Want to join in the the mossy mess? We’d love to see you at any of the locations above. Get your tickets in advance, although not required, by clicking on the moss poles picture or the headline above.
Coming Soon: Garden Starts, Herbs, and Perennial Plants!
Featured growers this year:
As Thyme Goes By
Suburban Succulents
Garden Farm Store set to open as soon as we have our first pea harvest!
Want the veggies without the hassle of, or lack of space to grow them yourself? We got you!
Watch out for our fresh produce line sheet to be sent out as frequently as we can. Expect the start to be mid-April.
It’s that time again to start thinking of what garden starts you want for you and your family. We have started many types of plants, but want to hear from you!
Get your starts from Suburban Succulents this year!
Expect lots of peas, beans, cucumber, squash, tomatoes, peppers, various herbs, and flowers!
We have eggs, eggs galore!
Get on our egg list for a bi-weekly delivery of our fresh, backyard raised chicken eggs. Eggs are $5.50/dozen.
We will deliver eggs for free on Tuesday’s.
Consider a reusable carton!
Not certain about fresh eggs? Stop in, we will give you a few for free to try! Guaranteed you won’t want to go back to store-bought.
Eggs, Chicks, and Hens!
Where To Find Us
Not only will you find our shop open on the weekends… but we have expanded our off-site plant locations. This makes it easy for you to pick up a quick gift for a friend or a neat new plant for yourself.
Check out all the places you can find a rotating selection of our plants and pots!
This year, our gift box sets are quite possibly the easiest way to support many local makers while crossing off multiple people on your list. We’ve put together 3 gift box sets to select from, check the link in the profile or reach out to us here for more information!
We will wrap each item separately where we can… So gift them all to one, or one to all, they are ready for however you choose to give this holiday season.
Note: All gift boxes have a customizable portion; we will reach out with all the deets when you order.
Here’s all of the vendors in the gift boxes! Go give them a follow to see what else they are working on for the holidays.
@jewelrylush_
@plant.blessed.products
@organics.x.oddities
@taming_windigo
@roamingthislife
@brittvasina
@annhanlinart
@natyscandles
Thank You All!
Quick note from Adriane:
Thank you all for hanging in there while we got our s#1t figured out with the automatic mailing of our blog. *Hopefully* after a year of not being able to figure out why we were sending you all to the wrong link, we have this nailed down! So, now, set back and enjoy the actual up-to-date monthly blog posts.
Have requests? Want more from us? Need a supply that you can’t find? We will continue to bring unique items to the shop. Just wait until you see what we have in store for Spring!!
We have received requests for a handful of incredible custom projects this season. THANK YOU! Here are a couple. Left: Succulent Christmas Tree #1. Right: Eucalyptus Shower Bouquets
Yes, there is still time to do more projects before Christmas. Contact us to help make your plant gifting dreams happen.
Monday: INSTAGRAM LIVE @7pm with @prettyearthjewelry
Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6pm + Sunday 10am-2pm
Last week of Dec: New Year Week 12/29-1/2
Wednesday-Sunday 12pm-6pm
Haven’t been in before?? Follow your maps directions to bring you to our residential location! There is plenty of street parking and room in the driveway. Pull in and come on in. Just WATCH YOUR STEP coming through the door.
Coming 2022... Workshops!
A version of the design you can create in January!
Interested in Designing your own Air Plant Terrarium or know someone who would? This is our January featured project of the month.
Gather your friends and family for a trip to Suburban Succulents!! We are offering multiple sessions of this course all thru the month of January.
So, come on over to our space, we provide all the supplies for the project. You just show up and bring your creativity along!
We are also looking into offering these classes at other business locations… know a location that may be interested? Please reach out and let us know right away.
We are taking orders for Poinsettia’s and Thanksgiving Cactus. Various colors and free delivery on orders over $39 to anywhere in Vancouver, WA and surrounding areas.
Find us set up with lots of plants and holiday goodies. We will be bringing the plants you need to spruce up your space for the holidays. See you there! 4:30-8:30 each night.
Click the blue link above to pre-purchase your tickets!
Shop Hours through the end of 2021:
While we may have the occasional change in schedule, expect to find the shop open the following days/times:
Visit us for yummy nummies this last week of #spookyseason!
We’re cooking up some yummies this week and will have a spread of coffee, tea, hot cocoa to keep you company while checking out all of the new products in the shop!
Interested in joining this spectacular women’s group? Stop by the event November 10 at The Heathman Lodge in Vancouver, WA. I’ll be there with lots of bulk plants and small arrangements.
