Southern California road trip, day 4

Day 4 of my ATSCRT (After-Thanksgiving Southern California Road Trip) started with a visit to Australian Native Plants in Casitas Springs, less than 10 miles northeast of Ventura where I had spent the night. The nursery is owned and operated by Jo O'Connell and her husband Byron Cox. Jo is a tour de force in the plant world. Through patience, perseverance and lots of hard work, she and Byron have built a one-of-a-kind niche business that now offers the largest selection of Australian plants in the U.S.

I first met Jo in 2016 at a presentation she gave at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden and had been wanting to visit her nursery ever since. 

Since Australian Native Plants is not a regular retail nursery with set hours, I'd contacted Jo ahead of time to make sure she was around on Thursday. Jo and Byron own three adjacent lots so there's plenty of space for the greenhouses and growing areas. The back entrance to the nursery is right across from a church so it was easy to find.

The availability list on the Australian Native Plants website gives you an idea of the wide range of Down Under natives (as well as shrubs from Southern Africa) that Jo carries.

Every decent nursery has a nursery cat or dog. Australian Native Plants is no exception. Meet three-year-old Wallaby, an Australian cattle dog: 

Wallaby

Wallaby is as friendly as she is vigilant.  And she is very well trained, jumping up on the bench and looking at the camera on command:

Wallaby and Jo

In addition to the plants I bought for our own garden, I picked up plants for my friends Troy and Brian. Things are getting tight in the Prius (the back seat is completely filled):

After visiting with Jo for a couple of hours, it was time to move on to my next stop: Taft Gardens, part of a 250+ acre open-space nature preserve created by John Taft in 1981 (John Taft still lives on the property; in fact, I saw him reading a newspaper on the patio). John Taft brought Jo O'Connell over from Australia in 1989 to create an authentic Australian garden—the beginning of a 30-year cooperation that lasts to this day. 

Taft Gardens is open to visitors but you need to make reservations ahead of time (info here). You then get directions and the gate code. The directions are detailed and easy to follow, but getting there is a bit of an adventure. 

Pretty soon after turning off the main highway onto a private road, you're greeted with this vista:

That's just one several down-and-up-and-down stretches of road. After driving through chaparral for a mile or so you enter native oak woodlands studded with majestic specimens of live oak. After a few more turns you're finally there. 

The small structure with the open blue doors in the photo below is where you sign in. Nobody was there on Thursday, and judging from the guest book, I was the first visitor since Tuesday.

There are two main sections: the South African Garden and the Australian Garden. I will have a detailed post with many photos, but the sample below gives you a pretty good idea of what there is to see.

Hundreds of aloes, many of them in flower or pushing inflorescences

Majestic oaks, with a row of Aloe ferox in the background

Banksia under the oak canopy

More flowering Australian grass trees (xanthorrhoeas) than I've seen anywhere outside of Australia

Did I tell you that to get to the Taft Gardens you have to ford a creek twice? I'm sure the creek was nothing but a trickle earlier in the week, but due to the torrential downpours from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning, there was real water rushing across the road.

Walking through the gardens all by myself was one of those special experiences I will always remember. The only people I saw was John Taft on the patio of his house (I kept a respectful distance) and a couple of workers clearing brush off to the side of the main road.

I'm very grateful that the Taft family is so generous about sharing their slice of paradise with the rest of the world.

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