10b..frost free. Warm summers, all year average of 75f and 52f . The winter months ave. 69-72f,summers 85f or so.

A great place to grow tropicals without oppressive humidity or mosquitos!

I will order that book for them. Maybe it will even arrive while I am here. Does it cover container growing?

LA is supposed to have multiple zones, which is confusing to me.

Plus being limited to containers. Though at least with a container grown plant they can take it with them when they find the own house.

We will have to look for an actual nursery. There's got to be something. They checked Home Depot and found nothing, but that's not a nursery

Look for an Armstrong's Garden Center. Not the best but they are all over SoCal and a place to start.....closest might be in Glendale.

And LA does have a range of zones but figuring on a USDA 10 should cover 95% of it. And once you get to these higher zones, one more or less really doesn't make too much difference :-)

The Sunset book does not address containers specifically, but in most cases, if it can grow in the ground, it can be grown in a container. And no worries about what to do with it in winter, like you would have in a z5!!

Figs, citrus, guavas can fruit well in containers. I’d start with those.

A move to CA from (flat, COLD ) Illinois is overwhelming. We did it 44 years ago.

There are hills and valleys and ocean air currents that make micro climates. Something can easily be grown in one area, but 3 miles away (and with some elevation) different stuff works. It is an exciting adventure.

I would drive around the neighborhood and see what is growing well. Take photos and tell the nursery you want "one of those"! ;-)

-Babka

Sounds like you are for sure in a frost free zone where cold air- even for L.A. drains. You could grow Papayas in pots. The plants looks great too. All the temperate fruits and veggies....but the exotics are pretty easy. You might want to learn about them and take advantage of the climate....home grown banana's are much sweeter than market IF you get the right variety. Orange and citrus in pots is a staple here.

Hook up a drip irrigation system and a world of sub and tropical container plants is there.

Plumeria!...easy as pie down there.

Some tropicals need more moisture than we have in much of Southern California. And we do have mosquitoes! Because of West Nile Virus, vector control keeps busy. The Sunset book will be of immense help.

They need more..you give more if you want it to grow. ALL over California we use water for gardens. Our near seven months of no rains will even kill desert plants that need a monsoon. Even low water C&S would cease to exist if we only let winter rains be all the water they need.

Wage how much water you WANT to use..if none,go natives and only plant them in early winter. All else is a personal balance of preference and budget..philosophy.

Linnea, there's so much they can do! Checking with Armstrong is a good suggestion from gardengal, or another local nursery. If they want color, have they might consider Mandevilla. We have two varieties...Alice Du Pont and Red Riding Hood. This is one of our Red Riding Hood. They can be grown as a vine or like this in a pot. Kind of up, out and over.

Another nice choice for a vine is a Bower. Their leaves have kind of a lacy look to me and the blooms are very pretty. I don't have a photo of ours but found this one online. These are fine for pots but do need something to climb on.

I would go with Avocados big time, at least 3 trees. Citrus? Iffy, diseases!

What Bob said Avo's

Chloebud, do the mandevilla live year round in that climate? The house came with 2 in tall narrow pots. But I don't know anything about what they need including their water needs.

I was going to suggest avocados too, especially if you’re on a hill, if you drive through the Escondido area near San Diego all avocados are planted on hillsides. All citrus will do well. Tropical flowers, hibiscus, succulents, cacti, flowering vines (careful they can be invasive if they like the climate too much) pretty much anything will grow in Southern California zone 10.

Evan

Hibiscus! I love those. I'll mention it.

I have hibiscus that bloom all year, but they have to be in full sun to do that.

For citrus, I recommend dwarf Meyer lemon. I would not bother with avocado trees - you can buy avocados in the farmers' markets. Figs are nice, but they really should be planted in the ground.

I would also recommend a visit to San Gabriel Nursery & Florist for unusual fruit trees. I bought a cherimoya tree there, and it does quite well in a large planter, but it does have to be hand-pollinated in order to get fruit, but that is not difficult.

Some trees can take years to start making fruit, like my ice cream banana tree, which is just not making fruit after about three years, I think. Dwarf banana trees (suitable for planters) make smaller fruit. I also grow pineapple, and that does not take much space.