We will be set up at NMV for the two-day events through the holidays! Come say hello and support local artists this giving season.
Pumpkin Succulent Arrangements are still available!
Great for table decor or as a fancy way to dress-up your front entryway! These little-care needed succulent arrangements are just the cute you need!
You’ll tire of looking at your pumpkin before it goes bad! Just scoop the moss from the top and plant the entire arrangement into a pot with soil.
Contact us with questions!
Newest Artists in the Shop!
Join me in welcoming Taming Windigo, Plant Blessed Macrame, Britt Vasina, and Naty’s Candles!
We will be featuring each of these artists and their products on our Social Media in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!
We are on the way to becoming a well-rounded gift and plant shop.
Quick Animal Update
Egg production from the Hens has dramatically decreased the last few weeks. We lost one of our best layers to a raccoon and at least 3 of the gals are molting.
The hen pictured is Henneth Paltrow. She was getting her feet cleaned off after a big rainstorm in this picture.
Butte the rabbit is loving the cooler weather. We’ve begun to build her winter shelter space to keep her protected this winter but for now, she is LOVING her tunnel… which I bought for $4 at Retails Thrift Shop.
Have you thought about your plant plan for the impending colder weather and shorter days? Time to clean, fertilize, move/cover/protect tender plants, & prune/trim for all the plants!
Stop in the shop and see what we are doing to prep for the rainy fall and cold winter months ahead.
Need help with your winter plant preparations? We can help- we dig the dirty plant work! Your place or ours, count on Suburban Succulents to send your plants into Fall refreshed and ready to cozy up with you in the winter months.
All of our Sting of Pearls will come inside at the sign of the first frost.
Need eggs? We have fresh eggs available for $5 a dozen.
Meet the chickens:
The chicken in the photo is Egg the Stallion- she’s a dark Brahma. She loves to peck at my toes and all-around just likes to hang out with whoever is near her. She is one of the gals that lets me pick her up nearly every day… and *most of the time* she manages to not poop on me in the process! 🙂
We have a surplus of cooking herbs, too!
Want herbs for creating a fresh pasta sauce? Want to make some yummy herb flavored butter to use? How about some herbs for freezing to use later? We have Rosemary, Chives, Basil, Thyme, & Arugula all harvesting now!
If you’re interested in what we have available for sale from our front yard garden, please come by the shop to see the current selection.
With the change of the season’s we will be changing our hours of operations.
Find us open a few less hours per week, but still just as accessible for all your plant-y needs! Contact us should our hours not work with your schedule, we are happy to work with you.
We will be open Friday through Sunday 12-dark.
Still figuring out the rest of the weekdays and holiday schedule. Have suggestions? Let us know!
Adriane and Egg the Stallion posing for a selfie. lol.
So many new things are happening at Suburban Succulents… we are growing more plant varieties than ever before and have new products from local vendors.
We now sell a large variety of outdoor garden herbs great for cooking or tea making! The starts are by Vancouver local, As Thyme Goes By.
We have fresh-cut herbs available for purchase.
The chickens are providing about 3 dozen extra eggs per week. These are available for sale now! $5 per dozen
We’ve welcomed a variety of new vendors! See below for more information.
Roaming This Earth
Krista is a go-getter, creating beautiful works of art with wood and cement. We currently sell her colored-cement plant pots, in a couple of shapes, around 8 colors and various sizes.
Organics X Oddities
We offer only a small selection of what is offered from this Portland, OR-based plant-care treatment business.
Ann Hanlin Art
We love Ann’s style. We fell in love first with her love slug sets, yes, ceramic slugs. So cute. We come back for her unique pot shapes/designs as well as her awesome hanging plant cones.
We’ve had weather in the low & high 40’s… who’s complaining about that?!
So far, there are no complaints about our first winter at the new house. We’ve seen ice, maybe thrice, and no snow, yet! Yeah, it has rained a lot, but I enjoy listening to the sound of it on the roof while I work. Between weather events, we have been able to get the yard and garden more prepared for the coming seasons and have even spotted the Sun a few times! Yipee! On the 5th we received a load of free wood chips to use for the yard and another on the 21st. The yard is now set for mulch for the year. If anyone needs woodchips, bring a shovel, bucket, and a way to get it gone! There is never a dull moment around here.
Our January Garden Update
What we are doing and you might consider too:
Although now is not the time to focus so much on what is growing in the ground, January is the best time to get your plans pulled together for your Spring, Summer, and even Fall gardens. Here’s what we are working through this month:
Create a seed wishlist and go through the backlog of all the seeds to test for viability. We are gathering information as to how much we will use and how much we want to freeze. The public library has many food preservation books that I have been reading through… To sustain one’s family, you need so many bushels of food!
