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| Exotica Rare Fruit Nursery Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 160
Vista, California 92083 (United States) Phone: (760) 724-9093
Fax: (760) 724-7724
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| Recent reviews:
| Past month | Past 6 Months | Past 12 Months |  Positive | 0 | 0 | 1 |  Neutral | 0 | 0 | 0 |  Negative | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| This company offers a variety of plants.This company specializes in: |
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 Editor's Note: Per a note from one of our readers, we've added a new URL. If anyone has additional information about the status of this company (and whether they plan to continue accepting mail orders), please contact the Garden Watchdog administrators.
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| Feedback History and Summary |
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Comments:
| Rating | Author | Content |
| Negative | Hermitian
San Diego, CA
(1 review)
December 07, 2009 | The problem at Exotica is mis-management and pure laziness on the part of the owner. He has no list of inventory. He puts his propagation efforts into plants with no idea of demand. Most local nurseries don't know he exists. If he simply would have supplied local nurseries with an availability list he would not be in the current situation.
The owner advertises the place as "organic" but the reality is that he is too cheap to care for the health of the plants. If a plant looks troubled, the owner will tell you the problem is "jet chem trails". Most of the plants are kept in shade to reduce watering costs. Upon taking a plant home you may find that it too weak for sunshine and after a while starts exhibiting symptoms of some harbored virus. Consequently anything you buy there should be treated with copper-ammonium or similar before you introduce it into your plant collection.
The main worker there is Leo, who is the only reason they didn't go into chapter 12 sooner. He and his brother have single-handedly cleaned-up and re-organized the property, turning it into more of what you would expect from a nursery and less of random collection of plants with roots breaking out of the pots and into the ground. If you buy anything there, you need to ask Leo if it is really a graft of the true cultivar or just some random seedling cross-pollinated by all the closely-packed plants. More often than not it is the latter.
The owner's mother is often there. She is nearly deaf and won't wear a hearing aid. Consequently, you always need to bring pencil and paper to communicate with her. Why she is on the premises in the first place escapes me. She constantly moves unmarked plants from propagation areas into the front ("so people can buy them") and now the identity of the cultivar is lost.
There is also another woman or two who works there on occasion. They know where the main sections of plants are but not too much about the plants themselves. | | Positive | sheuli
Del Mar, CA
(1 review)
June 01, 2009 | Amazing variety of tropical plants. Very helpful staff. | | Positive | a_night_owl
San Diego, CA
(1 review)
September 22, 2008 | Great Nursery! If you are in Southern California and want unusual or rare fruit trees, this is the place to go!
It's a bit eccentric, and they seem disorganized, but they really know their stuff. Incredibly helpful and friendly staff (a bit on the "Earth Mother" side LOL).
It's big. No signs to point the way once you are in the grounds. Snag a staff member, just ask where something is, and you are off...dodging humungous in-ground fruit trees, down skinny paths, ducking under low branches and keeping an eye out for the dogs and rooster. Turn a corner and there are suddenly more paths in front of you. It's crazy, its fun, and if you are into unusual edibles, it's heaven! :-)
If there is fruit on any of the trees odds are they will have some out for you to taste. There was an in-ground European pear (Lincoln) that we found with amazing fruit - it was round, incredibly tasty and sweet right off the tree - we found one in a pot and brought it home.
They have a greenhouse with Pitaya swarming all over the place. Most of the in-ground trees have foil bulges - air-layering in progress. As far as I can tell they start many of their plants on-site. They had some funky thorny plants here and there - turns out they are rootstock plants.
They are not currently doing mail order, but they hope to be able to set it up in the future. Right now they just aren't set up for it. While I was there I talked about their web page (which is out of date) and they definitely want to sell via the internet do it, but the current staff doesn't have the skill set required for shipping out plants. With luck they can get that going so the rest of the country can have access to the amazing variety of plants they have on offer to locals.
It's a 45 minute drive for me, and I drive a Prius so I can only fit a limited number of plants in my car at once - but I am going back! | | Positive | eyeckr
Virginia Beach, VA
(Zone 8a)
(17 reviews)
November 22, 2006 | I made a point to drive up to this nursery while I was in Southern California recently because of hearing about it many times. This nursery seems to have been established many years ago and the mature fruit tree plantings attest to this. I got the sense of disorganization while walking through the nursery and felt like the nursery plants suffered a bit from the shade that the surrounding trees cast on them. On the other hand those trees did provide the fruit for the wonderful fruit tasting table that they set up daily. On this day there were: sapote, pineapple guava, carob, strawberry guava, tropical guava, natal plum and many others. I intended to buy a Trask pineapple guava but quickly found out that many if not most of their plants are grown from seed. I much rather would have a true cutting grown or grafted plant. They did have a great selection of tropical fruit in general and I did end up buying a Manila Tamarind(Guamachil) which I had not seen offered anywhere else. Overall the staff was very friendly and knowledgeable and went out of their way to help with any questions. | | Positive | jrozier
Charleston, SC
(11 reviews)
November 02, 2005 | I purchased a quality plant at a good price by dealing with this nursery by email at the following address:
sdrareplantnursery@yahoo.com
Ellie was very helpful and patient. They have some hard-to-find plants and do not gouge you on shipping...I was very pleased with my purchase and would buy from them again. | | Positive | meixue
Alameda, CA
(3 reviews)
June 10, 2005 | I ordered from exotica around May 05. Steve was very patient with helping me select the right variety of fruit trees for my climate. I received a Cherimoya, jujube, guavas, and papaya tree from him. I was surprised at the nice size of the plants especailly the cherimoya. All the plants were healthy and now that they have acclimated to my climate are all putting out new flushes of growth, the cherimoya is blooming and the jujube too. I would definately buy from Steve again. I have complete faith in Steve's nursery.
Steve makes several runs to the bay area (SF/ Oakland) a year and I usually have him bring me up some plants when he does. Aside from the normal stress from transport, his plants arrive in good shape.
| | Positive | ashkebird
San Diego, CA
(3 reviews)
July 06, 2004 | Exotica is a well know local nursery in the northern part of San Diego County. Their address is: 2508-B East Vista Way
Vista, CA 92084 ; (760) 724-9093 ; Hours: 11:00-5:00 M-F
10:00-5:00 Sat-Sun. The last URL I have for this company is:
http://snow.prohosting.com/mabedar/exotica.html Don't let the modest website fool you. I have visited this nursery for the past 10 years. They have a HUGE selection of unusual edible plants suitable for a temperate climate. They also have planted most of their stock onsite, so you can see the mature plant. If the plant is fruiting, they often have samples out for tasting which is probably the best excuse to visit regularly. Five stars outta five, well worth a visit and to buy your exotic plants from! |
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