Gardens and the Holiday Season

 

As we move into the season of all things merry and bright, us gardeners want to remind you that plants can play a pivotal role in your holiday season as well. Below are just a few ideas….

 

Plants make great gifts

 

Granted, being gardeners, we might be a little biased here, but really, plants DO make great gifts! Everyone can use an extra houseplant or two to brighten up a dull spot in their home or workspace. Plus, the gift a plant seems to say “I have faith in you. You can keep this living thing alive!”, and, well, we all need that kind of encouragement in our lives right now, don’t we?  If you aren’t sure what type of plant to give someone, go for easy to grow houseplants like Sansevieria (snake plant), aloes, jade plants or Peace Lily.

 

This time of year, we also start to see some seasonal favorites pop up: this is when the classic poinsettia makes an appearance, of course. This year, don’t throw them all out when the season passes – they can make a really cool little shrub/tree when planted outside, or be a year round houseplant! We also start to see one our favorites, the  “Christmas cactus”.  These are really a type of cacti native to Brazil, the common name for them stemming from when they tend to bloom. Super easy to grow, we think these are a really underrated plant! Don’t forget about living Christmas tree options, too – a cool way to bring nature inside, and to grow something outside once the season is over. 

 

Pumpkin succulents and other garden themed centerpieces

 

Bring the outside in with some unique table décor this holiday season! “Pumpkin succulents” are pretty easy to make. I am a fan of NOT carving out the pumpkin and instead just glue moss to the top of the intact pumpkin, and then attach succulent cuttings. I find they last much longer this way, in fact, it’s quite surprising how long these last! When the pumpkin starts to look a little mushy, you can either peel the moss off and plant it with the succents intact, cut of the top of the pumpkin and plant it with the succulents growing on top, or, just plant the whole pumpkin up to the top. With that last option, you’ll get a succulent garden, some compost, and likely some pumpkins growing from the seeds the following year!

Living wreaths

 

The trend of ‘living wreaths’ has been gaining traction for years now. In a nutshell, it’s about taking branches and shaping them into a circle (you can buy premade ones at most craft stores), and in a similar way as you would with succulent pumpkins, adding moss, and then attaching a variety of succulent cuttings to it; you can find lots and lots of ‘how to’ videos of the process online.  You can easily give such wreaths some holiday flair by including pine cones, faux or real (dried) red berries, ribbon and other seasonal bling to your creation.

 

Making the wreaths is also a great group activity for holiday parties and gatherings. Rather than watch TV together on Thanksgiving, enjoy the California sunshine and go outside and make some living wreaths and bring a bit of nature into your holiday celebrations!

 

 

We hope this holiday season finds you and yours enjoying nature and getting lots of time to play outside. Bring some plants into your holiday celebrations this year, and get your nature fix!

Fall Harvest

 

Fall Harvest

 

It’s almost pumpkin spice time! Regardless of if the weather cooperates with our #fallvibes or not, moving into the autumn months is one of my favorite times of the year. Maybe it’s the new school year, but I’ve always associated this time of year with new starts, new beginnings and potential. It’s also one of my favorite times of year as a gardener. With that in mind, for those with plants on the brain, there are three areas to focus on for the upcoming months: cleaning up your garden, replanting outside, and making sure you are well stocked on houseplants for the winter months to come!

 

Fall and early winter months are ideal times for getting your ‘garden house in order’. Think of it as spring cleaning…only in the fall, and you know, in your garden! This is the time of year we clean up our little nursery, as well as our clients gardens. Prune, round up leaves and other debris (compost ‘em but don’t let them rot in beds!) bring in some fresh soil amendments, and do some general ‘sprucing up’.

 

Rudbeckia, poppies and salvias are your ‘standard cottage garden’ plants to put in the ground this time of year, setting up your garden for guarantee blooms in the months to come. Hardy and tough, these are great additions, and do well when planted in the fall and early winter months.  Plus, these plants will continue to show up in your garden year after year: let poppies go to seed, and rudbeckias and salvias get cut back in the winter so that they can look stunning in the spring.

