Exotica is both a garden and a nursery; they have a huge variety of very old fruit trees, and flowering trees, planted in the ground. So it's the best way of seeing what the plants can eventually get like and to sample the fruit when in season. They even have two canistel trees in-ground, which I was surprised to discover, because pouteria are really rare here. And they don't sell any.
"Tropical fruit tree" nursery is much more open and not garden-like but they do have a good number of trees in-ground such as a mature Sabara jaboticaba. That nursery propagates and grows tons of them so they are an excellent source for that tree in any size, including relatively large ones.
Ong is the best source for wax jambu; he imports the latest and best cultivars from southeast asia. Many are sweet and juicy and taste like honey and/or apple when properly ripe. He also has a lot of atemoya and some very healthy and productive carambolas, which I mention because that's a really hard tree to find in any nursery around here. But usually he's not at the nursery and only his mom is, who speaks almost no English and knows nothing about the plants.
For flowering or foliage plants I also like to go to Kartuz (primarily a mail-order nursery with very rare tropical plants), Brigg's, Evergreen, or Andersen.
Oh, and the best garden of all (aside from possibly Quail which I haven't been to yet) is the San Diego Zoo. They have a dense and very diverse selection of plants and should not be overlooked. That includes some fruit trees scattered about. There's no plant map that I'm aware of though so you just have to wander.
Topic: Best Places in San Diego? (Read 3692 times)