What a nice weekend
This morning, I was awakened to the sizzling smells of bacon and hash browns frying up in the kitchen. mmmmm, bacon. After a very tasty breakfast, I decided that today would be the day to repot my very sad looking ficus tree. I remembered that there was this gigantic pot store somewhere down Fountain but couldn't exactly remember where - so I printed out a local area map with several nurseries on it for us to adventure through.
There's a nursery on the NE corner of Fairfax & Willoughby called X-Tropico that has the most amazing array of plants I have ever seen. Seriously, wow. From the outside, it doesn't look like much, but the property is HUGE and is jam-packed with the most curious array of bizarr-o plantlife hodge-podged everywhere. Bring a guide, it's like your own personal safari. Sadly, we were not plant-hunting today. We were looking for a pot, and they were thin on the pottery.
The next place was unimpressive.
The third place we stopped was Anawalt Hardware and Garden on Highland just south of Santa Monica. If you hate Home Depot? And OSH doesn't quite cut it? This place is absolutely a hidden treasure of Los Angeles. Smalltown local hardware store feel with comprehensive hardware and garden collection. (and cute girls working throughout - bonus) Seriously. I will do my best never to shop at the HD again. Hail Anawalt. Alas, they did not quite have the pot I was searching for.
Then I decided to trip down Fountain in search of mystery PotLand that I'd seen. Drove down and down and no PotLand in sight. Turned around, thought about going back, then thought again,"What if it's down further?" Drove all the way down to where Fountain meets Sunset and just when I was about to give up... SUCCESS. Pot Land! aka Sunset Blvd. Nursery. This place was like finding gold. It's a large and interesting nursery with the most curious array of plants and flowers and this grass that I could pet forever. (I will leave out my pet name for such grass, but I'll tell ya, I want some and it is just like petting recently shorn ... shorn-ness. So nice.) We found a pot from their large array of pottery that suited our needs and purchased it and had it wheeled to the car.
We decided that we needed to have something to pot in the pot that the ficus would be vacating and that we (mostly he) wanted a rose bush. Unfortunately, Sunset Nursery had no rose bushes to speak of. Stopped at OSH; their selection was already largely picked-through. Woe, across the street to teh dreaded HD. We found a lovely Ingrid Bergman hybrid tea rose that was healthy and had new growth. Picked it up and brought it home.
We then spread out some towels on the floor of the apartment and drug the ficus tree inside, leaves shedding everywhere. Repotted the tree with minimal fuss and drug it (with some effort) back outside. Brought the rosebush down onto the towels and potted it in the now-empty ficus pot. Placed that out on the balcony next to the newly potted ficus. Then repotted a small ivy plant that bj bought for me to replace the crunchy mini-rosebush I'd had at Newman in a neat tower-pot that I'd had sitting empty outside.
I now have a happily repotted plant, ivy and ficus and a new violet calla lily and Ingrid Bergman rosebush. I may not have a house with a yard, but that doesn't mean I can't have a lovely garden.
edit: If I had a camera, I'd take photos of my lovely new plants in their happy new homes. Alas, my camera is dying a slow and painful death. It may be dead already. Not to mention it's lost somewhere in bj's work vehicle. /shrug
There's a nursery on the NE corner of Fairfax & Willoughby called X-Tropico that has the most amazing array of plants I have ever seen. Seriously, wow. From the outside, it doesn't look like much, but the property is HUGE and is jam-packed with the most curious array of bizarr-o plantlife hodge-podged everywhere. Bring a guide, it's like your own personal safari. Sadly, we were not plant-hunting today. We were looking for a pot, and they were thin on the pottery.
The next place was unimpressive.
The third place we stopped was Anawalt Hardware and Garden on Highland just south of Santa Monica. If you hate Home Depot? And OSH doesn't quite cut it? This place is absolutely a hidden treasure of Los Angeles. Smalltown local hardware store feel with comprehensive hardware and garden collection. (and cute girls working throughout - bonus) Seriously. I will do my best never to shop at the HD again. Hail Anawalt. Alas, they did not quite have the pot I was searching for.
Then I decided to trip down Fountain in search of mystery PotLand that I'd seen. Drove down and down and no PotLand in sight. Turned around, thought about going back, then thought again,"What if it's down further?" Drove all the way down to where Fountain meets Sunset and just when I was about to give up... SUCCESS. Pot Land! aka Sunset Blvd. Nursery. This place was like finding gold. It's a large and interesting nursery with the most curious array of plants and flowers and this grass that I could pet forever. (I will leave out my pet name for such grass, but I'll tell ya, I want some and it is just like petting recently shorn ... shorn-ness. So nice.) We found a pot from their large array of pottery that suited our needs and purchased it and had it wheeled to the car.
We decided that we needed to have something to pot in the pot that the ficus would be vacating and that we (mostly he) wanted a rose bush. Unfortunately, Sunset Nursery had no rose bushes to speak of. Stopped at OSH; their selection was already largely picked-through. Woe, across the street to teh dreaded HD. We found a lovely Ingrid Bergman hybrid tea rose that was healthy and had new growth. Picked it up and brought it home.
We then spread out some towels on the floor of the apartment and drug the ficus tree inside, leaves shedding everywhere. Repotted the tree with minimal fuss and drug it (with some effort) back outside. Brought the rosebush down onto the towels and potted it in the now-empty ficus pot. Placed that out on the balcony next to the newly potted ficus. Then repotted a small ivy plant that bj bought for me to replace the crunchy mini-rosebush I'd had at Newman in a neat tower-pot that I'd had sitting empty outside.
I now have a happily repotted plant, ivy and ficus and a new violet calla lily and Ingrid Bergman rosebush. I may not have a house with a yard, but that doesn't mean I can't have a lovely garden.
edit: If I had a camera, I'd take photos of my lovely new plants in their happy new homes. Alas, my camera is dying a slow and painful death. It may be dead already. Not to mention it's lost somewhere in bj's work vehicle. /shrug