Our Favorite NYC Nurseries

We have selected some of our favorite stores for plants and garden-related items in NYC and Brooklyn. This is not a list of all available options, but these are our go-to’s, and they’re retail, not wholesale so you non-industry folks can get all your goodies there too.

In no particular order:

Gowanus Nursery

A well-stocked oasis located way out in the weird nether-scape that is the “Columbia Street Waterfront District” and “Redhook”. A nicely edited selection of annuals, herbs & veggies, perennials, some trees and shrubs and more recently small indoor/tropical. Lot’s of native plants (*boner*) from Glover Perennials (*big boner*). Very knowledgeable staff, beautifully curated.

We always leave Gowanus with Baby Coop at full capacity.

Crest Hardware and Urban Garden Center  

Conveniently located on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg (between Union and Lorimer) it’s close to the BQE for us drivers and the G/L trains for subway-taking folks. Crest has everything. Nice selection of classic standby annuals, lots of herbs, veggies and fruits, perennials (more native Glovers!), trees and shrubs. A good mix of “traditional” and “awesome, native, rarely used” plants, and a big selection of indoor/tropical plants of all sizes. Soils, composts, mulch, plant vitamins, tools, etc. Good prices - they have excellent plant sales throughout the year. A beautiful, sweater-wearing pig named Franklin. And a super helpful, awesome Garden Center Manager named Kristen - she is the best! They have a bathroom, and you can use it.

Sprout Home Brooklyn

Sprout has two super cute neighboring shops located at the very end of Grand St. in Williamsburg. Nice choice of indoor plants of all sizes - especially nice “specimen” plants like rare orchids, carnivorous plants, etc. Nifty ideas for gifts and lovely green interior decorating-y stuff. Excellent selection of planters for indoors and out, plant vitamins and some soils, etc. A smaller selection of outdoor plants, but they usually have some good Glover native perennials and cool, small trees. There are usually a couple of folks with superior plant/garden knowledge working there. Anna is particularly great. A tad on the pricey side, but good quality. They offer cool workshops and classes too!

Kings County Nursery

A mighty big nursery for the city confines. They’re a bit out of the way over in East Flatbush, but the prices are good and the selection nice and traditional. If you need a good o’l echinacea or inkberry, you can probably find it here. They have a great selection of traditional fruit trees. Old school - old men, very nice, good prices.

The Sill

The Sill is a super cute shop in the Lower East Side. They are great for gifts. They sell locally made planters, easy- care houseplants, and Brooklyn blend soil. The owner Eliza is a brilliant, smart, hot lady. They do bi-monthly workshops and you should check them out!

How to Propagate Succulents From Cuttings or Leaves

I just spent the last week in sunny Southern California. One of my favorite things about SoCal is that succulents are growing everywhere! I love succulents. If I could I would have a giant wall covered in them... one day! Back on the east coast succulents growing outdoors are far less abundant, though there are varieties that are hardy even over here. To cope with this, it is fun to grow them indoors. I love them so much that most flat surfaces in my room are covered with them(maybe too much?). 

Awesome window box near Santa Monica

Part of the awesomeness of succulents is that they are so easy to grow and propagate. You can take a little piece of one, or even a leaf, and start a whole new plant. Here is a little guide to starting new plants from pieces of others:

Taking a cutting

How to take a cutting depends on the type of succulent. Most can be propagated from just a single leaf and others need to be cut with part of the stem and some can be done either way. Aeoniums are a type that only work with a cutting. Sedums and echeverias can be done by a leaf or cutting.

This is a type of Aeonium

This is a echeveria with little sedums around it

When you are taking a leaf cutting, it is important you get the entire leaf. If part breaks off then it will most likely not work. 

When taking a cutting from a stem with leaves, cut the stem and then remove the lower few rows of leaves. Where the leaves were is where new roots will grow. 

I found a broken piece on the ground! Score!

What to do with your cutting

With a cutting of a stem, you need to leave it be for about a week so that the area that was cut can scab over. 

You can either lay your pieces out on some surface, a bowl, windowsill, dresser, or lay them out on top of some soil. 

Pieces on my dresser

Laid out on top of soil

Either way works fine. As you can see there are some with roots on my dresser and on the soil. Those on the soil are older and some have started to grow new leaves.

Here is a close up of the new leaves

Watering

Mature succulents require very little water but the new cuttings need a bit more. I use a spray bottle to water mine. I do this a few times a week. It's important not to soak them too much as they can rot. 

Some people water the soil and let the roots take what they need but I get scared of overwatering them that way. Also, these plants are very resilient. I've had ones fall behind the table and keep growing without being watered at all. 

Not all of your leaves will grow new plants. Sometimes they grow roots and no new leaves. Sometimes they just shrivel up. And sometimes they work!

New Plants

Once your leaves start growing new leaves, the old starter leaf may shrivel up. You can see that in the close up photo above. You can remove this old leaf if you want. I tend to leave it because they are so fragile and I hate to break the new plant after I've gotten this far. 

You can put this new plant in a little pot or leave them all growing together in the larger one.

Here are a bunch of broken pieces I put in a pot to grow together

Your larger cuttings can be put into a pot when they start growing roots.

This is a large jade cutting that I potted in a glass jar. If you do this, water very sparingly because there are no drainage holes.

Sometimes if one of your plants is getting too tall and leggy, it's nice to cut that long piece off, start and new one. The place where you cut from the original plant with now grow fuller where it was cut.

On the left side of this jade plant was where I cut a piece and now two stems are growing from that spot

Have fun with your cuttings and new plants!

An awesome dinosaur succulent planter my friend's mom made for me!