Support Your Local Independent Nursery and Hort-Zealot

Since my teen years, visiting nurseries has always been at the top of my favorites list. What better place to learn about plants, visit with fellow hort-zealots, and buy unique specimens for your own garden. Nowadays, it isn't easy to find many small independent nurseries, but I'm always searching for them.

Jeff and I were zooming along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, and I yelled, "Stop!"(and I'm probably lucky Jeff didn't drive off the road). "It looks like there's a little nursery tucked behind Trancas Market." It took about 4 or 5 minutes for us to find a legal place along the road to make the turn around, but it was worth it.

We rolled into the small parking lot and were greeted by a big, colorful sign announcing that we'd arrived at the Malibu Garden Center. Just inside, the entry tables of unusual containers, plantings, and plants awaited us.

We wandered the pathways, paused to watch the koi (which looked big enough to ride), visited the mini-"farm" in the back of the nursery, and filled our wagon with succulents, salvia, and trays of edible flowers for our kitchen garden.

I bought a selection of these gorgeous succulents to make one of my plant "mosaics" in a shallow terra cotta saucer

As we checked out and talked with the knowledgeable owner of the nursery, we realized that we had known her many years ago when she worked at Sassafras Nursery in Topanga Canyon. Shelby Basso is a Master Gardener with a love for working with children in the garden (we're soul sisters). Please visit her if you're ever in the Malibu area, and oh, don't forget to support YOUR local independent nurseries.

Shelby Basso

Malibu Garden Center Landscaping

6444 Trancas Canyon Road

Malibu, CA 90265

(310) 457-3981

Thinking about Thanksgiving

Last week we drove down the Old Stagecoach Road about a mile from our house. We were greeted by a flock of turkeys who gobbled back and forth with us for five minutes. Next a covey of about 20 quail flushed and sat along the top of a fence (they looked like fat clothespins on a line). Squirrels leapt along the branches of the roadside trees, and a shower of acorns lured me out to collect some for our Thanksgiving table.

Yesterday my granddaughter Sara and I collected fresh leaves to use as place cards at our table. She was so excited to pick a specially shaped leaf for each member of the family. "The big one is for Daddy, the little one is for Mo, I want the heart-shaped one for me." Just talking about how we were going to share Thanksgiving together made me smile.

That's what it is all about–isn't it?? The simple things that give us joy-the offerings of nature, our family, our friends, and traditions that we carry on and pass to the youngsters in our life.

I wish you all great joy during this Thanksgiving season.