My New York Garden Misconceptions
What I (happily) got wrong about growing in the city
I have to say that I was nervous about moving to New York. Excited for some things: the history, the architecture, the museums, the parks, operas at the Met. I also was excited to get out of the city occasionally on day trips and weekend trips. I wanted to see upstate New York and rural Connecticut—to go see the gardens and to stop at plant nurseries in hopes of maybe running into Martha Stewart. I saw her once, years ago here in New York, and she was by far my favorite celebrity sighting. I just love her.
I guess I wanted to get out of the city because that’s where I thought the gardens were. Living in the city would fulfill the history buff/music lover in me, but not the gardener.
Or so I thought! We’ve been here for six months, and already New York is proving me wrong. Because I had so many misconceptions about gardening here that are just getting shut down every single day . . .
1. I’ll have to go outside the city to find good plants to buy.
Why did I think this? I guess I assumed that New Yorkers just don’t have the space for lots of plants, so therefore there wouldn’t be a lot on offer at the shops? This isn’t the case at all. Even bodegas and local hardware stores have some interesting plants on the sidewalks out in front. But the really interesting ones? They’re easy enough to find, too.
I’ve already been to a few pop-ups put on by Gowanus Nursery, which always has quite a few native plants and even trees for Brooklyn yards. Last month they sold lots of perennials in tiny sizes, so I bought up a couple for less money than I was paying for similar perennials in Greenville, South Carolina. And this last Saturday I picked up a salvia (the lovely, pale ‘Bumblesky’) to help scare the aphids off from our roses.
That same day I finally got around to going to the Union Square Greenmarket, and had trouble only walking away with the one plant I’d come for. I’d ordered a ‘Southern Charm’ verbascum from Fantasic Gardens of Long Island, which usually has a huge variety of plants for sale at the market, and most of them for good prices, too. There are other plant shops selling there, too, but so far Fantastic Gardens is my favorite, partly because of their website. So many plants, and so easy to order!
2. The logistics of growing in NYC are just too overwhelming.
Maybe this was the main reason the idea of gardening in New York scared me. For one thing there was the space, or lack thereof. In Portland I started seeds in the basement, but here in our Brooklyn apartment we don’t have that kind of luxury of space, to be able to tuck something away out of sight. So I set up some portable grow lights on a really narrow shelf in our bedroom, growing mainly on two shelves. And it was plenty of space! As soon as the seedlings outgrew the lights and the weather warmed up, I’d put them into plastic bin cold frames, and I never ran out of space at all. Seriously, I thought I’d have plants growing on the floor and on every tabletop surface available, and it never happened. And I even grew more seedlings than I need.
The other logistical issue: buying soil, lugging it around and getting it out onto the terrace. I suppose that if I really wanted to I could just order soil and have it delivered, and we only have one flight of stairs to carry it up, so it’s not a big deal. But in the end, buying pots and soil and garden supplies ended up being just as easy as it’s always been. Maybe it wouldn’t be in other parts of the city, but here in Brooklyn I can drive a few miles to a Lowes, and it feels like a Lowes in any small city or suburb. There’s also an Ikea I like to go to in Red Hook, because it’s so quiet and easy to drive around there, and I do love the pots at Ikea, always very pretty for the price. This brings me to my next misconception.
3. Gardening in New York will be too expensive.
I know. Everything in New York is expensive, but when it comes to gardening, it really doesn’t have to be. I already mentioned the great deals to be had on plants at pop-ups and the green market. Seriously, some of the plants are priced lower than at the big box stores, and they’re so much more interesting, too. I’m already eying the clematis varieties at Fantastic Gardens to see if I can find something to soften the communal fence on the terrace.
There’s always Facebook Marketplace, though I haven’t found anything there yet. I’ve been having much better luck with the free stuff people set out on their front stoops. I’ve only bought a few pots since moving here since I’ve found so many for free while out on a run or walking Peep, and they’re nice pots, too. I’ve also brought home bamboo canes, a trellis, and some very nice potting mix at a time when I was all out.
When you were a kid did you ever travel out to the fancy neighborhoods on Halloween so you could get the good candy? It’s very much like that when it comes to free stuff here, and totally worth it to go out of your way. On weekend mornings in Park Slope, the sidewalks are lined with an assortment of castoffs, lined up like a yard sale; most of it is kid-related, but once in a while you’ll see a pot. And, unrelatedly, while walking Peep in Brooklyn Heights, I found a complete set of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time series. On Halloween nights in the ‘90s, the dentists of small town Illinois would pass out king-sized candy bars from their mansions, and finding a stoop treasure really does feel the same as walking away with a huge Hershey’s bar.
4. I’ll have to go outside the city to see beautiful gardens.
The most naive misconception of them all. Yes, I knew that New York had beautiful parks and gardens, and I’d been to some of them already. But I thought that natural beauty was something you’d have to really seek out in the city, and sometimes have to pay for. I didn’t know that it was something you’d see on every street, at least here in Brooklyn, where most of the front yards have flowers growing in them, and even businesses have big industrial pots full of plants out in front.
In Portland and in Greenville, South Carolina you can tell exactly what time of year it is by seeing which flowers are in bloom, and here of course it’s no different. I’m definitely taking Zyrtec every morning. In a state park in SC my sister Ashley and I saw wisteria growing wild in the forest, but here I saw it lining a balcony overlooking the Brooklyn Heights promenade. The flowers in the promenade are very cottage garden and romantic, but down below at Brooklyn Bridge park they’re of the more native variety—very much on trend— and I feel lucky that we can all so casually take it in.
There are lots of community gardens here, too, because gardening plays a huge part in the community. Some of them are very allotment-style, while others are little self-contained places of loveliness, like The Secret Garden in the Cobble Hill neighborhood. It’s an Englishman’s garden, started in the ‘70s by Christopher Adlington and his partner Nat LeMar in the British style. It’s a quiet little pocket on a quiet street, and the other afternoon—that very same busy Saturday of the plant sale-shopping— when Peep and I were walking by there was a mini concert going on there, and a woman with a beautiful voice was singing arias. I think she had just sang “Caro mio ben,” which Beyoncé sang a little bit of (also beautifully!) on her new album, because she was joking about how Beyoncé is bringing opera back. And it was one of those moments when I felt very naive for all of my misconceptions, because not only is the secret garden pretty magical, but New York really is, too.
Garden Notes:
Still going with the on-again, off-again weather. A few hot days followed by a few cold days, plus lots of rain. But the plants are looking a little bit bigger every day, and I’m spotting more tiny buds on the snapdragons and cerinthe.
I’m visiting family soon and I’m planning on bringing a bunch of seedlings that I planted too many of. Looking forward to the time when the terrace starts looking more like a garden and less like a plant nursery!
Awww…you’re doing great! Can’t wait to see your Garden Terrace this summer 😊