Plan crop rotations and succession plantings. Brett has created a detailed seed catalog that is used as a tool for planning successions and rotations. In some time maybe we will have our schedule fully automated and have simply a reminder of “hey, it’s time to plant x today”.
Pruning back dormant vines, fruit trees, and blueberry bushes. We placed new beds for our berries this year- now for the hard part- choosing a more permanent place to plant them then in a large portable pot.
Layering our dormant beds with compost and other soil amendments (did you see our tips about compost?). We are preparing our beds now to be productive growers in the early spring!
Fill mulched areas around the yard with another layer of mulch. Now is the time to get woodchips, especially in the PNW. We have had two loads of free chips dropped in the last 3 weeks. I want to simply sing the praises of getchipdrop.com and I am thankful for the free mulch, however, there is a slight issue with the contracted companies not following instructions on where to drop the chips in our yard- so simply beware of that.
There are plenty of other things you can do to prepare the garden at this time of year but nothing beats the time spent dreaming about what you will accomplish in the coming year. Let us know what you are adding to your garden to prepare for spring.
Try this to build your compost!
Is your compost lacking body and decomposition? Our was.
We learned about a rapid-fire composting technique that involves Wood pellets (animal bedding) and Alfalfa pellets (animal feed) found at your local feed store. Soak the pellets overnight in water and add it to your compost tumbler, or pile, or heap, or whatever. The wood pellets act as the brown (carbon) where the alfalfa pellets act as the green (nitrogen) in your compost. The more alfalfa you add the faster your pile will heat up, adjust your ratios of either type of pellets depending on your compost.
The benefit of adding alfalfa to your compost in addition to your grass clippings and even coffee grounds is that alfalfa is also a slow-release fertilizer.
What’s growing in the garden?
You can find us currently harvesting small amounts of the following:
Parsley
Kale
Broccoli & its leaves- our bunny loves!
Chard
Fava Beans
Carrots
HELLA garlic
Cabbage
Cover crop
Lettuce starts (inside the workshop)
Which brings us to…
It’s time to plan all the plantings!
Suburban Succulents Happenings
The shop is improving! Each week we try to make an upgrade. Last week we changed out the lighting in our storage space. Now that we are more confident with what is required, we are planning to upgrade the lights throughout the entire shop. We still have to get that pesky door changed out… For those of you who have visited the shop, you know the door I am talking about that is just sitting and blocking the back exit, currently. I can’t wait for the light that will come through that window!
We have finally been feeling the low 20s of winter and as a precaution, the greenhouse has been cleared of tender succulents. We are leaving a few select items in the greenhouse to see what happens mainly Haworthias, Gasterias, and some of our mother plants… we have lost a few soldiers so far, but slowly we are learning which plants can handle the outdoor greenhouse life in the PNW. It’s madness and we love it- I often remind myself that “We grow through what we go through” and next year won’t be this same way.
Animal Updates
Butte moved into a shed to keep her dry… She’s not necessarily happier there because she loved to dig in the dirt in the yard, however, she still gets to jump around the yard occasionally and she is staying a lot cleaner!
The Lil chicks are fully integrated with the other hens and are being weaned off their chick feed (we are really just trying to use through the bag that we last bought). It’s a pain in the ass to corral them into their own fenced area to eat their food nowadays. Little fact: Chickens that are laying should not eat medicated chick food as it’s not recommended to eat their eggs because of coccidiosis medication playing some part with the eggs… not medical advice, but we are working through it.
The other day we went to Orchard Feed to get chicken food and other composting pellets; we ended up ordering 7 chicks, four more than we intended to. We love our wide variety of chicken breeds. The unique egg colors & characteristics of each hen are absolutely fascinating! The pleasure that it brings me to watch them waddle around the yard- pure merriment!
Expect lots of spring bulb planters to be available in the coming weeks. We will also have lots of outdoor pots, some empty and others with flowers, to liven up your home!
By June we should be able to offer cage-free, backyard-raised, well-loved chickens eggs! With our flock growing to nearly double the size in just a few weeks, our egg production should be locked into a steady number by May or June. Please let us know if you are interested in getting on our egg list!
Do you want chickens but do not want the work of the chick/pullet phase? Let us know, I’m happy to raise chicks for you and your family.
How about meat birds? If you want fresh chicken, let us know and we will chat about our meat bird plan.
We are doing some upgrades to the shop during the middle of January! We thank you all for your support in helping to make this a reality.
