Annie’s Annuals & Perennials

Is Annie’s still in business? I could not bring up their website, I sent email which my server returned showing the email not valid. And phone number? Oh well…
Anyone know if their New Zealand wind grass is still in production and when available?
Off and on I have purchased a number of specimens from Annie’s. Not being much of a shopper I have not bothered to mail order plants elsewhere. All the plants I have ordered have arrived in good stead. And most have survived and thrived. I just wish I had more garden space as there are lots more plants that I find intriguing and would love to have just for the sake of having it!
There are a couple nurseries not far from where I live who do carry some of Annie’s plants. That saves me trips!

The very large area of this nursery offers an outstanding selection of beautiful and unusual plants. These are displayed on tables with pictures and descriptions — so you are well informed about the plants’ needs to thrive. The huge area with so many choices can be overwhelming. So it is beneficial to consult their excellent website before you go there. Near the entrance, there are folders displayed with the plant names and the areas where they are located. That makes it easy to find them. If you still have questions, the friendly and knowledgeable staff will help you out. Just being there with all those beautiful, well cared for flowers will lift your spirit.

I’d always seen Annie’s rare plants at other gardening stores, specifically the one in Half Moon Bay, which has a wonderful selection. You don’t really grasp how much this one shop has done to maintain unusual and native California plants alive for the masses. That is a great feat. However, I was in the market for trees and or fully sized shrubs. which they don’t carry. Maybe I missed the giant shrubs, but I saw a plethora (and I mean like 2 acres of it) starter plants. This wouldn’t be a problem if the plants are for my own home, but if I’m working on someone else’s yard, then i would prefer to have larger sizes to work with.
Annie’s is best for those who know what plants they want to purchase, I felt like I needed Pinterest and google to guide me with their variety. Anyway, it’s worth the drive and their staff is beyond knowledgeable. Don’t think that this is Macys, if you need help, you’ll have to ask.

What a wonderful place. Amazing selection and just a great place to visit. I had fantastic customer service and the person helping was super knowledgable about plants. The selection is a little overwhelming and I immediately wanted to buy one of everything.
I’d often seen Annie’s available in my local nursery and always wanted to go there — I finally did and boy — it was better than I could have expected.
This is not your run of the mill selection. I can see I will be coming here quite a bit.
Hint — if any of my family or friends read this review … you know what’s on my Christmas list.

Aw god. Nectar of the God’s here. Amazing selection, friendly helpful staff and truly, amazing organization. How do they do it? I go gangbusters with so many well priced interesting foliage… my wagon is always full! Easily carried away as a gardener at Annie’s. It can get a tad confusing, thus 4 stars, because the selection is immense! Hard to know when the ideal time to plant is… because by the end I’m essentially frothing at the mouth, expecting my garden to bloom, or BOOM with the same beauty portrayed while shopping. I suggest buying their soil and fertilizer if like me, you’re hoping for similar results. Annie’s is amazing, but remember, soil makes it so. Ask about that part– trust me.

Amazing place to find rare plants and California natives. You’ll find a lot of annuals and perennials at Annie’s you won’t find anywhere else. And, funnily, there are things you’ll find elsewhere that you won’t see here, because they focus on the rare, unusual and wonderful. Annie’s is well worth the drive wherever you’re driving from. The staff is friendly and informative. They grow most of their own plants. Explore the wonder-​filled two and a half acres here if you like plants and flowers at all.

I just found 2.5 acres of paradise on earth! How did this secret gem exist so long in my «backyard» without me knowing?
If you are a garden junkie, if you are not a garden junkie, you will still go absolutely wild for their lush, varied selection. From the moment you walk in, visions of your own beautiful oasis will be dancing in your head.

Plus: Fantastic selection. Excellent customer service. Healthy plants. Fair prices.
Negative: Odd location. Plants are small, they’ll have to grow into your environment. You need to be knowledgeable about the plant since they are so small. Signs that describe the plant are pretty good but I’d like more info on water and sun needs, and size when fully grown.
I’ll be back!

