautiful.  Our quest has been to find beautiful Noble Fir trees for the upcoming 2009 Christmas season. It took some traveling, but we struck gold.  We tagged some really nice ones. I have included a photo below of one of the beauties that we tagged out in the field, personally.  Being out here in these fields and enjoying the fresh scent of  these "real" trees, reminds me why I do not buy an artificial tree. Just cannot compare the two.  It looks to be a great year for "real" trees.