A horticulturist in a plant nursery is much like a kid in a candy store, which can be VERY dangerous…..

This is where I found myself a couple of weeks ago after spending the day walking through the beautiful gardens of “The Living Desert“.

The gardens themselves, were absolutely spectacular and I posted about the beautiful flowers and the strange and unusual plants earlier.  Well, we were on our way out after 4 hours of walking around the gardens when I saw their plant nursery.

Well, one look at the glazed expression on my face, caused my family to find the closest bench to sit on because they knew it would be a while before they would see me again.

Agave attenuata

I particularly love visiting nurseries that are connected to botanical gardens because you can usually find plants that are hard to find elsewhere.  

Unlike some of the big box stores, you will not find plants that are not suited to that particular area offered up for sale.  This is a huge pet peeve of mine which I will cover in a later post.

Coral Aloe (Aloe striata)

The quality of the plants cannot be matched anywhere else either.

 An assortment of Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea), in different sizes offered for sale. 

The nursery staff was assisting a couple of new desert residents in making their choices and were very helpful and knowledgeable.  Unfortunately, this is also not often the case in big box stores.

Angelita Daisy (Tetraneuris acaulis)

I was quite overwhelmed at the selection that was available and I could have spent hours just looking and making choices, but my family was waiting patiently for me and so I tried my best to hurry.   

Somehow, I got out of there with only 3 plants….2 Gaura lindheimeri ‘Siskiyou Pink’ and 1 Chaparral Sage (Salvia clevelandii).  

It is a miracle that I came away with so few plants…..