Coming soon: A safe and ADA-accessible entryway, better lighting around the shop, and for Spring, a new outdoor shopping area… and so much more, but we don’t want to spoil it!
With this closure, we bring you...... A SALE!
We have to clear out what’s in the shop to make way for what’s new.
Come by this weekend to enjoy a cool
30% off ALL PURCHASES!
**Sale offered January 6-9, 2022 in store only!**
Shop Hours for January 2022
Suburban Succulents Shop hours by date for January ’22:
January 6-8 Thursday-Saturday 11am-5pm SALE!
Jan 9-Sunday 11am-2pm SALE!
Jan 27-30 Thursday-Sunday 11am-5pm Soft Reopening for Valentines Day
*We will keep our socials and online hours updated, too*
Tickets Now Available for Plant Workshops
Plant workshops are a go!
Join us for Plant Night!
Excited to announce that we have 6 locations around Clark County, including our own place, that our workshops will be hosted at in January. We even have a few more locations to add for February!
This means we are bringing a fun plant experience to a local favorite spot near you!
Tickets are available on our website. You can always contact us to get more information too.
Click the picture of the schedule of classes and you will be directed to January’s class tickets.
Our first workshop takes place this Friday night at The Difference Clothing Boutique in Downtown Vancouver!
Want to join in? We will have a few terrariums available at the door, but please plan ahead and purchase a ticket in advance so I know how many people to prepare for.
We are looking at what number of little chicks we will be raising this year… With that, we are gauging interest in what we should be offering you all… Anyone looking to add chickens to their life, but don’t want to raise them through the chick age? Want a steady supply of eggs? Looking for chicken to stock in your freezer? Let us know how we can help your family!
We thank you all for your continued support of our plant-y mission! Making plants accessible to all who want to learn.
We look forward to seeing you at the shop sale this weekend! It’s starting to empty out in the store… come gather-up what ever items you’ve had your eyes on.
We are definitely still gardening, well, kinda. 🙂 Currently, it’s more quick dashes outside to pull some greens for the animals and to harvest veggies and herbs that we need for our meal rather than planting anything new in the ground. Outside right now, you will find we have lettuce, parsley, kale, chard (barely holding on), carrots, arugula (like crazy), broccoli, and beets (almost gone) that are gracing us with their presence. Back on Halloween, we made 4 new 32 sq ft. garden beds in the yard- there are now 14 garden beds, plans to add 4 more in 2021, and a foolish idea to add cow panels along the entire front of the yard to grow peas which turns into a redesign of how the beds are utilized into the future. December is the time to plan for next season- what are the dream plants to eat next year vs. the reality of what we have space, time, and the climate to grow.
Brett and I have planted our garlic crop for next year and it is already growing! We are both worried that we didn’t plant enough…there is always next year to grow more, but we don’t want to wait that long. We planted a winter-hardy cover crop to keep the beds that are not in production busy over the fall/winter months; planting a cover crop helps with keeping the beds “actively photosynthesizing” and soil being worked by the roots for next seasons use. The beds that we have nothing in now look so sad sitting out there empty… makes us look forward to seeing the ground covered in snow!
Our indoor seedling nursery is FINALLY coming together in a corner of the workshop. I am looking forward to the year that we no longer buy any of our veggies from the store… it’s getting closer.
Topic to Consider: Compost Your Leaves
Do you usually compost your fall leaves or gardening waste? If not, this year is the time to start. You can make a compost pile in almost any space, large or small. All of the leaves in the yard/street/everywhere imaginable are wonderful, not only for jumping in 😉 but also for providing wonderfully nutrient-dense compost for your garden next year. Additionally, you can add your table scraps and any other green waste from your home to recycle the plant matter and provide nutrients to your future gardens.
The Animals
Our three smallest hens are getting used to being outdoors with the rest of the flock and are living full-time in the coop with their sister fri-hens. Now all 9 are running around and having a good time eating bugs and grass and whatever else they find to devour. I think that only 2 or 3 of the hens are actually laying eggs, given it is winter, egg production is known to slow-down so I am not getting too worried about it yet…but, once mid-spring rolls around if they aren’t all laying, then I’ll be charging rent.
Butte absolutely LOVES being outside right now- her fur coat was made for this life- her white coat, however, was not. *Ya Filthy Animal* haha. She has an entire greenhouse covered area as well as an outdoor exposed space to frolic about that we move every couple weeks… shes loving all the scraps from our veggies with the occasional grain mixed treats and shares how much she loves us by digging holes in the yard for us to trip in. The chickens just think the spaces we’ve filled-in are dust bathing holes, so, I guess, depending on how you look at this, it’s just one big happy farm family… 😐
Suburban Succulents Happenings
The inside of Suburban Succulents is almost finished with the conversion from garage to plant shop! ALMOST! Brett and I are installing the new lights soon- by the end of this month is the goal. The houseplants that are growing in the shop are doing very well but will do even better once there is more energy-efficient lighting for them to thrive under.