 

Looking for some indoor plant ideas? Indoor plants aren’t as dependent on seasons as outdoor plants are, though availability does differ based on the time of year. If you are looking to bring some blooms indoors, check out the trusty “Christmas Cactus”, technically a cactus native to Brazil called “Schlumbergera”. They bloom near the end of fall and start of winter, and are a great way to bring some cherry blooms indoors! We love Caladiums, too – though they don’t bloom, they provide great color and are easy to grow.

 

Are you in the ‘I want to grow houseplants but I don’t know where to start” club? There are three plants that you can’t go wrong with. Sansevieria (commonly referred to as ‘snake plant’) comes in all sorts of cool colors and shapes. This plant is super forgiving (couldn’t we all use some more forgiveness?): they are easy to grow, can tolerate a wide range of light conditions and doesn’t need much water. That description could also apply to the Pothos family, too – we love them for their color, hardiness, and Instgramability! Rounding out our list of ‘you can totally grow this indoors’ would be the always popular Philodendrom family: lush, happy, and easy to grow, they are a great addition to your houseplant family. Worried you don’t have enough sunlight in your place to grow houseplants? You can get a “grow light” that replicates the spectrum of light provided at the sun, and you don’t need a special light fixture – there are bulbs available that fit standard lamps, we have seen them at Home Depot for less than $5!

 

We hope you get a chance to enjoy the changing season and all the promise that comes with it. We’ll be having a garden party as part of Country Roads annual Holiday Open House on Saturday November 6^th – join us!

 

Enjoy the pumpkin spices and the sunshine!

Winter Garden Tips!

Winter Garden Tips

Winter has arrived! Thankfully, for most southern California gardeners this doesn’t put a damper in our gardening plans, but, in fact, provides the opportunity to take advantage of planting winter loving plants, and getting your garden in tip top shape for spring!

There are all sorts of things that can be planted this time of year: cool season vegetables like beets, carrots, Swiss chard, kale and lettuces can go into the ground now, and can even be started by seed!

This is also the season to start planting your cottage garden classics, ensuring bountiful blooms for spring. Sweet peas should go into the ground during these cooler months – we will have a big selection from Annie’s Annuals in stock this season – and this is also a good time to plant delphiniums, too. We also like to start planting poppies now. The eschscholzia species grows very well here; you know that poppy as the ‘official California state flower’ that comes in a vibrant orange, but we also have it available in some really cool other colors like rose, alba, yellow and even a new variety called ‘Champagne’. Interesting fact: the species was named around 1810 by a German botanist who was exploring California and the Pacific coast. 

For all of these winter plants, be sure you are planting them in soil that drains well, as you don’t want them to get water logged by winter rain, which can cause them to rot. You can ensure this happens and promote aeration in your soil a few different ways. One way is add amendments designed to improve clay soil. Be sure to avoid mulch right now, as mulch can bog the soil down. Look for soil amendments that are specific to promoting better drainage – you can even add a few bags of cactus potting mix to your garden to achieve this.  Another way is to literally poke holes in your flower beds! There are tools available to achieve this, spike aerators can be found in hardware stores (shout out to Orange County Farm Supply, one of our favorite spots for all things tools!) for as low as about $25. Another method to improving drainage is to turn over the soil. If you don’t have a lot of material planted already in your garden, literally take a shovel, dig down, and flip the soil. You can do this on a smaller scale with a hand trowel, turning the soil over in the area you are going to be doing planting. In fact, it’s a good habit to get into any time you plant, as it promotes healthier soil and prevents compaction.

You don’t want to fertilize too heavily in the winter, as this is not the season that you want to promote a lot of growth. This is a good season to add amendments though, especially those that are low in nitrogen. We like worm castings and bone meal for this purpose.

Remember too, this is the time for cool season bulbs! Though a bit of work, planting bulbs is a time honored, fun tradition for many gardeners – we all have our favorites. You can also plant seeds for plants like nasturtiums and Larkspur during the winter, too.

