GardenBook

  I first became aware of this nursery when they began to exhibit regularly at the  San Francisco Garden Show. Succulents were not widely available in my area at that time and I was thrilled to find a booth at the plant market filled with beautifully grown plants- I had not had many opportunities to buy cacti and succulents since leaving San Diego in the mid-80's.  Robin Stockwell , the founder of the nursery became enamored of succulents in the 70's, the same decade that I began to collect them, however  his collecting became a career while mine dwindled after weather related losses the first winter we spent in Norcal. The Succulent Gardens booth at the SF Garden Show eventually became one of the most popular in the plant market coinciding with the increase in the plant buying publics interest in succulents. Strategy and timing was required to navigate through the enthusiastic shoppers. Mr Stockwell has since sold the nursery though by some accounts he still is invo...

 So far the garden touring season of 2018 has proven to be robust. It commenced with a road trip to Southern California in March, continued with  Garden Bloggers Fling in Austin  the 1st weekend in May, and I was barely back from that before I packed  again for a road trip to the Santa Cruz-Monterey Bay area for the first ever Garden Conservancy Open Garden Day in Santa Cruz. I decided to stay a couple extra days and add a nursery crawl to the agenda. At some point I will crank out some blog posts on both Fling and the CG Open Day in Santa Cruz, but this post will focus on the display gardens at Sierra Azul Nursery in Watsonville.  Watsonville is an agricultural community in the corridor between Highway 101 and the Monterey Bay. It still has that California agricultural town vibe, but tract housing can be seen chipping away at the margins. In the meantime, strawberries, artichokes and cool season crops like broccoli and cauliflower thrive in this coastal fog b...