I'm not a gardener — I only have a couple of houseplants that I've miraculously avoided killing — but I'm addicted to window shopping in garden stores. If there's a storefront with plant stands on the sidewalk, I'll inevitably walk in and check it out. You know, just to see what my life would be like if I had the ability to grow things.
To start, here are ten of my favorite places to browse for plants, flowers, and garden decor. Spread across the country, they include online shops, small boutiques, one or two chains, and a few out-of-the-ordinary nurseries (urban chicken farming, anyone?).
Help us round out the list and share your favorite garden stores in the comments!
A BRIEF STARTER LIST
1. Terrain: Boho style for outdoor spaces from Anthropologie's garden spinoff
2. Fire Escape Farms: An online store with gorgeous photos of seeds and gardening tools
3. Paxton Gate: A San Francisco shop full of strange plants, fossils, and insects
4. Sprout Home: A modern home & garden store with locations in Brooklyn and Chicago
5. Gardener's Supply Company: Practical, affordable garden decor from a web catalog
6. Jayson Home & Garden: "French flea market" style from a Chicago-based shop
7. GRDN: A Brooklyn store with lots of options for urban gardeners
8. Rolling Greens Nursery: An LA store well stocked with plants and eye candy
9. Pistils Nursery: A Portland shop that specializes in urban chicken farming!
10. Graceful Gardens: A combination florist and urban garden source in Brooklyn
RELATED RESOURCES
• Best Out of the Ordinary Garden Stores
• 10 Planters and Container Gardens for Beginners
• Indoor Gardens for Small Spaces
Photos: (1) Kitchen Products from Terrain, (2) Beet Seeds from Fire Escape Farms, (3) Jessica Watson | Apartment Therapy, (4) Sarah Rae Trover | Apartment Therapy, (5) Tub Trugs from Gardener's Supply, (6) Hema Bud Vases at Jayson Home & Garden, (7) GRDN, (8) Rolling Greens Nursery, (9) Molly Anderson | Apartment Therapy, (10) Graceful Gardens
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The Gardener in Berkeley, CA
Flora Grubb in San Francisco. A MUST!
Potted in the Los Feliz section of Los Angles. Their plants, fountains, furniture, lanterns....love it all!
I second that....POTTED
Not to mention Gardener's Supply actual store in Burlington, VT...their home base. What a gorgeous store and variety of plant selections. Set right in the Intervale next to the grooviest public garden plots and enormous outdoor compost-making facility. Always an inspiration.
Home Depot because they are sticking up for the gays :)
Buchanan's in Houston.
Back to Nature in Basking Ridge, NJ.
Glad to see Terrain on the list. Its facility is breath-taking...also in a good location to combine with a trip to Longwood Gardens, west of Philadelphia.
Molbak's! Molbak's! And Sky Nursery and Swanson's. All Seattle favorites. I hear FlowerWorld is great too, but I have yet to check it out.
In MD, http://homesteadgardens.com
and ...ebay. =)
I love Sprout, especially since it's in my hood (Grand St gardens in great too where my dog is so well known that I'm called Patterson's dad), but if you're in Chicago, and you're serious about gardening, Gethsemane is the best in the city. Period.
In Manhattan, Lexington Gardens. Walking inside is like going on holiday.
Not only that, but they do some flowers for the White House, and one of the owners used to work in fashion, so it's a shop with quite a story.
Agree with chocolatepretzels- The Gardener in Berkeley for gifts! Also love Berkeley Horticultural Nursery for actual plants :)
I too am shocked that Paxton Gate was mentioned but Flora Grubb was not. Omg. And they have Ritual coffee bar IN the nursery. Hellloooo.
I like Figaro's Garden in Vancouver:
http://typearamblings.blogspot.com/2011/06/for-urban-gardener.html
Also, any of the Garden Works stores and Van Ducsen Gardens.
I second Buchanan's in Houston, and also love Joshua's Native Plants in Houston.
Ginkgo Gardens in Capitol Hill, DC
I realize I'm a day late (and probably a dollar short), but Steyer's in Philadelphia is pretty great. For various reasons I only had about 10 minutes to walk around, but it was enough to make me consider driving 4.5 hours from Pittsburgh just to hang out there a little more!
Seconding Paxton Gate. Went in there once, would probably move in if I could. It's like living inside a giant curio cabinet!