Support Your Independent Nursery Month: Barton Springs Nursery

During the month of October I'm joining Pam at Digging for Support Your Independent Nursery Month.  Independent nurseries are especially valuable as a resource for locally grown and climate-tested plants.  That's certainly the case with today's visit to Barton Springs Nursery.

My Austin blogger friends might be just a bit surprised to see the title of this one.  Barton Springs Nursery is still in Austin and I haven't moved but when local gardening friends asked me to join them on a plant shopping trip to Austin I quickly agreed and, based on recommendations from several Austin bloggers, added Barton Springs Nursery to the list.  The short drive of just over an hour allows me to consider it "far north San Antonio but really southwest Austin" for blogging purposes.

Support Your Independent Nursery Month: Milberger's Nursery Revisited

October is Support Your Independent Nursery Month sponsored by Pam Penick at her Austin blog Digging. Each week during October I'll join in by posting a tour of an independent nursery in the South Central Texas area.  Who better to supply us with the plants which grow best in our climate than nurseries owned and staffed by local gardeners?  Local nurseries are an especially good resource for those of us who are turning more and more to native plants in the landscape.

For my first independent nursery tour I'm revisiting Milberger's Nursery in San Antonio.  Last October I posted their Spook-tacular Halloween display with a creepy maze and plenty of great decorations.  On a recent visit I took additional photos to show you how pretty the nursery is on a typical day.

Taking the road less traveled fom San Antonio to Dallas

While we enjoy our annual visits to Dallas we don't enjoy five hours of dodging trucks on I-35.  As a major route running 1500 miles from Mexico to Canada, I-35 is pretty busy most of the time so this year we avoided the traffic and headed to Dallas by way of US 281 through the beautiful Texas Hill Country.  This route was so much fun we returned along the same route a few days later even though it takes a bit longer.

It's a two-lane road much of the way with passing lanes on the hills so traffic moves along quite well.  We stopped a few places along the way, especially when checking out ranch gates like this one which is a favorite way to pass the time....



...and at other times I snapped photos out the window at full speed because there is no safe place to pull over.  This photo of native yuccas and wildflowers blooming on ranch land is an example of the latter.  Those fuzzy white spires behind the fence are all yucca blooms and this view went on for miles.

Support Your Independent Nursery: Field trip to Bulverde

October has been designated Support Your Independent Nursery month by Pam Penick at her Austin blog Digging.  All through October I'm visiting nurseries in the San Antonio area and posting about them each Monday.

This week I headed north on US 281 about nine miles beyond Loop 1604 to the community of Bulverde.  Bulverde used to be out in the country, but is quickly becoming a northern suburb of San Antonio.

I had heard about a new nursery with an interesting plant selection, so went to take a look.  Unfortunately, Stoddard's was still closed at 10:25 AM on a weekday morning.  This happens sometimes with small, family-owned businesses so if you are planning to visit during the week, you might want to call first.  I took a few photos through the fence and it does look like a nice option if you live in the far north suburbs of San Antonio.