In light of recent pro/con posts regarding the closing of Rowland's in the Albuquerque area, I did have to make a brief (somewhat light-hearted) post regarding just a tremendous nursery I found this weekend for Albuquerqueans. The only negative - it is ~250 miles south of Albuquerque in El Paso!

The nursery, for anyone interested, is EAST SIDE DISCOUNT NURSERY. It is located on El Paso's east side, at 8423 N. Loop Dr. I was in El Paso all weekend, and this was the first time I ever went to this nursery, however, wow, in my opinion, it really blows away (unfortunately) the nurseries in general we have up here in ABQ.

The prices are overall just great - extremely inexpensive from what I saw in comparison to up here. And the selection is impressive.

Cactus Dude, if you are out there and get this post, I think you would love this place, and if you ever have a chance to get down to EP, I would highly recommend it! I unfortunately did not have a great chance to check out their hardy cacti selection, so I cannot attest to it, or how it stacks up against our ABQ nurseries. They did though just have a huge selection of hardy palms in various sizes, and I was amazed at the prices. They had at least 50 decent-sized 5-gallon Washingtonia Filiferas (which, the California Fan Palms, can be extremely hard to find in places) for only $19. They also had tons of Robustas and a great number of T. Fortunei in various sizes for really decent prices.

For those of other persuations, they had a huge selection of zone 7 perennials, flowers, and trees (including many fruit trees - pear, peach, nectarine, plum, and, the common in ABQ Italian Cypress tree), in many cases (I really looked at the trees predominantly), for quite a bit cheaper than what I find up here.

At any event, I was highly excited about this place (as evidenced by my post). For anyone up here that gets down there once in awhile, if you are struggling with the nursery selection up here, it is highly recommended in terms of selection, and I really think you can save quite a bit of money.

Happy May to all.