Ever been on a garden tour marveling at the novel blossoms and elaborately shaped trees, wondering where one buys such exotic flora? One place lies below the 210 Freeway in Lakeview Terrace. That's where plantsman David Diaz runs Bountiful Gardens, a small but prolific nursery where he’s been raising specialty plants and serving as a horticultural guru for six years.
“David has an exceptional selection of plants. Some of his succulents I’ve never seen anywhere else,” says garden designer Cheryl K. Lerner, whose Windsor Square landscape was on the Garden Conservancy Open Days tour in May. “If you buy something from him, you know it’s healthy and top quality because he starts from seed and takes good care of it as it grows. He does amazing things, clipping and pruning topiary. He tracks down hard-to-find plants. He’s a one-man band.”
Bountiful Gardens, anchored by two commercial-size greenhouses with peeling paint and missing windows, operates primarily as a wholesale supplier for Burkard Nurseries and Lincoln Avenue Nursery in Pasadena. But Diaz also has started selling retail by appointment to a growing number of in-the-know landscape professionals and home gardeners.
In spring and fall, the busiest times on the gardening calendar, Diaz is at his one-acre nursery seven days a week. Dressed in a work shirt, jeans and his wide-brimmed straw hat, he arrives early to plant seeds, take cuttings, transplant seedlings and hand-water everything. He also builds his own trellises, twists saplings into braids and labels all plants before loading them onto his truck and making deliveries.
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