Retail Botanicals

I visit the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens two or three times a year when whim and mood and/or guests moves me in that direction. I can even walk there from home even though it is a fair piece and I always have to think about having to make the return schlep after depositing my oohs and aahs on the many attractions therein. I generally like wandering these kinds of public spaces in different parts of our little world and the flora never fails to please several of my basic senses.

Almost as good is visiting the many nurseries that are bursting at their seams this time of year. My absolute favorite is Hicks Nurseries, which over the years became my gardening source when I commuted to work on Long Island. Hicks kind of fell off my radar when my job did but I still try to make it out there at least once a year to buy the goods needed to keep my little backyard up to speed. Hicks is almost as good as any arboretum you might want to visit with the added bonus of wheeling around a cool, multiple-decked shopping cart and going wild with Johnny-Appleseed-zeal and filling the cart with a myriad of items; fulfilling the need to overspend once in a while.

Hicks is the type of place that sells practically everything outdoorsy. Not only the trees and plants and hedging but pots and pottery, top soil, potting soil, mulch and pretty rocks; patio and lawn furniture; statuary and fountains and garden gnomes; flags and flagpoles. Hicks also has fish for sale but for some reason this year they are coy about anything but the gold kind. Of course they have indoor areas with houseplants and another for rakes and hoses and bird seed and another with faux flowers and candles and pot pourri and greeting cards and jars of jam and a nice comfortable snackery with coffee and, well, good eats. It’s a one-stop shopping experience and worth a couple of hours of wandering whether you buy anything or not.

I’m kind of jealous of the nurseries I’ve visited in Florida, including the Living Color Garden Center in Ft. Lauderdale and the Flamingo Road Nursery in Davie. Planting stuff in Florida has no season so going to these places is always a cool thing to do even in the hottest weather. As one might suspect they are geared more toward the tropical flora of the region and I just wish I could get one of those gorgeous bougainvilleas to flourish here in Zone 6. But living here also has its advantages; namely you can (and must) shut down your garden for the winter months while the bulbs do their secret work underground. In Florida you have give your yard constant attention or it, otherwise, overwhelms the time allocated to care for it.

Anyway, nurseries-as-museums are a good thing and just as rewarding as the real thing sometimes. Also, when you shop a lot at Hicks you get flooded with coupons (on-line) and a true bargain can be had. Not a banana tree, certainly, but a birdbath of pleasing design or wrought-iron crane to place cunningly amid the backyard perennials. By the way, my planting is done now (maybe two weeks earlier than usual) and, hopefully, everything will grow and prosper. Conventional wisdom has always been to wait until after Mother’s Day for local planting but, hey, sometimes global warming has its advantages.