Greening Things Up

The weather forecast for this weekend is looking promising, so I thought I might spend some time out of doors turning my back yard mud pit into something other than mud.

I took a stroll this week down to local Kings County Nurseries, on New York Ave at Fenimore, to check out the pickings. Things are looking pretty green over there, and we hear that by this weekend there should be a good selection of annuals to choose from. King's County also sells a bunch of veggies if you're inclined to do some gardening for eating (be sure to plant any edibles in safe soil, ie; not your untested back yard).

I like to go local, and the guys at Kings County are great. But for items beyond your basic "garden variety" plants, you may have to search farther afield. If you don't have access to a car, some other Brooklyn nurseries (Gowanus, etc.) may deliver for a fee, or you can turn to the internet.

If shopping on the internet, make sure you know what size pot (if any) the plants are shipped in. Be warned: there are a lot of inexpensive internet nurseries out there, but many plants are shipped bare root, which means you'll be waiting eons (or at least a few seasons) for your plants to look anything like what the photo shows. Garden Watchdog is a good place to start weeding through the mire of internet garden suppliers.

Happy gardening!

Comments

[Xris (Flatbush Gardener)]

Thanks for the tip about Kings County. Do you consider that still PLG? Or is that another neighborhood?

[jessica]

It's on the edge of Lefferts Gardens, for sure, but in my mind it definitely still qualifies. New York Ave is the official boundary of PLG and then you're in... hmm... Wingate? South Crown Heights South?

[Jennifer]

I've had good luck with Bluestoneperennials.com. I planted two of their pre-planned gardens last year. The plants arrive small but healthy. By the end of the summer I had a nice-looking garden and it's coming back strong this spring. It was very affordable too. An entire butterfly garden was $49.

[Roger Tennent]

We've been hit by a discouraging succession of wreath and plant thefts from our front door and stoop on Sterling Street. Last night someone stole two lollipop shaped hibiscus trees from the stoop. We love greening our front yard but need to decide how much effort/cost to put into it. Is this kind of plant theft and vandalism common in PLG?

[carrie]

When we had two flower pots stolen from our stoop two years ago, people said it occasionally happens here and pretty much everywhere in Brooklyn. (A friend of mine had his brass doorknob stolen in tony Brooklyn Heights.) There was also a reported plant theft on the Lefferts list last summer.

You can discourage the problem by keeping things in heavy, cheap pots (the previous owners of our place put rocks in the pots); by keeping plants out of easy reach (ours were on the bottom step of our stoop); and by burying them in the ground. Nothing is foolproof, of course, but we've continued to have potted flower and plants on the stoop and haven't had any problems since. Our neighbors have also had potted plants out for years without incident.

(And as it turned out, we managed to get our stolen plants back; I spotted them in the window of a local store that has since gone under.)