            There is no rest for the active gardener! Get out there and make the most of these winter months!

PS: Mark your calendars now: our Spring Garden Party for 2020 will be on Saturday March 21^st!

Summer garden tips

Summer is here…does your garden have its ‘beach body’ yet? 

by Brande Jackson

The summer solstice has come, the days are noticeably longer, and stores have long been selling July 4^th decorations…that can only mean one thing: summer is here! What does that mean for you and your garden? We’ve got a few tips on how to get you garden into 'summer shape'.

1. Take advantage of that June gloom! Those June mornings are PERFECT for getting your garden game on. Use that weather to prune, plant and get the heavy work done. Yes, you’ll feel better not laboring under a blazing sun, but what really matters is that you won’t be stressing out your plants, either. Get prepared early in the season, before the weather warms up.

2. Toughen up that garden! Prune before the hottest days of summer hit, and try to plant as early in the season as you can, too (though you can certainly plant year round). Pull the weeds, throw down a layer of mulch (we like shredded bark the best), and start to do what is known as “deep watering”; basically, soak your garden on a more infrequent basis.  This will help it acclimate to hotter and dyer conditions. It doesn’t mean you won’t have to water in the heat of summer - you will - but deep watering encourages deeper root growth and ensures that water penetrates the top layer of soil, which is what you want.

3. Release the bugs! We like to release ladybugs into the garden around this time of year, as they help with aphids and other pests that begin to proliferate in summer months. While you are at it, be sure to keep an eye out for mosquitos – they were bad last year!  There are organic options for treating them, some geraniums you can plant that act as natural repellants, and be sure to treat any water features you have in your garden as a precaution, too.

4. Throw some shade! Provide some temporary shade to the hottest parts of your garden during the summer. Even plants that are meant for full sun can get damaged when it’s really crazy hot. Pick up some market umbrellas and stagger them around your yard, or find some cool looking tapestries and tie them up as temporary shade cloth. You don’t need to construct anything permanent nor does it need to be expensive, but temporarily shading parts of your garden during the hottest days of the year can go a long way towards keeping your plants healthy and happy. To figure out where your garden could use a ‘shade break’, look for plants that are wilting or looking kinda crispy when it’s hot, even after a good watering  - those are the ones that probably need it.

5. Get planting! There are all sorts of plants that thrive in the summer months. Salvias, sunflowers, succulents….and those are just the ‘S’ plants! Veggies to plant this time of year include squash, corn, eggplant, tomatoes, swiss chard, pumpkin, most melons, and cucumbers.  Get growing!

Late spring and summer is a fine time for getting outside and playing in your garden. Just take a few steps to get prepared, and you can enjoy your yard all season long!

New plants!

New arrivals are in our garden, and just waiting to go home with you! We just got a new stock of Annie's Annuals & Perennials on our shelves, as well as a HUGE selection of air plants. 

Check out some of our summer goodies:

Airplants

Have you tried out air plants yet? Easy to grow, fun, and super weird, they meet all of our requirements for an awesome plant. We have a big selection that just arrived last week - over 100 plants! Stop in and check them out!

Psoralea pinnata “Kool-Aid Bush”

This South African shrub or small tree is a a great choice to bring some height and interest to your garden. It reaches to about 12 feet in height, with dense soft needle like foliage - super cool.  It is said to bloom in it's first year, featuring bright lavender blue, sweet pea like flowers. And the name? The comes from the sweet scent of the blooms. Really fun, cool plant!

Asarina scandens ‘Sky Blue'

Asarina is a type of vine that is easy to grow, hardy, and comes in a variety of colors. The "Sky Blue" variety is one of our very favorites, though, and not one that we get in all that often! Fast growing, it reaches 8-10 feet in it's spread. It's great on a trellis, on a wall that needs coverage, or even a pot!

Crassula capitella “Red Pagoda”

This plant just looks so...geometric. Architectural. We LOVE LOVE LOVE it! Hardy, full sun, low water, great as a border plant or in a pot, and it blooms super cute white flowers in the summer time! 