Never would have thought to order plants online. but I came up on this site love the selection if you can’t find what you’re looking for here you won’t find it anywhere lol since I live in Ontario SoCal it was too far to drive so I took the chance and ordered online I have ordered plants three times now and they are always fresh & healthy and will definitely order again

I’ve gotten their emails for awhile decided to check them out. I am in the process of putting my house up for sale and want to convert my front lawn to a more drought resistant landscape. The email showed all kinds of beautiful flowers, drove over to Richmond, customer service was helpful but the huge drawback was everything were in 3″ pots ie tiny seedlings.
I need blooming mature plants to fill my front property not saplings that could take months and months to grow. For me it was a bust. I found what I was looking for at Costco and Lowes.

I read some of the negative reviews here and was left wondering if «These folk went to the same nursery as I did!!!»
I go to Annie’s about once a year to stock up on my herb garden plants and supplies and find, consistently, that the staff are extremely knowledgeable, helpful (But not constantly In-​Your-​Face), and they know their inventory like programmers!
I found no: lack of customer friendliness, arrogance, or absence of support when needed.
They offer one of the best, if not The Best, stocks of both native and exotic plants that I’ve ever seen in the Bay Area.
I realize that the «Different Strokes for Different Folk» adage may be in play here but, the difference between some reported experiences and mine is profoundly incongruent.
I recommend this place above all others. I suggest that interested people go and experience the place for themselves before passing, what I feel is, premature judgment.

A very artisticly and well laid-​out place. Lots of help from the many employees. Definitely recommend.

Walked in asked questions told where suggested plants were located. I was not taken by the hand and shown them.
Bought a lot of great plants. Picked up their catalogue and will return to buy more that I saw in it. Paid for plants in trailer with big sign that says «Pay here».

i purchased Aristea major and Watsonia tabularis from Annie’s on May 8. The plants arrived, they were quite small and not nearly as well rooted as others I’ve bought from other mail order stores. However, they were acceptable.
I then purchased twenty Eschscholzia californica ‘Rose Chiffon’. The plants arrived looking more dead than alive. I watered them and the next day attempted to plant them. They were so poorly rooted that they fell out of the little ball of soil in which they were planted. I doubt that more than MAYBE five of the twenty will survive and that may be iffy.
I called customer service and they promptly got very defensive and refused to refund me for the dead plants. I’ve since taken pictures of said dead plants and sent them to customer service but have heard nothing.
Too bad as Annie’s has some interesting plants.

Flowering plants, native California plants, grasses, poppies, and vegetables from Annie’s Annuals are doing very well in my garden in Pinole, CA (USDA Zone 9B). Once or twice a plant has underperformed. I’ve figured out it was not in the optimal place (sun vs. shade) or given enough of a good start (digging the hole with a shovel, adding compost). So I’ve tried again, successfully. I love going to Annie’s both on site in Richmond and online. On site, there are so many flowers in pots and in the demo gardens so that you can see what they look like in full bloom. Whenever I ask a question of a staff person, I am well served. Online, the explanations about each plant, the wonderful useful lists, the pictures, and Annie’s tutorials are exceedingly useful. Prices on some plants seem high, but they are on items you cannot find elsewhere in the Bay Area. Prices on half-​wine-​barrels beat those at big box stores, I noticed yesterday. Plus the annual parties are fun to attend — even my husband likes to accompany me! There is no place like Annie’s!

The service here was indifferent at best. If you are a big, floppy hat wearing white woman you will fit right in and you will probably get a lot better service than I did. It was really strange how we saw other people get waited on and we were just barely spoken to.
I won’t mention how they treated their Latino workers as that review has been removed. Just confirms my suspicions. If this is the kind of business you’d like to support, well, that is on you.

