Nursery shopping with Yiayia and Papou.

We had a fun day yesterday with my in-laws, who here are visiting.  They are from the Central Valley in California.  My husband's family is Greek so when they are here we get to eat great homemade Greek food.  The girls call them Yiayia and Papou, which is Greek for Grandma and Grandpa.

Both my mother-in-law and father-in-law enjoy gardens.  My father-in-law has been telling me about the work he's been doing in their yard.  He loves to grow tomatoes and seems to be eating theirs months before ours are ready.  I shared quite a few seeds with them to bring home.  He is going to try starting more from seed this year.

When they are here we usually go visit Molbak's nursery which is not too far, and a very popular tourist stop.  It has a nice little cafe with delicious food, a gift area, outdoor furniture and acres of indoor and outdoor plants.  

First we walked through the seed racks where I found a couple of new ones to try.  My father-in-law picked out a whole stack of herb and vegetable seeds.  Since the weather ended up being sunny and pretty mild we headed out to the very large greenhouse areas where all of the roses are.  There were tables and tables of them.  

The roses were separated by type, and then alphabetically.  I love some of the names that are given to the roses, very creative!  

My mother-in-law noticed the humor in the way these two ended up side by side.  Can you see that 'Playboy' and 'Pope John Paul II' ended up together?   Pretty ironic!

How about these two, 'Iceberg' and 'In the Mood'?  A bit of a contradiction there!

I found this really pretty clematis armandii 'Apple Blossom'.  I love the light pink color, I wonder if I could find a place in my yard for it?  I might have to go back for that one.

They had lots of really nice fountains set up, almost every type you can imagine.  I really liked these small copper fountains.  One would look great in my little whiskey barrel water garden.  Maybe I'll save up for one, they were a little pricey.

Here are more tables, these ones are full of shade perennials.  So many tempting ones, but I think still a little cold to try planting them outside.  I like how they've used upside down terra cotta pots as light fixtures.  

Aren't these interesting?  They are from Frame it All, if you click on the link you can see their website.  I'd never seen anything like them before.  These are raised beds that you put together and can move them around if you want.  I also found it creative the way they turned this bright red tomato cage upside down and put a birdbath on top like a finial (although you can't see that in the picture). 

We had a very nice day.   Plants, lunch and a nice visit with the in-laws, and Papou even bought the girls each a primlet.  They look very similar to a primrose, but the flowers are a bit ruffled on the edges.