Plants from Monrovia

June 19, 2026

For anyone passionate about gardening, it's always so rewarding to know well cared for perennials will return year after year, often becoming more lush and more resilient with each passing season.

Recently, I received a large assortment of beautiful plants grown by Monrovia, a wholesale plant company with several nursery locations across the country. Many of the plants are from their Landscape Legends Collections and include Mint Julep Juniper, Little Rick Mugo Pine, Ilex Emerald Boxer, and Ilex Little One. I also received Blue Atlas Cedar, Yellow Ribbon Arborvitae, Hoop's Blue Spruce, Yankee Doodle Lilac, and others. I'm so excited with these plants and can't wait to add them to my living maze and to other gardens here at my farm.

Enjoy these photos.

: Adding gorgeous, healthy plants to my gardens is one of my biggest joys. I was so thrilled to see these beauties.

: The plants arrived in several truck loads and had to be unloaded one by one.

: As specimens are removed from the truck, they are organized in neat rows according to type so they are easy to see, count, and access when it is time to plant.

: Creating a garden takes time. Select species suited to the climate zone and garden conditions. Also consider the plant’s mature size, sunlight requirements, and soil preferences to ensure long-term health. Add a few specimens every year and keep track of what grows well and what doesn’t.

: This is a Colorado blue spruce, Picea pungens ‘Fat Albert.’ It is an evergreen conifer with rich blue needles on dense branches. It grows slowly, but naturally in a pyramidal form. And it grows 10 to 15 feet tall and wide in 10 years time. Do you know the difference between an evergreen and a conifer? Evergreens are plants that retain their leaves year-round, while conifers are cone-bearing plants. Most, not all, conifers are evergreens, but not all evergreens are conifers.

: This is Picea orientalis ‘Atrovirens,’ an oriental spruce. This tree is an elegant conifer with exceptionally dark green, shiny needles on dense, pendulous branches. It is one of the last spruces to bud in spring. It produces showy female purplish cones before maturing to brown, making it a great specimen tree.

: And look at this pretty tree – a yellow ribbon arborvitae, Thuja occidentalis ‘Yellow Ribbon.’ It is an evergreen with showy, dense golden-yellow foliage that maintains its color throughout the year. It’s wonderful wherever a splash of natural color is needed.

: Its foliage grows in scale-like, flat sprays that are yellowish-orange in spring maturing to medium green.

: All of Monrovia’s evergreen trees and shrubs are unique and in excellent condition. Thuja ‘Green Giant’ is a handsome evergreen for use as privacy screening. It is an upright conifer that is versatile, strong-rooted and virtually disease-free.

: This tree’s foliage is dense with rich green sprays that turn slightly bronze in winter.

: For lower growing texture in the garden, this is a dwarf mugo pine, or dwarf Pinus mugo var. pumilio. it is a popular conifer showing dark green needles on dense branches. A very useful, slow growing evergreen for rock gardens, mass plantings, and in mixed groupings. It also makes a great container specimen on a terrace.

: Everyone at the farm admired the weeping blue atlas spruce, Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca Pendula.’ This dramatic weeping evergreen is naturally slow-growing with a sprawling horizontal habit that is often trained into an upright, serpentine form. Pendant branchlets display icy-blue needles. Where shall I plant these?

: This is a nest spruce, Picea abies ‘Nidiformis.’ It is a small, versatile conifer with outward-curving branches and dense, dark green needles, resembling a bird’s nest.

: Pinus mugo ‘Monjaw’ is also known as Little Rick mugo pine. This is a compact, dense variety that stays green throughout the winter.

: Pinus mugo ‘Carsten’s Wintergold’ is another a dwarf pine form. It is short with densely arranged green needles in spring and summer, turning a rich gold tone as cold weather arrives.

: Hoop’s blue spruce, Picea pungens ‘Hoopsii’ is another hardy evergreen tree. Its pyramidal shape holds stiff horizontal branches with dense silvery-blue needles.

: And this is a cologreen juniper, Juniperus scopulorum ‘Cologreen’ – a very interesting narrow, columnar cone-shape form tree. It is heat and cold tolerant that’s easy to maintain.

: Picea pungens ‘The Blues’ – The Blues blue spruce. This is a strong weeper with irregularly spreading and drooping branches.

: Ilex x crenata ‘RutHol10’ PPAF or emerald box holly looks similar to boxwood, but is actually a versatile male evergreen holly with a rounded form and small, green, toothless leaves. It makes a good replacement option for boxwood.

: Euonymus kiautschovicus ‘Manhattan’ is an excellent choice for gardeners wanting a fast growing evergreen clipped hedge, informal screen, or espalier in full sun. This shrub has dense, lush, dark green foliage and a naturally neat, formal appearance that looks great without pruning.

: And this is Syringa vulgaris ‘Yankee Doodle’ – one of the darkest purple lilacs. It grows showy clusters of fragrant, purple florets that appear in mid-spring.