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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 While I was there I talked about their web page (which is out of date) and they definitely want to sell via the internet do it, but the current staff doesn't have the skill set required for shipping out plants.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!
On Nov 22, 2006, eyeckr Virginia Beach, VA (Zone 8a) wrote:
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.
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.
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.
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!