We’ve finished the touch-up painting and accent wall, mounted the pipe shelving, hung our Diane Madaras calendar art, and now the space really looks like a real shop. Next, we mount the room dividing curtains, which will provide a better aesthetic to the shop that is conveniently shared with the laundry room, and then we replace the backdoor… an infinite work in progress it seems…but there IS progress.
All of the Succulents & Cactus and Orchids are happily growing in the greenhouse- they made it through the first early freeze at the end of October using only 4 sheets precariously hanging from the walls of the greenhouse to protect the babies. I’ll be insulating the bottom of the house with bags filled with leaves (yes, we are the “crazy” people who ask their neighbors for their leaves) and from there we are gonna see what mother nature has in store for us. I’m sure there will be an update of some additional attempts made at freeze-proofing the greenhouse. We’ve mentioned bubble-wrap and it’s not ruled out by any account. 😉
A quick thank you to all of those who continue to support us on this journey of owning and operating our small-scale nursery and eventual farm. We can’t wait for the changes and growth that 2021 promises and being able to share it with all of you. Happy holidays, take care and be safe, Everyone!
And just like that, we are a month into Fall 2020. I was just informed that we are expecting our first below-freezing night next week. AH! Time to stop watering and start to monitor closely those tender succulents and cactus, Folks! It’s been a while since the last post, so read on to find out where Suburban Succulents is now.
Slowly filling the new greenhouse
October 2020 is going to mark an important milestone for Suburban Succulents in the coming years- It’s the month I took a giant leap; put my notice in at my full-time, stable-income job to focus my efforts fully on Suburban Succulents. It has been many hours of work to prepare mentally and physically to get our shop space ready to invite customers into- and we are almost there! We even have regular open hours on the weekends.
Now that I have gained 50 hours in my week, I’ve been able to get to more on my Trello to-do lists done… the lists are actually getting checked off instead of only adding to! Currently, the plants are flourishing and our collection is growing like crazy. We are working with several local artists to offer unique gifts as well! I’ll post their information on a vendor page on our website soon. My concept of running a plant & gift shop is coming to life and it feels like the perfect time.
Cactus seeds have been started in the workshop, succulents have been propagated in the nursery, houseplant starts are growing too, plans are being made to keep the greenhouse warm this winter, the chickens are now laying eggs, and the ground of the trash piles that we inherited at the house is in sight- almost 10 months later, we have made tremendous progress!!
With winter hanging its cold head over us- we are getting serious about our winterizing plans for this year. Every other year we’ve lived in WA State we have suffered a loss of some inventory due to freezing. I am trying everything (bar bringing every single plant inside) to keep all succulents & cactus alive this year. I have read about using bubble wrap- I think I have enough in storage to wrap the entire greenhouse- if it comes to it, so be it!! 🙂 We have completed our last watering and will only spot water the hardy cacti and succulents from now until Spring.
Adriane feeding some of the chickens an ear of corn we grew!
I am absolutely loving the chickens. In my opinion, they are the best “back-yard pet” ever. They provide us amazing eggs and they are cute as all get out- if we had less space though, I am sure I’d feel differently- dodging all the shit piles is a challenge but certainly keeps life interesting!
We are raising another three chicks that will be added to the rest of the flock in another 2 months or so- currently, they are living in the workshop under their heat lamp and seem overly excited to get out of there. It’s too soon, ladies!! 😉 I take them outside occasionally to see their sister-hens from a distance. I think it is important to introduce new animals to the rest of the family as soon as possible- we don’t need any problems when the time comes to integrate the different age groups.
The front yard garden is still producing fall crops- small bits of broccoli, carrots, and radish with overwhelming amounts of kale and chard. Fava beans are coming in and our cover crops are taking over. We’ve planted 3 different kinds of garlic for next year. Amazingly to me, the wildflower bed is still flowering- my diligent deadheading has indeed helped. Brett and I are even working on an extensive seed catalog for next year to bring to you all!
Fall garden bed
That’s all for now from our garden- even though there is so much more to share! Comment below any questions or maybe ideas of ways to keep the greenhouse warm, or anything else you’d like. Happy Fall and hope to see you in the shop soon!
Slowly filling the new greenhouse
Adriane feeding some of the chickens an ear of corn we grew!
Fall garden bed
