| rev:text
| - With this particular chain of nurseries, it seems like every location has its high and low points, and no two stores are entirely the same thing. With this Bell Road location, more often than not, I used to rank it somewhere in the middle bottom of the pack, at least in my semi-regular rotation. Unfortunately, with the closer of my favorite location (Bethany Home), I've found myself spending more time here on Bell Road, so I decided to finally give it a review.
As with most nurseries that I end up reviewing, my primary interest is typically agave, so there's a definite slant in that direction. For this location in particular, I've actually found a somewhat inconsistent experience, as compared with other locations. Typically, but not always, they have had the least variety and fewest specimens of agave, and were slow to get in anything new. That's still true to some extent, but lately I've seen a few things come in that, thankfully, are giving me a renewed appreciation for this place.
As an example, there's quite a nice batch of some oddball, typically hard to find agave currently sitting out, just behind the green house/shade house. You'll find A. mateo, A. 'Red Margin' and A. "Neptune's Spear" among others, including A. parryi v. parryi and some A. americana. Those first three are particularly rare in the trade and definitely not common. Most of the ones floating around anymore are overgrown holdovers from the now long-defunct "Shady Oaks" growers, which are probably popping up on the market now as the result of some middleman distributor clearing their old inventory. Not that that's a bad thing, after all, I've purchased some of all three, but it will likely be a long time before these are available again, if they are at all. If you're in the market for any of those, or just want something unusual, I suggest you acquire them while you still can.
Some others you'll find here, not nearly as rare though, would be A. seemanniana ssp. pygmaea, A. 'little shark', A. 'Blue Glow', A. ocahui, A. guiengola, and A. titanota. In the past, I've seen A. zebra as well, as well as A. 'Royal Spine' and A. gentryi 'jaws', but none of those for some time now. There are also, typically, A. murpheyi, sometimes the variegated form.
Most agave at this location are healthy, but I've seen a few that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. I can't say for certain if they had mites or some other issue going on, but they looked bad enough that I would not have put them out, were it me. Additionally, agave tend to be placed somewhat strangely here. I will sometimes find full-sun loving agaves tucked away in the shade house/green house, while other times, more tender specimens are left to fry outside in the blistering sun. It leaves one with the impression that perhaps those tending to the agave know not what they do, but it's unfortunate because I've seen more than few that rotted away (or baked to a crisp, or both) as a result.
Ultimately, this place is worth checking out for agave, certainly, but be cognizant of the limitations at this location. Stock does not change very often or very dramatically when it comes to agave, so once you've seen it all, it's not really worthwhile to make repeated trips, because it could be many months before anything changes.
Staff are friendly, but I don't think any of them are serious experts on agave in particular. Other things, yes, certainly they know their stuff, but from what I see and how they are grown, it seems obvious that agave is not their forte. And you know what, that's probably OK, since agave are only a small percentage of what is sold here, but definitely calibrate your expectations accordingly.
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