Indie crawl

“It was totally Trish’s idea!” offered Courtney Paulson, co-owner of local independent nursery Magnolia Gift & Garden. She was speaking of the impetus for the inaugural Local Nursery Crawl, which will be held this weekend, March 8 and 9.

Magnolia nursery employee Trish Howard was indeed the one who came up with the idea of the nursery crawl, which is something like a cross between a pub crawl and the local Sierra Oro Farm Trail, only with a focus on independent nurseries and without the booze.

“I do a lot of ‘dreaming,’” said Howard. “I saw the little downtown clothing stores do a boutique crawl, and I thought that [a nursery crawl] would be perfect for this town—where all the independent nurseries are, what their specialties are.”

Or, as the event’s website, www.localnurserycrawl.com, puts it: “The purpose of this event is to get the public to visit and familiarize themselves with the many independent nurseries in the area and inspire loyalty and community support for local business.”

On the day they were interviewed at Magnolia Gift & Garden, Howard and Paulson were fresh off of two days of touring the eight other independent nurseries listed on the Local Nursery Crawl map: Chico nurseries Floral Native Nursery, Geffray’s Gardens, The Plant Barn and Gifts, Little Red Hen Nursery and TJ’s Nursery & Gifts, as well as Hodge’s Nursery & Gifts in Durham, Kinney Nursery & Topsoil in nearby Vina, and Mendon’s Nursery in Paradise. (The map is available for download via the website, or in hard copy at each of the participating nurseries.)

The two women were effusive about what they saw. “It was so much fun to see all the nurseries!” Paulson gushed. “Everyone [working at them] was so kind. We really had fun at Hodge’s—Ken and Shelly [Hodge] are amazing.” Hodge’s, for the unfamiliar, specializes in fruit trees, and sells canning supplies and hosts canning workshops.

Some nurseries, like Magnolia Gift & Garden, sell a number of gift items, often made by local artists. Magnolia features some eyecatching windmill-like garden art made by artist Marc Mallinger out of beer-bottle caps and recycled bike forks and wheels, for instance, as well as the mosaic work of local artist Robin Indar (including some clever, useful, glow-in-the-dark stepping stones). Likewise, The Plant Barn—the oldest local nursery in Chico—offers a host of whimsical, colorful, locally made garden art, as does Little Red Hen’s nursery.

“And I wanted to buy things everywhere I went!” Howard said. “It’s just a tremendous group of nurseries—lots of knowledge out there. Lots of knowledge.”

Paulson and Howard were keen to emphasize the sense of community they see this event helping to encourage. The nursery crawl, said Paulson, “will remind everyone that we all have something unique and wonderful” to offer.

“Already,” said Howard, “we have achieved the goal of [creating] community,” just by going out to visit all the nurseries on the crawl.

“I hadn’t gone to all the nurseries [before]—I’m always working,” Paulson said. “I hadn’t met John [Mendon, of Mendon’s Nursery] before. It was really fun putting the names to the faces.”

“We are not in competition with our locally owned nurseries,” Howard added. “There is plenty of room for everyone to be successful.”

“We are talking about plants,” said Paulson, chuckling. “There are so many of them!”

And different nurseries have their different botanical specialties: For instance, Floral Native Nursery, as its name implies, specializes in California native plants, the vast Geffray’s Gardens focuses on cacti and succulents, and Magnolia boasts a wide selection of veggie starts of which 99 percent are grown from heirloom seeds.

“We often call other nurseries to see if they have certain things in stock [if we don’t],” Howard noted.

“Everybody [at the participating nurseries] is excited about it,” said Paulson of the Local Nursery Crawl. “It’s the first year. I think it’s going to go really well!”

To sweeten the pot (in case spending a day or two in beautiful, soothing nurseries is not enough), most of the venues on the crawl will be offering special events. The Plant Barn, for instance, will be hosting nurseryman and garden designer John Whittlesey of Canyon Creek Nursery and Design in Oroville, who will give an inspiring talk called “Reconsidering Lawns” on March 8 at 1 p.m., and Hodge’s Nursery is hosting a two-day fruit-tree clinic, March 8 at 10 a.m. and March 9 at noon. Hodge’s will also be giving away compost teas, “another of their specialties,” Howard said.

Most of the nurseries will host raffles as well, Paulson said. (Go to the event’s Facebook page to keep abreast of the weekend’s offerings; link is in column note.)

Additionally, the first 50 people who visit six out of the nine nurseries on the nursery-crawl map “will get a ChicoBag with the [Local Nursery Crawl] logo on it,” Paulson said. “They just have to put stickers on the map from each place they visit.”

Paulson exemplified the cooperative, community spirit of the event when she said “We want everyone to succeed in their yard. We want everyone to be excited. … You feel so good when you can help someone [garden successfully]. ’Cause anyone can do it!”