This place is great if you are a gray haired, Francophile, Berkley-​esque lady «slumming it» in Richmond while collecting specimens for your «whimsical and kaleidoscopic cottage garden.» Five stars for the selection, one star for customer service — I guess that averages out to about two stars total.
When we walked in, I was super excited and overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of the place. Rows and rows of plants along with very detailed signage and descriptions. We spent about 2 hours roaming and making our selections. I tried using their confusing map system to find rosemary and mint, but then just gave up and asked a worker who was standing idly by. Instead of leading me to the products, I was waved in the general direction of the «edible herbs» and told to look there, which was where I just came from.
So, we just decided to forget about it and head on to their confusing check out system to have our plants tallied. We noticed the staff seems to be an overabundance of ladies in sun hats standing around chit-​chatting while Latino men tend to the actual heavy lifting and business of helping customers. One of the sunhat women was counting off the number of plants in our cart to a man who was tallying our order. In a particularly patronizing exchange, she loudly counted out the number of plants on her fingers, «UNO, DOS, WHAT COMES AFTER DOS? IS IT TRES? So hard for me not to say ‘un, deux, trois.’ I suppose I’m working in the wrong area with the language I studied in high school.»
WTF, lady? Any preschooler knows how to count to three in Spanish. Just watch an episode of Sesame Street for crying out loud. You are working at a nursery in the heart of frigging Richmond — is it that hard for you to pick up a few phrases in Spanish? The whole exchange was just embarrassing. After that, she wandered off and left us to figure out where to pay. We stood around the cash register being generally ignored until I figured out I could pay in the gift shop. I suppose if you’ve been here before, know what you’re looking for, and know the system, then perhaps it’s worth it. Not sure if we’ll be back.
UPDATE: In response to Annie’s comments on my review, it’s true I should have been more clear. When I said the Latino men were doing the «heavy lifting,» by that, I meant actually working and helping customers. The exchange I mentioned was not about using Spanish and English interchangeably. It was about an employee being condescending about another employee’s native language. Which made me uncomfortable. All-​in-​all, we were ignored and when we weren’t being ignored, the service was lackluster at best. Which is something that was completely ignored in Annie’s reply to my review.

Top stars mostly because it’s down the street from me. Naw, it’s really a great place packed full of plants that, from what I was told, they grow from seed themselves. If they don’t grow it, they don’t sell it. They have no problem referring you to another nursery if you want something they don’t have.
Clean grounds. Healthy plants. There is a little trailer with other goods so when you check out, you’ll probably want to pick up a book or two.

I never visited the actual store. I ordered some drought tolerant ground cover via the internet from here. Since the drought, my lawn has died and rather than letting a bunch of weeds grow over the front of my house, I bought some drought tolerant faux grass to plant on the space. It looks like grass but you don’t need to water it that often!
Prices are ok. They really packed the grass well because nothing spilled out when I opened the package. They also threw in two pots of Cramer’s Burgundy with the order. Cramer’s Burgundy reminds me of baby’s brains. I really hope it turns out well because it didn’t look too nice online.
Plants came well moistened. They wrap the plants with wet towels and place them in a pot. They weren’t dead and were in actual good shape. Will consider ordering here again.

If not for my middle child’s botany hobby I would never have come to Annie’s…or Half Moon Bay Nursery for that matter.
I was really impressed with the very large selection of various plants, flowers, grasses, succulents, trees and whatever else you call them.
My daughter is into very esoteric items… night phlox anyone? So this places really caters to some very unique plants… But they also have a good selection of fruit, vegetable plants as well. Tomatoes that grow in San Fran… nice, Eggplant, figs etc… really cool.
There are tons of things for anyone that has a garden and wants to make it look awesome.
I love the vibe of the place as we were allowed to bring our dog. Help was nice as well.
Getting to Annies is somewhat of a trip: It felt like I was going through compton, crenshaw, and Nickerson Gardens all in one fallen swoop… It was really ghetto… do not run out of gas or stop… Thanks MR GPS!
Great place for plant lovers!