Inspiration takes root at South Coast Plaza’s Southern California Spring Garden Show
Spring is on full display at South Coast Plaza, where visitors were seen Thursday carrying shopping bags filled with plants and flowers, their heads full of ideas for how to bring the spirit of the season to their own backyards.
The Southern California Spring Garden Show — an annual tradition now in its 33rd year — has transformed the Costa Mesa shopping complex into a veritable garden of colorful and rare plant species, home decor and landscaping displays intended to ignite a spark of creativity.
Held in the Crate and Barrel/Macy’s Home Store wing of the plaza, the event began Thursday and will run through Sunday on all three floors of the building.
“The show, overall, is really to give inspiration to the local community on the availability of new products in the garden industry,” said Stephanie Shermoen, who manages the home and garden displays. “We also try to bring in unique vendors and things you may not be seeing everywhere.”
Carol Younger, a senior horticulturist with Sherman Library & Gardens, led a tour of the various and rare species of palm trees planted on the 128-acre site.
She explained how more than 75 varieties of palms can be observed on the property, from small clusters of pygmy date palms from Laos to the towering Cuban royal palms lining Costa Mesa’s Bear Street.
“This is probably the biggest collection of royal palms outside of Florida and the tropics,” Younger told visitors. “The next time you drive down Bear Street, you’re going to see these Cuban royal palms and look at them in a different way.”
Many of the trees were acquired from the estate of A.J. Vance, who began collecting exotic palms at his canyon estate off Sunset Boulevard in the 1940s. In the years following his 1984 death, they were transplanted with help from the Palm Society of Southern California.
“It’s very rare to have such a unique and diverse collection here in a shopping plaza,” said Younger, who leads another tour Sunday at 11 a.m.
Inside, shoppers perused the botanical offerings of some 35 vendors, including local and international growers, hobbyists and nonprofit organizations, whose wares ranged from California natives and orchids to succulents and even carnivores.
Jessica Aleman, owner of the Costa Mesa plant shop Mellowist Plantlife, sells ethically sourced plant pots, apparel and gardening tools catered to succulent lovers. For the show, she brought plants raised by local growers and placed into unique pottery pieces with an artsy twist.
She and husband DJ got into planting 12 years earlier as a way to unwind and began showcasing their passion on social media. As their following grew, they opened a brick-and-mortar store to share “the Tao of plants” with more people.
“[Gardening] causes us to slow down — we need to see what happens to the plant,” Aleman said of the practice. “It’s about being present, and I feel like people are looking for that more than ever in their lives.”
A few stalls down from Mellowist, Bonnie Person showed off an elegant display of rare ferns, orchids and terrarium plants she sells at Verdant Vivariums in Fountain Valley. Her jewel orchids were recently featured by Martha Stewart.
“Terrariums were really popular in the ’60s and ’70s but they’re definitely coming back,” said Person, a former landscape gardener at Disneyland. “It’s a little world if you landscape it right.”
Verdant Vivariums operates out of a warehouse that’s open to the public on Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and features an array of terrarium plants and animals, including brightly colored dart frogs.
Nearby, Laguna Beach residents and friends Sue Garber and Wens-day Garcia admired Person’s collection of hanging tassel ferns. The pair have been coming to the show for years.
“We try to make it through the whole thing without buying anything, then we’ll go back,” Garber said, confessing that they’d both already purchased plants on their first loop.
“[Plants] are kind of one-of-a-kind, so when you find one you like, it might not be there if you go back,” Garcia explained.
Tustin resident Omair Khan, a self-described “plant guy,” was seen carrying a box with two potted succulents and a squat cactus beginning to sprout cream-colored flowers.
“It runs in the family — my grandfather was a big plant enthusiast,” Khan said of his interest. “I come here every year. This is actually my second round; I already put some plants in the car.”
Traci Williams came from Los Angeles to attend the show and wore a T-shirt with a cartoon figure on a bike surrounded by plants that read “Plants Armstrong” for the occasion.
“I love the uniqueness of it all. And I always find something,” Williams said. “My niece once said, ‘Why would you go shop for flowers at a mall?’ I said, ‘Until you experience it, you don’t know.’”
The 33rd annual Southern California Spring Garden Show runs through Sunday at South Coast Plaza’s Crate and Barrel/Macy’s Home Store wing, 3333 Bear St., Costa Mesa. For more, visit southcoastplaza.com/gardenshow.
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