We, of course, have much more than this in stock right now. Come on in and check us out - we are open every day from 10am - 5pm.

4th of July celebration and thank you!

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Johnnye Merle’s and Country Roads Antiques will be open this July 4^th from 10am – 3pm. 

We are spending the 4th holding a special celebration in appreciation of all of our awesome customers over the years! Country Roads is in our 23^rd year of business, and Johnnye Merle’s just celebrated our 10^th anniversary. All things said and done, the best part of what we do is getting to build relationships and friendships.

To celebrate, we decided to throw a 4^th of July BBQ! We’ll have free hot (and veggie!) dogs, s’mores, & lemonade, store wide sales on all sorts of vintage goodies, free mini-flags to show your July 4^th spirit, sunflower seed plantings for the kids, and special plant discounts! 

We are only going to be open from 10am - 3pm, so be sure to stop in during those hours, say hello, and take part in the celebration!

Thanks for all of the amazing support of the years! We hope to see you this weekend!

New plants!

You are following us on Facebook, right? We post our regular updates there, though we are still keeping this blog up and going, too!

New plants are coming in every Friday this time of year! Yesterday brought some fun goodie's from Annie's Annuals - check out a few photos below!

Milkweed

We finally have asclepias back in stock! Milkweeds, the common name for these plants, are popular as they attract butterflies and caterpillars (don't worry, the plant has mechanisms to grow back quickly as the caterpillars munch!) and are a great way to bring some nature into your own garden! As you can see in this photo, butterflies were already stopping in to say hello...

Garden party time this weekend!

New Plant Saturday for February 21st

Happy weekend, garden geeks!

This week we received a big order of all sorts of new goodies from Annie's Annuals & Perennials! Check out a few of our favorites below!
(all photos courtesy of Annie's Annuals!)

Aeoniums 

We are a HUGE fan of this family of plants! Easy to grow, funky & fun, they bring a delightful dynamic to ANY style of garden! We have several varieties in stock right now:

 Aeonium cilatum

 Aeonium heirrense - huge, and really cool 'trunk'!

 Aeonium simsii - small and super cute!

Aeonium urbicum - huge flower head!

Aeonium "Sunburst" - one of our favorites, great color!

Delphiniums 

We have LOTS of delphiniums in stock right now, about 8 different varieties, in fact! Two new ones just arrived from Annie's: Double Innocence, grown for it's striking bright white blooms, and "True Wild Form", a hard to find specimen that is super hardy and almost electric blue in color!

Hollyhocks

Towering giants of any garden, Hollyhocks are quite easy to grown, and fairly drought tolerant once established. They are a bit prone to a rust that affects just their family of plants. While it's not all that pretty, it's not really going to damage the plant, is easy to address, and really, a few dots on a leave are worth it when you see the blooms these plants produce! We have the varieties below in stock right now; all take full sun, average to low water (once established) and will grow between 4-8 feet tall!

 Hollyhock "Halo Apricot"

 Hollyhock "Halo Blossom"

 Hollyhock "Black Knight"

 Hollyhock "Halo Cerise"

Hollyhock "Halo Lavender"

Papaver Poppies

Another late winter/early spring favorite: poppies! These are not your run of the mill poppies, though. These unusual specimens - many of them 'heirloom plants' that have been around for centuries!  are grown for their show stopping, fun blooms! Check out a few of the ones we have in stock right now:

 "Ladybird"

 "Crimson Feathers"

 "Danbrog"

 "Lavender Fringed"

 "Lavender Semi-Double"

 "Orange Chiffon"

 "Queen's Poppy"

 "Sugar Plum"

This is, of course, just the tip of our 'new plant iceberg'! Other new plants from Annie's include Petunia axillaris, the popular California Ranunculus, all sorts of Salvias, and some really cute violas! Plus, we have a great selection available from some of our native growers, lots of succulents, and more!

The nursery is looking really nice and full right now, a great time to stop in and visit us, and perhaps take home some of your very own botanical goodies!

