what exactly are you looking for?

Are you looking to get her a gift card for plants and supplies? If so, we have the usual chain stores here: Lowes, Home Depot and OSH which would have the most reasonable prices. Another chain here but a little pricier is Armstrongs Garden Center. You could do a store locator search for any of the above to see which are near her. There are also many small, independent nurseries.

I was hoping to find some attractive but functional strawberry or herb pots for one thing. What is the equivalent of, say, Gardeners Supply? Or the old Smith and Hawken? Any tips for gardening on a roof in that water challenged environment of yours? She has to lug all water up by hand.

She's in Hollywood. I know she's most interested in edible gardening.

OK, well, there is a vegetable gardening forum here. If you have specific questions, maybe you could ask over there or at least do some reading.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/cornucop

I would just get her a gift card to a better, local nursery (just do a Google search to find one nearby). That way, she can indulge in whatever she wants or needs - plants, pots or supplies. Every gardener appreciates a nursery gift card!!

she will have to water strawberries and the like in containers every day in the summer on a roof in full sun. If there is no water plumbed up there it is going to be a major PITA.

If she is new to Hollywood, then she should check out the Hollywood Farmers' Market, which is one of the best in the city. You might want to give her a book on rooftop gardening, but I do not think there is one specifically for California.

She could easily grow herbs all year on a roof in Hollywood, but they generally do take quite a bit of water, although somewhat less in winter. Some herbs that do well here in winter include parsley, cilantro, dill, sorrel, chives, shiso, and epazote. In the summer, the first three will bolt quickly if not given a fair amount of shade. You could possibly give her a collection of seed packets, if she likes herbs.

I concur with others who have noted that growing anything in pots on a rooftop in Los Angeles can be challenging. The relentless intensity of the sunshine is not something East Coasters are used to. Hollywood is a pretty warm area, too - not quite as hot as the Valley, but it is pretty far from the sea breezes and marine layer, and it is at the base of hills that trap a considerable amount of heat. Sunset Zone 24.

And roofs can be the hottest and brightest spots of all. If she's in an apartment building with a flat roof, I'd check to make sure she's even allowed to have plant pots up there. I would hesitate to recommend she try to grow anything but succulents and cacti, if even those would survive. I lived in Hollywood for some years, and didn't have anywhere to garden but a bit of courtyard, so I had potted ponytail palms and Euphorbia trigona and things like that.

A good garden center closest to her would probably be Anawalt Lumber, which is a very good local home improvement store with a good nursery section. They're usually pretty solid on advice. http://www.anawaltlumber.com/

I also used to be quite fond of Sunset Garden Center, in Silverlake. http://www.sunsetblvdnursery.com/about.html

For cacti and succulents, she can drive out to a great specialty nursery, California Cactus Center in Pasadena. http://www.cactuscenter.com/

Rolling Greens in Culver City is a very nice spot for large containers at the high end of the market, but they are expensive and somewhat chi-chi - may not be what you're looking for.

There is also a good cluster of Japanese-owned garden centers over on Sawtelle Blvd. in the West LA "Japantown" neighborhood. Good for big clay pots.

I used to be able to find good big pots/containers at the Armstrong Garden Center on Wilshire in Santa Monica.

Now I'm getting all sentimental about my former home...sniffle!

I appreciate the reality check. Gardening is not fun if it's a setup for failure. She's been having luck with growing things on her balconies (it's a triplex) except for squirrels, but the roof has remained unused. The fantasy was a northeasterner's -- a sanctuary of dappled light created with trellises and vines. I can't see how a blazing rooftop of succulents would be inviting. I see now that the priority has to be creating a shade structure to make it at all usable.

Well it's not always blazing hot. A roof full of aloes that bloom in January when it's a beautiful 73F is pretty fantastic.

It takes a while to adjust to the seasonal cycle out here when coming from the northeast. Our gardening 'winter' is in the late summer when everything including gardeners are hunkered down and avoiding work. Natives drop leaves and go dormant. The last thing you want to do is go out and work in the garden after 9am. It's like snow except hot. December is when everything starts greening up. That's our 'spring' for cool season growers. Our second spring for warm season growers is in like April depending on the year. The warm growers are just sitting around like it's fall not putting on top growth in the winter. It was a huge change to wrap my head around.