San Marcos Growers closing after 46 years: a fond farewell

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you’re familiar with San Marcos Growers (SMG) in Santa Barbara, both as a supplier of über-cool plants and as the operator of arguably the best plant resource on the web. San Marcos has been there throughout my gardening life — a constant, like sunshine in the summer and aloe flowers in the winter. But all of that is over now. After 46 years in operation, SMG closed its gates for good on December 23, 2025.

I’ve been friends with Randy Baldwin, SMG’s general manager, for a number of years and have had the opportunity to visit the nursery on several occasions. When I stopped there in January of 2025, I thought it was the last time. And I was right. Sort of. While San Marcos did cease operations a couple of months ago, they still have quite a few plants left and continue to be open by appointment for the time being. Needless to say Kyle and I jumped at the opportunity when we were in Santa Barbara at the end of January. As sad as I am, I’ll be forever grateful I was able to say farewell in person.

There’s plenty of information online about SMG and the impact they’ve had on the nursery trade and horticulture in California, but here’s a quick recap.

San Marcos Growers was established in 1979 on San Marcos Road (hence the name) in the Goleta Valley north of Santa Barbara as a wholesale nursery specializing in plants suited to California’s Mediterranean climate, including California natives and exotic vines, shrubs, trees, succulents, and grasses. It was started by Jim and Marcia Hodges along with David Gress, who had been the City of Santa Barbara’s arborist; Hodges recognized the city’s need for quality trees and plants for streets and landscapes.

In 1981, Randy Baldwin, recently graduated from UC Santa Barbara, joined the operation. He started out as production manager and gradually became the nursery’s driving force, expanding its plant palette to include rare Mediterranean-climate plants from Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and other regions. In 1990, Randy was appointed general manager, and under his leadership SMG grew significantly, both in acreage (from its original 6 acres to about 21+ acres) and in reputation among landscape professionals throughout California.

Randy and his wife Heide under the Arbutus ‘Marina’ in the nursery’s demonstration garden. It was included in the California Big Trees registry in 2013.

San Marcos became known for introducing and propagating unusual plants that were hard to find elsewhere. In the mid-1990s, Randy created one of the earliest nursery websites in the industry, including a plant database that became (and still is) an invaluable resource for gardeners and professionals far beyond Santa Barbara.

For decades, SMG supplied trees and plant material to retail nurseries, landscape designers, gardens like Lotusland and Disneyland, and institutions such as UC Santa Barbara. While the nursery was never open to retail customers, its plants found its way into gardens up and down California, shaping landscape aesthetics and contributing to the increased use of native and Mediterranean-climate plants throughout the state.

Despite its decades of success, SMG couldn’t escape the fate that has befallen so many nurseries in California: The land it occupied was simply too valuable to leave undeveloped. Santa Barbara County has been under intense pressure to build affordable housing, and the 21 acres the nursery had leased from the property owners since 1979 was a tantalizing target. In just a few years, close to a thousand housing units will be built on the nursery grounds that were once home to hundreds of thousands of plants.

One thing will not change: SMG will always be remembered as a cornerstone of California horticulture — innovative in plant selection, influential in landscape design, and beloved among gardeners and professionals alike.

The remaining San Marcos trucks

On January 22, 2026, the Santa Barbara Independent, the region’s leading alternative weekly newspaper and daily news website, published a heartfelt tribute to SMG and Randy Baldwin written by Matt Kettmann. This is not the usual fluff piece; it’s a thoroughly researched and beautifully written 3,500-word article that, short of a book, will be the definitive account of the nursery. If San Marcos plants have touched your life in any way, I urge you to read it.

Here are a few excerpts that capture what the horticultural community has just lost:

The end of San Marcos means the very real disappearance of actual plants, a diminishing of horticultural information, and a fading network of international connections that turned this humble patch of flat ground into one of the most important botanical centers on our planet.

Whether the everyday citizen ever experiences what that means remains to be seen, but it’s happening across California, as other important nurseries close, bigger ones consolidate, and the menu of available plants shrinks. For those who work in the landscaping industry — that is to say, professionals who design, restore, and maintain the planted part of our world — the end of San Marcos is being felt as a generational cataclysm.

The article goes on to quote landscape designer John Greenlee, known internationally for his groundbreaking use of grasses in residential and commercial landscaping. John eloquently expressed what so many of us feel:

“But the heart and soul [of why SMG thrived] is because of Randy Baldwin, a most brilliant plantsman. It’s more than just a nursery. It’s the entire essence of it all. It can’t be duplicated. There will never be another San Marcos Growers. Randy Baldwin is a national treasure. It’s truly, truly, truly the end of an era.”

And yes, reading this did bring a tear or two to my eyes.

Boxed dragon trees awaiting transport

Here are some photos of our visit on January 30, 2026. The next time I’ll make it to Santa Barbara, things will look very different.

Agaves and other succulents still available for purchase

However, most of the nursery grounds looks like this

This is the “Corral” where many stock plants once lived. Most of them have been sold.

Somebody has bought a lot of Agave americana ‘Yellow Ribbons’

More agaves waiting to go out

Agave bovicornuta ‘Holstein’, a spectacular variegate originally found at San Marcos

Aloe chabaudii ‘Dan’s Tangerine’, one of many San Marcos introductions that won’t be available any longer

All of these aloes, including most of the remaining Aloe chabaudii, are ready to go to new homes

Kyle tooling around the growing grounds in an electric cart

Our haul, some of it at least

If I had acreage, the first thing I would buy is one of these carts

Me making a list of our plants so they can be rung up. Everything was 50% off, and we took advantage of that.

With the third row of seats folded down, our Honda Odyssey has a large cargo area. But it still filled up quickly.

Aloe whiz Nick Deinhart who had come down from San Luis Obispo to meet us, Randy Baldwin, and Kyle

The SMG era has come to an end. But Randy’s story will continue. He’s still busy winding down operations and he is committed to keeping the cherished SMG website going. Beyond that, he’s much sought after for his horticultural expertise and encyclopedic knowledge. To quote from Matt Kettmann’s article in the Santa Barbara Independent:

“As anyone knows who has ever asked him a plant question, even a seemingly simple little plant query, the answer you get back is often worthy of a master’s thesis,” said Jeff Chemnick [of] Aloes in Wonderland. “I don’t know where he gets the time to run this empire, maintain the website, schmooze everyone silly, and still have the time to so thoroughly research and reply in detail, and I mean great detail.”

While the experimental nursery era may be fading these days across California, Baldwin’s information is keeping the fire alive for those who light more torches.

The sad truth is that some, maybe many, plants that only SMG carried will simply no longer be available. Others, fortunately, will live on as independent nurseries like Dry Oasis Plants in Half Moon Bay will continue to propagate them and keep the legacy of San Marcos Growers alive.

© Gerhard Bock, 2026. All rights reserved. To receive all new posts by email, please subscribe here.