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Thornberries open nursery
California Landscape Supply on Morgan Rd.
Thornberry
Brothers Nick and Ryan Thornberry and Pam Speed have worked for months to bring a full landscape nursery to the materials yard at 4107 Morgan Road (south of Service Road). - photo by JEFF BENZIGER/Courier photo

In a move to become a full-service landscaping supply business, BTY (By The Yard) Concrete & Materials yard has changed its name and has added a full nursery.

Located at 4107 Morgan Road, Ceres, BTY has been rebranded California Landscape Supply.

"This was the next thing for us," said Ryan Thornberry, one of the managers of the business. "This is a perfect fit in everything else we do."

Pam Speed, a 1976 Ceres High School graduate who went on to earn her horticulture degree from Cal Poly, has been hired as the nursery manager. Fresh out of college she worked at Scenic Nursery for six years, and did a 20-year stint as a garden manager in Dallas, Texas. She returned to Ceres three years ago.

"We have everything from your succulents to ornamental grasses," said Speed. "Those are really popular. There's so many cool succulents and cool ornamental grasses now and it's fun to blend those textures with the leafy foliage. So all the contrasting thin leaves, the bold leaves, you can just really have fun creating, especially with container gardens."

The nursery has an ample supply of shrubs as well as trees like corral bark and bloodgood Japanese maples and flowering crepe myrtles and multi-trunked fruitless olives, sego palms, valley oaks, birch, citrus, Cyprus, purple plums, acadias, evergreen flowering pear, Chinese Pistache and redwoods.

"She's hand-picked every one of these plants," said Thornberry, who managed the yard with brother Nick and father Ken Thornberry. "She comes out here and takes care of them every day. So nursery stock is going to trump everybody. Like if it has burnt-up leaves, she's pulling it."

Speed said the pickings for nurseries are getting slimmer - especially alternatives to big box home improvement stores which don't generally staff people knowledgeable about plants and trees.

California Landscape Service is also the only place in Ceres for do-it-yourselfers who want to pick up ready-mix concrete by the yard. The business, owned by the well-known Thornberry family of Ceres, also sells sand, bark, river rock, crushed gravel and topsoil for landscaping. It started as D&L Concrete 20 years ago by Ken Thornberry and now being carried on by his sons. Ken actually took on D&L Concrete from his dad, Marshall Thornberry Jr. who came to Ceres in 1963.

For now the hours are 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays but the Thornberries are contemplating expanding hours.

"We're going to have to feel it out," said Nick. "We're very new at this."

The rebranded business will host a Ceres Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting on Aug. 20.

For more information call 538-8492 or visit kdenterprisesinc.com