President's Day Weekend SALE & New Plants

The air is full of pollen and love at Johnnye Merle's today!

As part of Country Roads Antiques & Gardens President's Day Weekend celebration, all of our plants will be 20% off! "OMG, for reals???" For reals, indeed.

All those cool new Annie's Annuals & Perennials, the great new stuff from Native Sons Wholesale Nursery, all the fun new seasonal color, all of the AWESOME herbs and veggies: on sale! We don't have many sales, only a few a year, so be sure to stop in and take advantage of these great garden discounts!

New plants for this week: fairy garden low growers, including Leptinella Platt's Black, Irish moss, baby tears and ivy. A BIG selection of Delphiniums, all sorts of cool blues and even a dark blue 'almost black'. Juncus spiralis, the 'corkscrew grass' that everyone is obsessed with (which we have in super cute, small 2" sized pots for a very low price!), some great 'Valentine color', Jasmine wreaths (and a few Jasmine hearts, but get them while you can, as they will be moving fast today!), Nemesia "Shooting Stars" (check out the photo below!), Clarkia (in six packs!), Heliophila "Angel Eyes" (also in demand and will probably go fast!), and lots of other cottage garden goodies!

With the sale prices in effect for only three days, stop in sooner than later and take advantage of the great prices on some very cool plants!

Correa pulchella

We love the bloom of Correa pulchella, more commonly known as "Pink Australian Fuchsia". It's a low growing shrub - maybe 2 or 3 feet tall - drought tolerant, hardy, and delightful! We have them in one gallon sized containers right now.

We are picking up some more plant for the weekend ahead, too: juncus spiralis, cyclamen, primula, jasmine: all sorts of fun, Valentine themed colors, too!

Will we see you in our garden this weekend?

PS: This weekend is all the big President's Day Weekend Sale! Plants will be discounted, as will all sorts of other goodies throughout Country Roads. Pop in and see us!

New plant Saturday: 2/7/15

New plant Saturday is here, garden geeks!

New this week: an order full of really cool, unusual grasses, ferns, abutilon (Chinese lanterns), Australian natives and ‘ground covers’ like Scleranthus uniflorus, pictured below!

New herbs and winter veggies! We will profile more of these later on, but we always love to get in a fun, fresh crop of edible plants that are very cool – grow your own green juice!

Winter color! New cyclamen, jasmine heart vines, stock, ‘shamrocks’, spiral grass and more!

Heart topiaries – get those Valentine gifts done and taken care of this weekend!

PLUS, we still have a TON of our Annie's Annuals in from last week, sedums and succulents from Native Sons and a whole lot more. Spring like weather has us keeping the nursery nice and full!

Hope you make it in to see us this weekend!

New plant Saturday is here!

New plants have arrived! Our nursery is looking particularly full with all sorts of new arrivals from Annie's Annuals & Perennials and Native Sons Wholesale Nursery!

Annie’s fans: have you received your catalog yet? We have all your favorites in stock, with about (50!) new variety of plants arriving yesterday! We also have some really cool new plants from Native Son’s, another one of our favorite growers: lots of sedums, cool and unusual and DROUGHT TOLERANT California natives, and much more! We'll have a blog post up soon with more details of all that is now in stock...

We hope you can stop in and see us this weekend! Thanks for the ongoing support - we love our garden geek community!

Happy weekend!

Let our gardens brighten up your weekend! 

Lots of wonderful plants are waiting to go home with you!

New plants!

Hi garden geeks!

Below is a sampling of some of the new plants we just got in stock from Annie's Annuals! You can also email us with any questions or special requests!

Dianthus ‘Bliss’
“Perpetual Carnation”
This old fashioned dianthus is just adorable! We love it! We also have "Cheshire Cat", "Mad Hatter", and the "Queen of Hearts" dianthus in stock as well! All are in 4" containers.

Aeonium simsii
 This is a new aeonium for us, and we love it for its daintiness! It's small - maybe three inches across each 'bud', and grows low - almost a funky cool groundcover. The yellow flowers it produces in late spring are suppose to be quite amazing!

