78 Half Moon Bay Nursery
March 24, 2023
80 Griggs Nursery
April 28, 2023
Home Depot
600 Placerville Dr, Placerville, CA 95667 • (530) 626-9751
Y es, Readers, Home Depot. I know, I know. It’s NOT Garden Depot. When I need to buy plants for me or my clients it’s the farthest place from my mind. Believe me, it’s not even on my radar as a “nursery.” I only check out Home Depot plants when I’m forced to go into that huge maze of a building in search of something that I have to play “Guess Where It’s Hiding” for at least an hour before I finally find it. But that’s another story. With no benches (or donuts) provided to sit and recover from the effort, I need to walk through some plants to calm me down before getting in the car and driving home.
Their garden section is at least good enough for that!
My decision to blog about Home Depot is no different than my other posts. If I’m somewhere with plants and see one that makes me want to talk about it—silently or out loud—I figure people want to know what riveting conversation I’m having with myself. (Why else are you even here?)
So can you guess what conversation I’m having in this instance?…
Yeah. FYI here’s a tip about how much Home Depot’s staff knows about plants: that sign and those plants do not match. Just sayin’…
One of my rules for preserving my sanity is to avoid common overused plants like the plague. So I am not one to purchase any kind of Euonymous because you can see them growing outside every strip mall around here. However…
Euonymus japonicus ‘Chollipo’, Cytisus x spachianus (Sweet Broom), Bougainvillea
I love love love this bright one. You can buy Chollipo as a plain old shrub, but this one’s trained like a vine for $29.98. Pairing it with Sweet Broom and that Bougainvillea makes a pretty combo though I doubt Home Depot did that on purpose.
Here’s some with one of my top-5 plant families: the Hellebores.
Those hellebores are your common variety Lenten Rose, but who cares when they cost just $18.98 in a 2-gallon size! They would look beautiful in a mass planting like this—though in shade of course (sigh).
Cordyline australis ‘Sensation’ (Cordyline Red Sensation)
Cordylines are expensive no matter where you go and generally are offered as 2-gallons or larger—except at Home Depot where they come in 1-gallons. That’s nice because I can squeeze them into an existing landscape or garden container to add flair and contrast. And here they’re only $10.98! Go for it!
But heads up, you can get them at Lowes in 4-inch pots for just $6.98. Even a better for squeezing in amongst your plants. I bought 6. (Sorry, Home Depot.)
I did buy one at Home Depot about 4 years ago. Here it is in with my hellebores.
It has made it through heat and freeze and is happy as a bee on a flower.
Seems if Home Depot stocks these pink Cordylines then they must be everywhere now…
Cordyline ‘Electric Pink’
Unfortunately, based on my experience with one and others I’ve seen planted, they only last a few years before dying of heat or freeze. And if they make it past that they start looking like crap as they grow tall and leggy. But surround it with annuals and Electric Pink makes a fantastic instant-impact plant. Just lovely!
But they’re definitely not cheap to buy, except at—you guessed it—Home Depot where you’ll put down just $19.98 for a 2-gallon. At that price Electric Pink is worth having for a few years and replacing it when it starts going gangly on you.
Violas. Need I say more?!
Well, yes. Don’t these look beautiful in my new blue pot?!…
I recently bought that pot after a year of eyeing it during weekly shopping trips for clients at my favorite pot store. I’m shocked nobody grabbed it, but it’s mine now. And I love that blue.
Here are some blue Home Depot pots…
While not my go-to place for plants, I must say Home Depot has some pretty decent pots at decent prices. But unfortunately not a lot of variety, so not my go-to place for pots either.
A year ago in the more upscale Berkeley Horticulture Nursery I found Honeybells, a lovely scented plant which I had never seen before and so of course I grabbed it. Brought it home, planted it, and what a treasure! I enjoyed it from Spring through Fall until the first freeze came then…dead it went. Or so I thought, until I scratched a few branches with my fingernail and saw green! I dug it right up and put it in the greenhouse for safe keeping.
Now—of all places—I find it at Home Depot for the low price of $19.98.
Hermannia verticillata ‘Honey Bells’
The moral of the story is that the next time you have to go to Home Depot’s big-ass building to find one item that takes forever to locate, walk through the plant department afterwards. If nothing else it’s a great destresser and, most importantly, you never know whatchya’ gonna’ find!
Literally.
