Moon Valley Nurseries Garden Center
If you have driven north on I-405 through Irvine during the day, you probably noticed Moon Valley Nurseries Garden Center off to the right. It’s kind of hard to miss with elephants and giraffes and lots of dinosaurs lurking in their 30+ acres of company-grown trees siding on the freeway. Growing from a pumpkin patch and Christmas tree lot in the Moon Valley neighborhood north of Phoenix, Arizona, 3rd generation tree farmer Les Blake has expanded throughout the southwestern US and into Texas and Florida to become the largest specimen tree grower in the nation. The Irvine nursery, the 9th of 41, opened in February, 2019, during the company’s Silver Jubilee year.
Irvine, Orange County
Images by Andrew Schmidt