A trip to the L.A. County Arboretum will be very educational, and admission is not expensive, unlike the Huntington Gardens. It is best to go there at many different times of the year, as different plants will be in bloom throughout the year.

I grow a lot of orchids and bromeliads in my back yard but I am close to the beach, where the temps rarely get below 45°. In the Hollywood Hills, one would need to bring certain orchids that I grow indoors from December through February, although many could stay outdoors all winter, especially epidendrums and some oncidium and dendrobium. He would probably have to bring phalaenopsis and cattleya inside in the winter. You can get most of these for cheap at Trader Joes, but it is best to repot them in orchid bark and orchid pots after they get through blooming. Bromeliads are much easier and tolerate temperatures into the 30s, and many of them make quite showy flowers that last for months. Best to join the bromeliad society if he is interested in those, and they sell plants for cheap.

Being near the beach, I am in a different zone from Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills.

Lars, you are missing one point, a homeowner has a better option than store bought stuff.

There are much better varieties of avocados that stores can’t match. You have much better options in citrus, if you like lemons, you have much better options than Meyers. The list goes on.

Check with the owner of the property before planting trees. Anyway I don’t think avocado would be a good choice for a planter.

You could also grow a low chill pomegranate like parfianka or Desertnyi in containers.

https://www.groworganic.com/collections/pomegranate-trees

https://onegreenworld.com/product/desertnyi-pomegranate/

only problem is that some of these won’t ship until late this year or early next year due to their winter dormancy, I think four winds growers May ship their poms year round.

Southern high bush blueberry varieties will grow in LA too.

https://www.fourwindsgrowers.com/pages/blueberries-dropdown

Evan

Socks, they won't be planting anything in the ground. Any planting will be in containers: then they can bring them with when they buy their house. Their lease on the rental they have now is 18 months.

Not knowing the area, they don't know where to buy yet.

Bob, do you you have any specific recommendations for lemons and avocados? This is all new to us, as we have never tasted anything but store bought versions. Thanks.

Lemons: Santa Teresa, a few more.

Avocado: Reed and Sharwil, can give you 4 more easy.

A more important question about the other lemon and avocado trees is where to buy them. You might have to go to Orange County to find them, which is quite a trek from Hollywood. It's not that much worse than San Gabriel for me, however, but I have to have an extremely good reason to go there. I prefer Meyer lemons to Santa Teresa - you have to sample them to make your choice, and both are available at farmers' markets. Meyer lemons are sweeter and less tart - Santa Teresa has a more traditional flavor with regards to tartness and acidity.

If you do like orchids, cymbidiums are very easy to grow here, bloom in the winter, and are cold hardy. Plus they remain a reasonable size and can easily be transported when you move.

Here are some I grow outside:

I am familiar with that area. Virtually any citrus can grow in Los Angeles. Due to it being a very sprawling developed city, there is a heat island effect.

In the old days they could grow orange groves in that area, but occasionally they would have winters that could damage the orange crops, so they would actually sometimes light big fires around the trees to help keep them warm through the coldest nights.

Temperatures in the area do not get as cold as they used to 70 years ago, due to the extensive development and suburban sprawl.

Mandarins and Meyer lemons will be just a little more cold tolerant than oranges and regular lemons, and should have no problem at all. (Though Meyer lemon tastes different than regular lemons, so be aware of that)

There are certainly ways to plant trees on a slope. But the trees will most likely have to be irrigated in the summer.

In that climate, the fierce hot dry summers will be more of an ordeal to plants than the winters.

It is classified in climate zone 10, so there are many borderline tropicals/subtropicals that can be grown that cannot even be grown in the Northern part of Florida. You can grow mango trees, for example.

If you're looking for tropical fruit trees, there is Mimosa Nursery in Anaheim. The plants are pretty costly, but most of them are already grown out to a very big size and well taken care of, and a very nice Vietnamese man runs the place.

There are several exotic tropicals that can be grown, but some of them do need to be planted in just a little bit of shade cover (like half under the cover of another tree) and need to be kept well watered over the summer half of the year.

I bought some trees at Mimosa Nursery some years ago, but it was not in Anaheim when I went there.

When did they move, or do they have multiple locations? I don't remember where the one I went to was, but I didn't go that far to get to it, and I'm in Westchester. For some reason, I remember it being in Reseda or near there.