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San Diego's finest selection of new and uncommon flowering plants. |
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About Buena Creek Gardesn
More than a garden, and more than a nursery, Buena Creek Gardens is above all a beautiful, happy and peaceful place to visit. Here the natural world takes center stage and welcomes the visitor with open arms. With more than 20 years in San Marcos, we are proud to have introduced many excellent garden plants into the nursery trade, including many low-maintenance drought-tolerant plants that attract hummingbirds and butterflies to your garden. We are not a “big business,” but we are a beautiful, happy, and peaceful place to visit and be inspired by plants and Nature. Our customers are mostly home gardeners who really care about plants and want to make their gardens something really special! We are happy to welcome you here and help make your garden truly wonderful! Whether you're here to explore the nursery or just to wander through our gardens, sharing our knowledge as plant growers is as important as sharing the beauty of the plants and flowers we grow. We're here to answer your questions and make your visit an enjoyable one! Buena Creek Gardens is a four-acre retail nursery and display garden that grows Southern California's largest selection of new and uncommon flowering perennials, shrubs, daylilies, and vines. Over 5,000 outstanding varieties of flowering plants make this a horticultural mecca for plant enthusiasts from all over the world. At an elevation of 800’ just 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean, the mild, comfortable climate of BUENA CREEK GARDENS (USDA Zone 10, Sunset Zone 23) allows us to grow an impressive variety of both temperate and subtropical plants from around the world. Although our entire full-time staff here consists of just Steve and Shari Matteson, assisted by Jacob Zarate, we always have a large and ever-changing selection of uncommonly beautiful flowering garden plants for sale, including many varieties that we have introduced ourselves over the years.
We have a large collection of reblooming bearded
iris. In
the sales nursery you'll find separate sections for iris, bulbs, roses, shade plants, salvias,
daylilies, grasses, geraniums, drought-tolerant shrubs, and trees
and vines. In the Sun Perennial Garden the sales
plants are arranged alphabetically and surrounded by
mature specimens in our borders. We hope you'll get many ideas from our gardens that you can take home along with the plants you buy! History
Named
for two ancient Oak trees that sheltered a meeting
place for Native Americans, the Twin Oaks region of
North San Diego County has long been a center for
human activity.
In 1988, Steve Brigham was hired to help manage "The Farm" and its mail- order business. During the next 8 years, Steve developed the retail rare plant nursery, which was named Buena Creek Gardens. Bob Brooks retired in 1996 and sold the business and property to Steve. Since then, field plantings have been replaced by new display gardens and nursery areas. Steve and Shari Matteson purchased the property and business in 2008 when Steven and Donna Brigham retired and moved to Washington state. |
The
Buena Creek Gardens site was homesteaded in
1896 by Rudolf Aumann, who perhaps planted the large
California Pepper Tree that welcomes visitors to our
nursery. Our small nursery office, which is now known
as "El Shackito," was once a pony barn, and
later a residence for an art teacher at nearby Palomar
College. In 1970, Bob Brooks bought the 4-acre
property, and with his partner Ray Chesnik began
clearing the land for an iris farm. Cordon Bleu Farms
specialized in bearded iris in the 1970s and hybrid
daylilies in the 1980s. Most of the largest trees in
the gardens were planted during this period.