Nursery tour

It's spring and time to think about planting your garden...I'm especially excited this year since we no longer live in an apartment and have a little land to plant in.

One of the projects that I'd like to do this year is a butterfly garden made with California native plants. It is a little more difficult to do than a regular butterfly/hummingbird garden, but well worth it in my opinion.

First, I gathered information on California natives and which of them are good butterfly/bird attracting types. The single most useful resources for this was the growing natives handouts I got from the Alameda Bay friendly gardening program, but I also found many useful resources online.

I'm avoiding large trees and shrubs since we are renting the house we live in, and don't want to plant something that cannot be undone easily.

I went to Nauvlets Walnut creek location, but didn't find any natives there... I asked about milkweed, and they said try back next week. So then I went to Orchard Nursury in Lafayette, they has a couple sections of natives, and I ended up buying 3 plants.

Then I went to Mt. Diablo Nursery and garden, I didn't see any there either.

Then I went to Annies Annuals in Richmond. They had a large section, but many of their plants were still very small (it's hard to justify paying 5.25 for a pot with a little tiny spring in it). but they had a good selection, I bought 8 CA native and 3 non-natives, and I hope to go back again soon.