A touch of eccentricity

Traipsing through the immense assortment of plants at San Marcos Growers in Santa Barbara, Calif., is quite the adventure. With some 1,700 varieties of plants, there are treasures from far-away places such as Australia, South Africa, and Chile, as well as native California varieties, but not your run-of-the-mill selections. The nursery’s collection includes interesting textures, shapes and colors.

SMG sells plants that are appropriate to California’s dry summer and wet winter Mediterranean climate, said general manager Randy Baldwin.

It’s been a formula for success since the nursery began in 1979. But California is experiencing of one of the worst droughts on record. And that’s having an impact on the state’s entire green industry.

“We’re growing the right plants,” says Baldwin. “The drought has caused a surge in business for us because most California water districts are telling homeowners to replace their lawns with drought-tolerant plant material.”

But there’s a lurking danger of running out of water.

“We have plenty of water now, but we’re praying for rain and watching for the El Nino pattern to bring us rain,” he says. “Our plants are very water thrifty once established, but they still have to be watered here at the nursery and they need to be watered in by the end consumer when they take the plants home.”

The nursery’s own water source is certainly an issue, but so is the perception of the end consumer about what they can plant. Baldwin says he’ll continue to educate people about California-appropriate plants through talks and community outreach.

SMG is in an arid area that typically receives 18 inches of annual rainfall, all in the winter.

“We’re holding our breath right now to see if we get the rain this winter,” he adds.

The nursery is putting certain decisions on hold until after the winter.

“Every five years we host a big open house for our customers with talks and tours, and 2015 is our next scheduled year. But we’re not making any plans until we know more about our rain situation,” says Baldwin.

But SMG and its staff will persevere, even if it means making some changes.

In mid-September, California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. signed historic legislation to strengthen local management and monitoring of groundwater basins most critical to the state’s water needs. The legislation allows local agencies to tailor sustainable groundwater plans to their regional economic and environmental needs. Once these laws are implemented, the state’s businesses will answer to the local water authority. Baldwin says the change won’t really affect the way SMG handles production, because the nursery already minimizes water runoff and soil moisture conditions are monitored by maintenance crew for more targeted irrigation. It grows in small blocks, so many parts of the nursery have switched back to hand watering to reduce water waste. Areas with overhead irrigation employ short duration times with multiple cycle starts.
 

Dazzling plants for dry conditions

Besides an abundance of California natives, SMG also grows plants from other Mediterranean climates, including several types of bulbs, grasses, perennials, succulents, shrubs, trees and vines. The nursery grows plants from 1 gallon up to a 24-inch box. SMG sells to the landscape contractors and architects, municipalities, botanic gardens, zoos, amusement parks, other nurseries and independent garden centers.

SMG sells a head-spinning amount of agaves, and Agave attenuata ‘Nova’ was one of its top sellers this year, says Baldwin. ‘Nova’ features more blue color than the species. It grows up to 4 feet wide and tall, and is hardy to 28°F. Acacia cognata ‘Cousin Itt’ also has been a huge seller the last couple of seasons. ‘Cousin Itt’ was introduced by Ball Ornamentals. It’s a low-growing, mounding form with tight growth. It grows up to 3 feet tall and up to 6 feet wide with light green, sometimes red-tinged, new growth that matures to a rich emerald green.

Succulents continue to sell well – a crop that SMG adopted years ago. Baldwin jokes that it was pure luck that they adopted such a wildly popular crop so many years ago. But in reality, the crop fits in nicely with SMG’s plant palette. In fact, 25-30 percent of SMG’s production is dedicated to succulents.

SMG founders Jim and Marcia Hodges, and David Gress started the nursery because they saw a need for a wholesale nursery to supply a more unusual line of plants than what was commonly available at the time. The factors that shaped the nursery’s production included drought and fire. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, western gardeners were faced with the assurance that the future held continued water shortages.

With its already plentiful supply of water-thrifty plants, SMG added many new items to increase the plant palette for the dry California garden. Through its own educational field days and various symposiums, SMG spotlights and promotes plant material appropriate to the drought-prone California garden.

Fire is an intrinsic part of the California landscape. In many communities the threat of fire has created city or county codes dictating how one builds their house and what can be planted around it.

In 1984 SMG, along with other Santa Barbara landscape professionals, started Firescape, a demonstration garden of fire-resistant plants, planting concepts and landscape alternatives appropriate to the gardens where fire is a threat. In 1990, after the nursery and much of Santa Barbara was threatened by the disastrous Painted Cave Fire, SMG drew on the plant lists developed in the Firescape project to help its customers replant the blackened landscapes throughout the foothills.