About Cedros Gardens

Seventeen Years in Business

Cedros Gardens is in the heart of the Cedros Design District in Solana Beach. The nursery, which opened in early spring of 1993, occupies 1.3 acres on a gentle west facing slope. Originally it specialized in hard to find perennial plants, but as the business expanded more categories were added with an emphasis on organic gardening. Today Cedros Gardens is the only nursery in the San Diego area offering only organic plants, edible and ornamental, and the only nursery in the San Diego area providing concerned gardeners with organic stone fruit trees. Cedros Ggardens also keeps a wide variety of drought tolerant and native California plants to meet the needs of gardeners who want to save precious water.

The main building at Cedros Gardens is a former single-family residence built in 1926 by the Carpenter brothers who also built a second house on Cedros which is now the home of Deco Hair Studio. The house was built as an experimental structure designed to survive earthquakes. The walls and ceiling are 6" thick poured concrete and river rock reinforced with a heavy guage metal grate. It is visible in many old arial photos of the area along with the huge bouganvillea bush which continually threatens to engulf the cashier's booth.

The Gardens are divided into 3 major areas. The main area has a gift house with house plants, gifts, books, organic fertilizers and some antiques. The south side of the gift house is a show case of Cedros Gardens many changing vignettes which surprise frequent customers throughout the seasons.

Bamboo and shade trees are seen on the south side of the parking lot. The largest section of the nursery is "up top" where you will find most of the categories offered, including California natives as well as Australian, South African and Mediterranean natives. The area also houses ornamental grasses, fruit trees and more perennials.

 

 

Meet the Experts Mia McCarville at Cedros Gardens

Mia McCarville . Owner
Mayumi (Mia) Yamada McCarville is a native of Southern Japan.  She started gardening with her mother in 3rd grade where she tended a small plot of vegetable garden.  Mia came to the United States in 1979 and resumed her love of gardening. She owned a small garden shop,
Mia's Garden Corner, in Encinitas for 14 months before opening Cedros Gardens in 1992. Mia is an enthusiastic advocate of organic gardening and her nursery has operated without resorting to chemicals since it opened in 1992.  Mia offers weekly classes on various plants and gardening topics at her nursery on Saturdays.  She is also a frequent guest on Garden Compass radio show with Bruce & Sharon Asakawa and John Bagnasco.  Her nursery was chosen as one of the best 5 small nurseries in the western states by the Sunset magazine in 2004.