How to find plants for your DIY garden design project 🪴 Creative plant shopping tips

[@gardenprojectacademy]

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[@kristibrooks967]

Eve, as someeone who has been in the nursery/plant industry for 40 years and a designer for over 30 years in Southern California I want to commend you for the breadth and depth of your knowledge. Your way of imparting hints and tips in all your videos is understandable and interesting. Kudos and thanks! 💚

[@gardenprojectacademy]

Thank you so much for your kind words, Kristi! This means so much! I'm still learning and experimenting with strategies for making videos, here. I'm new to the art of KZbin, and learning all the time. I am so glad to know that this is working and that folks like you are finding these videos helpful! Thanks again🪴

[@pongop]

Thank you for all the great tips! We have some cool neighborhood nurseries in my area. There's also a dirt lot on a corner in our neighborhood where vendors set up. Sometimes it's fruit, sometimes blankets and clothing, and sometimes the plant guy. I got my bougainvillea from him, and it was convenient because I stopped by on the way home from work, rather than having to find and go to a store or nursery a few miles away. I got my ceiba tree as a gift through FB community group. Someone had 12 baby trees and wanted them to be planted in our neighborhood, so I picked one up and planted it, and now it's been growing a few years.

[@timontran4728]

The other day, I visited a botanical garden in Corona del Mar - CA, and it was selling some young plants and flowers. Although there was not much variety, it was great to see the existing mature plants in the garden and have the ability to purchase their young ones. Recently subscribed to the channel and learned a ton. Thank you.

[@gardenprojectacademy]

Thank you for sharing! (And so glad to hear my channel has been helpful for you, thanks for being here and for your support. Please let me know if you any additional questions or ideas for future videos! I have a working list of ideas!)

[@3ara3ka]

Such a great channel! Very inspiring and lots of useful tips. I am really hoping you will soon make more detailed videos with names and properties of plants. Even though I live in Australia, still may find some helpful advices. Thank you 🙏

[@oliviaglass3843]

Thank you for sharing all this very useful info :)

[@loh1129]

Thanks for the wonderful tips. I really enjoy watching your videos.

[@gardenprojectacademy]

Do you have any other tips for sourcing plants? How have you sourced plants for your projects? Reply here and share your experiences to help others 🪴

[@mathieuTME]

Love your videos :)

[@Megan-nt7dm]

I don't know how common this is in other states, but in NH has a state run nursery that you can get native or well adapted trees from in bulk, and pretty inexpensively. We used them to get about 25 evergreens to plant as a dustbreak along our neighbors driveway, since they are a construction company, and that's where they park all the big dump trucks

[@MummyMcTavish]

Local markets are great because most of the plants are ones they’ve propagated from plants in their own garden, therefore they will most likely grow without too much struggle in your area. See if your local city council gives away indigenous species at certain events or from their own nursery. Check if your local landcare/reforestation/indigenous species charity or group sell excess from their nursery as part of their fundraising. In Australia, contact your local landcare group, they are amazing and ours sells $3.50 tubestock 😍 Pull over and say hi to the person you see doing their own garden makeover or whatever and ask if there’s anything they are getting rid of. They will probably like having less to load up and take to the dump. If you’re trying to attract pollinators or birds… contact the relevant community groups and ask if they know where to get plants to support those animals. We just picked up a bunch of local plants from our Bee Club open day! 🐝

[@gardenprojectacademy]

Great tips, thank you so much for sharing these here!

[@boigeorge1149]

Do you think there's any possibility of a video covering moss? I've been seeing moss lawns, lately, and I'm wondering what you would consider the pros and cons of growing moss.

[@gardenprojectacademy]

Ooo! Great idea! Definitely added to the video to do list. A quick answer for now, though I am no expert in lawn alternative species: In my experience so far, I have found using a single species of groundcover (moss or plant) entirely as an alternative to lawn to be doable but not without a few challenges. I have simply observed that it can be time consuming to establish these alternatives before the weeds make their way in. It can just take little while for it to fill in and achieve a clean or consistent look. These are mostly problems when replacing lawn over larger areas, though. Smaller patches can be no big deal. Using the right species of lawn alternative is really important, and your options can vary significantly depending on what's regionally available, regional best practices, etc. Using a mix of different ground cover species can make it easier in my experience. Accepting imperfection also helps a lot. But just because I have found it a bit time consuming doesn't mean that it's not doable! Also, there are also many eco-lawn strategies: here in the pacific northwest USA, moss moves into the lawn on its own. Many fight it with chemicals because they don't like the look, but it can actually be a great mix if folks can make the mindset shift. It's soft and often fills in areas where grass is unhappy. I'll usually recommend this to my clients before recommending replacing a lawn entirely with a groundcover of a different species. It can be easier to just let the lawn naturalize, mow it high, and don't irrigate it/let it go dormant in the summer. Tolerate some weeds if you can. This is very regionally specific advice, like west of the cascade mountains here in the pacific northwest. All that being said, there are all kinds of strategies out there, and I have also been hearing more about folks developing different species and methods… So I will see if I can perhaps find an expert I can interview for a video. Please stay tuned, it might take me a little bit to find the right person and put this together, but it's definitely on the list. Let me know if you have any other specific questions! Perhaps even consider reaching out to someone locally with a moss lawn and see how they like it? I'm curious now, too! (And if anyone else is reading this and has insight, or knows of any experts in this area, please add to this discussion!)

[@LindaAKeller]

@@gardenprojectacademy Thank you for your videos. They are so informative and your presentation style is terrific. As to lawn alternatives, I have heard a great deal about mini clover ... tighter growth (hence less weeds) and less frequent mowing. It seems some people mix it with grass and some use it alone. I have yet to find someone here in Connecticut who has attempted this. If you do a presentation that touches on this subject, please include something about mini clover or other clover alternatives. Thank you so much.

[@sheilahenry7279]

I had nothing to swap but got a bunch of small containers & old pots & brought them.

[@Kai77-24]

Enjoyed this! I’m dangerous as diy with plants. Baby steps. Do you have the freebie link still? Thank you.

[@cattaraugustonawanda4426]

Join plant/genus specific FB groups to find sources. They will lead you to specialty nurseries with both good product and knowledge. Sadly, I have been having a difficult time finding one plant this year so have to divide what I have. Beware of big box nurseries in terms of quality and disease.

[@edrodriguez1615]

Love listening to you. You are a beautiful woman.

[@laurenclorite1565]

My husband's mom, who LOVES gardening, literally carries around a trowel and grocery bag. When she's walking around if she sees a flower she likes, usually in front of apartment buildings or strip malls, she pulls out her trowel and digs it up. 😅 Now, I'm not saying to steal flowers, but I don't think the Walmart is gonna miss them.🤷🏻‍♀️ 👀

[@masterbuilder5752]

How do you find nurseries that sell mature plants and trees ?

[@CottageGardensonForest]

I have a wish list and I’m always looking for sources. There are some that are readily available in Europe but I guess the popularity isn’t as great here so I end up trying to just source seeds. So frustrating though. I live in a smaller city that has only a couple of actual nurseries. There are Facebook groups that buy in groups from wholesalers. Thanks

[@green-sc2wg]

Hi Eve ! Would you be willing to look over my future design plans ? Of course I would compensate you for your time