Hello Friends –

We spend a lot of time talking about gardens around here. We don't all have a big back yard to tend, but we can find pleasure caring for living things on any scale. Here are some ideas to inspire you no matter how big or small your garden.

This vertical garden created by Flora Grubb Gardens staffer Zenaida Sengo
is made entirely of tillandsias.

Making your own framed air-plant garden gives you the chance to cultivate nature on an intimate scale – wherever you have natural light and a bit of space on the wall. Each kind of tillandsia is more fascinating than the last; a frame garden can bring beautiful order to your burgeoning collection.

Sale! 15% off Fibreclay Pottery, Through June 30!

Our container of Fibreclay has arrived, and we'll be offering a 15% discount for the month of June. Made of a mixture of a of a high-tech synthetic with clay, this lightweight pottery comes in simple shapes and an appealing finish. It's a great value, and its lightness makes it perfect for decks and terraces.

More Pottery We Love, Made in California

Gainey has been making garden ceramics in California since 1946. Many ceramic companies left California to head overseas in the 1970s, but Gainey Ceramics stayed. Gainey pioneered the classic, unadorned cylinder pot. A favorite of architects, landscapers, and interior and exterior designers, Gainey Ceramics makes us proud to bring a California-made line to our customers here at the store.

The best news? Beyond the good feeling of knowing your container was made by your California neighbors, Gainey Ceramics pots are made with 25% recycled ceramics.

Bright-red Gainey pots with monstera and sansevieria

The Gainey Cylinder in white, planted here with a crassula

The Circle Pot made by Gainey and designed by our friends at Potted

Garden Inspiration from East Bay Landscape Designer David Feix

David Feix is clearly a kindred spirit, and we're so glad to bring you these images of gardens he's designed for his clients.

Every garden you see here is unthirsty. David specializes in creating intense, tropical-feeling gardens that thrive with little water. These are lush landscapes, full of texture and color, achieved with a bold palette of plants that utterly thrive in their place.

Please do consider borrowing David's ideas for your garden. Take an ugly little patch of lawn and replace it with one of the combinations below and you'll have ten times the gardening pleasure for a third of the water expenditure.

Even better, contact him at davidfeix@yahoo.com or 510-472-2702 to tap into the source!

Photo by David Feix

An irresistible garden path: This garden is surely lush, but it's a durable, unthirsty group of plants that makes it so. The bright-yellow plant between the pavers is Sedum rupestre 'Angelina', a tough, beautiful succulent that is at home almost anywhere. Echeveria elegans is in pink bloom, with a fuzzy echeveria species at right. The grass-like plant in the right distance is Phormium 'Yellow Wave'.

Photo by David Feix

What a combination! That is an Echeveria 'Arlie Wright' on a swell of Sedum rupestre 'Angelina'. Unthirsty and self-sufficient, this combination could not be more vivid.

Photo by David Feix

Phormium 'Cream Delight' gushes beneath a hardy old fig tree. Its spring vibrancy joins the golds of anigozanthos and Crassula 'Campfire' above a cool carpet of Dymondia margaretae and aloes.

Photo by David Feix

Cussonia paniculata, x Mangave 'Mocha Madness', x Graptoveria, 'Fred Ives' and Yucca 'Blueboy' cavort in Matisse-like forms while emitting subtle notes of color through waxy surfaces.

Wedding Season at The Cutting Garden

It is wedding season! Susie at The Cutting Garden, our floral design department, has been working on some beautiful arrangements this spring. Her work continually alters the lenses through which we see the natural world and enriches our ceremonial engagement with it.

Bi-Rite Catering created this serene cake and decorated it with Susie's selection of plants in a purple and green palette matching her florals for the wedding.

For information about our floral design services, contact Susie via our website.

Daniel's Pacific Heights Garden

A lovely, quiet garden designed by Flora Grubb staff garden designer Daniel Nolan for a Pacific Heights client employs elegant shapes and gentle shades of green. This garden must be a joy to come home to. If you're interested in our design services, drop by the store or contact our design department at design@floragrubb.com or 415-694-6454.

A lovely collection of pots featuring Dracaena draco, the Canary Islands dragon tree that thrives here in San Francisco.

Doryanthes palmeri is an elegant Aussie rarity with natural symmetry and bold, green leaves.

Howea forsteriana, the kentia palm, is one of our very favorite palms for smaller gardens. Treasured by plant collectors since they first came into vogue 100 years ago, kentia palms are happy even in the foggiest of conditions.

Beautiful Rare Palms for Bay Area Gardens

With The Palm Broker, Jason Dewees
Saturday, June 16, 9am at the San Francisco Botanical Garden, Golden Gate Park

Andean wax palms, Ceroxylon quindiuense, project above coquito palms, Parajubaea cocoides, into the chilly skies of Bogota, Colombia. Photo by Anneke Swinehart

In a seminar and garden walk, learn about the rare, fog-loving palms growing at the SF Botanical Garden – many of them beautiful garden subjects. For two decades Jason has been propagating palm species uniquely suited to San Francisco's gardening climate for the SFBG from seed collected in the Andes of South America and the Himalayas of Asia. His enthusiasm and knowledge will inspire your summer planting and future designs!

For more information, and to register, visit SF Botanical Garden Society.

Radio Africa Kitchen Now Serving Lunch:
Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 3pm

Star chef Eskender Aseged has opened his gourmet hot spot just five blocks from our nursery over on Third Street at Oakdale. Take a look at his amazing menu, and drop on by. (Peek at the container garden outside by our Daniel Nolan, too.)

Join Us on Facebook and Twitter

It's just like neighbors chatting about their gardens over the fence, but digitally. Please join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Come and see us.

– Flora and everyone at Flora Grubb Gardens