Checking out Curious Flora Nursery, the “new” Annie's Annuals

The news of Annie’s Annuals abruptly closing its doors on October 3, 2024 sent shockwaves through the gardening community here in Northern California and beyond. Even though its eponymous founder had sold the nursery the year before, Annie’s Annuals was still a beloved institution, with thousands of customers far and wide eagerly looking forward to receiving their catalog in the mail four times a year. Those who lived too far to shop in person at Annie’s retail location in Richmond were able to buy plants through the website. The thought of Annie’s simply not being there anymore was, well, unthinkable.

The last catalog ever of the OG Annie’s Annuals

The future looked bleak, but within a matter of weeks after the bad news had broken, one of Annie’s former managers announced that she and her mother had acquired the Richmond nursery, plants and all, and would resume operation under a new name, Curious Flora. The collective sigh of relief breathed by Annie’s fans and devotees could be heard far and wide. Curious Flora opened its doors on November 2, 2024, and Annie’s legacy lives on.

(The Annie’s Annuals brand and mail-order business was acquired separately by Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply. The old Annie’s website is still up and running, but it hasn’t been updated since last fall and there is no online ordering. Since the new owner of the Annie’s Annuals brand isn’t a grower, I’m wondering if they will procure plants from Curious Flora if and when they resume mail-order/catalog operations. I’ll post an update as soon as I find out what’s happening.)

I happened to be in the East Bay last Thursday, and since I had some free time in my schedule, I took the opportunity to stop at Curious Flora. First things first: The nursery looks pretty much the same as before, and while some of the sections have been moved around, the selection is virtually the same as well. If anything, some of rarer plants that had been dropped by the (controversial) previous owner have already made a comeback. I remember reading that Colleen Wheeler, the new owner, wants to introduce even more unusual plants. Annie’s always was a great source of the weird and wonderful (hello, Bukiniczia cabulica), and I’d love it if Curious Flora continued that tradition.

The dinosaurs are back

Here’s one...

...and here’s the other one

The beloved cow is back, too. It had briefly disappeared after the nursery closed last October, but it was returned when it reopened as Curious Flora. To me, the cow is the ultimate symbol of the nursery’s special form of whimsy.

As I usually do, I walked around the display area first. Many plants had been put in the ground just recently and were still small:

Why the #!§+ would anybody ever remove plants from a display bed?

Beautiful dudleyas waiting to be planted out

A couple of agaves that have been around for years are blooming now. It’s a glorious sight, but also the beginning of the end because (most) agaves die after flowering.

Agave ovatifolia, the whale’s tongue agave

Agave vilmoriniana, the octopus agave

Looking towards the plant aisles

I didn’t take a lot of pictures on the sales floor because I was focused on the business of shopping. Like Annie’s Annuals before, Curious Flora posts their current nursery inventory on their website. That makes it quick and easy to prepare a shopping list ahead of time. I’d sorted my list by aisle so it didn’t take long before the plants I was interested in were in my cart.

As before, each tag color represents a different price. Typically, annuals are priced the lowest (yellow tags) while rarities are priced the highest (white tags).

Dudleya brittonii, green and (regular) white form. The green form of D. brittonii was recently split into three (!) new taxa based on “extensive measurements of fresh specimens in the field coupled with quantitative morphometric and multivariate statistical analysis:” D. josedelgadilloi, D. reidmoranii ssp. reidmoranii, and D. reidmoranii ssp. cascada. Not everybody is on board with this change so who knows how it will shake out.

Dudleya cespitosa (nominally)

I almost bought one, but it would really struggle in our summer heat

Agave vilmoriniana ‘Stained Glass’. It used to be rare; clearly it isn’t now.

Mangave ‘Lavender Lady’. I have three already, but I was sooooo tempted to buy another one.

This is one of my heartbreak plants, Mimetes cucullatus aka rooistompie or common pagoda. This South African member of the Proteacea family is immediately recognizable. I’ve been wanting to grow it so badly that I once spent $34.95 for a small cutting (from Annie’s, coincidentally), but it promptly died. Mimetes cucullatus hates our high summer temperatures, but clearly it’s very happy in the Goldilocks climate of Richmond.

Mimetes cucullatus

Mimetes cucullatus

After I loaded my purchases in the car, I took a couple of photos of these beauties planted along the edge of the parking lot:

Mangave ‘Lavender Lady’

Agave ovatifolia

Here is my haul, being watered in the backyard. I wish I’d taken a better photo.

For reference, here’s what I bought:

• Agastache ‘Peachie Keen’
• Arctotis fastuosa
• Bukiniczia cabulica
• Campanula celsii
• Campanula poscharskyana ‘Blue Waterfall’
• Coluta lineariloba
• Diascia integerrima ‘Coral Canyon’
• Echinops ritro var. ruthenicus
• Eriogonum grande var. rubescens
• Felicia aethiopica ‘Tight and Tidy’
• Helichrysum retortum
• Lithodora diffusa
• Marigold ‘Day of the Dead Golden Yellow’
• Orlaya grandiflora
• Salvia bullulata ‘Pale Form’

© Gerhard Bock, 2025. All rights reserved. To receive all new posts by email, please subscribe here.