Delphinium elatum
‘Sweethearts’
Delphinium are among our most favorite of plants! This 'Sweethearts' variety does not disappoint - maybe we just have Valentine's Day on the brain already, but we loooove the sweet pink blooms! We have a few other varieties of delphinium in stock as well: "Bellamosum", "Dusky Maidens" and "Clivedon Beauty" are all available in 4" containers, ready to be planted now for some spring blooms!

Rhipsalis burchellii
"Mistletoe Cactus"
This meets our qualifications for "funky cool and weird"! We've never had this plant before, so it's new to us as well. Here is what Annie's website says: "This RARE & highly unusual plant is actually a thornless, tree-dwelling cactus! Best planted in a hanging basket or large container, it forms an elegant cascade of delicate branches than can reach down to 5’! Lovely creamy white flowers emerge along the stems, eventually making way for darling pink fruits. A wonderful choice for a shady patch of the garden or for keeping as a houseplant." We are pretty excited to try it out!

Lathyrus odoratus
‘Route 66'

Sweet Pea time is here! Oh, how we looooooove sweet peas! We'll find an excuse to plant this just about anywhere! "Route 66" is a new one for us this year - this fast growing variety has some pretty amazing two-toned color going on! In addition to "Route 66" we also have "Almost Black" "Annie B. Gilroy", "Blue Vein", "Cupani", and "Fire and Ice" in stock. These tend to sell out quick - and we will likely have more in next week (1/17/15), so email us if you are looking to come in after this weekend so we can make sure they are still in stock.

Aloe wickensii
Even if succulents aren't your thing, if you have a bit of space, this super cool aloe is worth it! The photo makes it look bigger than it is; the grower states it gets to the 2-3 foot range. The color is what makes it amazing; the plant itself kinda reminds us of...well, of a reptile! It has greens, and dark patches, and light patches - it's really cool! And the bi-color blooms, which will surprise you next winter, make this a really unusual specimen of aloe! We have it in 4" sized containers right now.

What else?
Also just arrived: two varieties of yarrow (achillea "Moonwalker" and "Rosey Red", both great drought tolerant, fun plants!), centaurea (bachelor buttons, our Grandma's favorite!) in blue and red, buddlea in white and blue, succulents, helleborus 'Gold Bullion' (which we LOVE!),  nicotiana in white and lime green, papaver poppies, salvia, verbascum and many more! This was a pretty big order, so lots of new goodies are to be seen!

Don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram for more day to day updates!

Garden Geek Updates for the Week of January 5th

Happy happy new year, our fellow plant nerds! 

Garden Geek Updates for the week of January 5th 2015:

We have a biiiig order of Annie's Annuals arriving this week, likely in on either Thursday or Friday. Lots of fun goodies - big selection of sweet peas and poppies (including some new varieties!) for your winter gardens, some new succulents, and much more! If you have any special requests, be sure to email us with those by Tuesday (1/6/15) evening.

We should also be getting some more of the always popular ornamental kale and spiral grass later this week as well! And possibly some new and funky herbs and winter veggies - we'll know for sure in a day or so and will update accordingly.

We totally embraced this spirit of 2012 (a joke, get it?!?!) and finally started an Instagram account! Yay! Follow us there for daily photos of botanical goodness.

We are starting up our first new design project for 2015! A client in Los Angeles just got her turf removal rebate approved, and we are helping her design her new lawn free (ditch the lawn!), native plant, low water, awesome looking landscape! If you are interested in having us help you do the same, email us!

In the spirit of the new year, we put together some fun 'garden resolutions' to inspire your dirt digging this year. Check out our post for more info!

Speaking of new years resolutions, we are going to try to make sure we post a weekly update each and every Monday! If you are interested in staying on top of our latest breaking news, you can sign up to get these posts emailed to you (check out the form on the right side bar!) or follow us on Facebook.

Wishing you a happy and productive first week of our new year!

-Brande and the Johnnye Merle's team