Penny Carnathan

Penny’s a Nurture And Hold (NAH): Nah, I won’t pull that out yet, it’s still got a green shoot. She likes dragonflies, lady bugs and new stuff only after weeding, pruning and fertilizing.

Kim Franke-Folstad

Kim’s a Want It Now (WIN): Everything pretty, everything now. She will resort to full-spectrum insecticides in desperate situations, and believes it’s her duty and right to buy new plants every weekend.

Both advocate Plant Choice (SOMEthing besides crotons. Please!), lots of color and low maintenance. We don’t agree on everything, but we’re smart enough to learn from each other - and from you.

 @TheDirtTBO
 The Dirt
 Post your garden photos
 Bay area nuseries
 Gardening calendar
 Planting guide

Most Recent Entries

• Join The Plate Licker’s Club; Leave No Morsel Behind
• Greg And Michelle Baker To Follow The Refinery In Seminole Heights With Fodder & Shine
• Weekend Eats: Homemade Moussaka, French Fries With Cheese Gravy, Meatball Banh Mi Sandwiches
• The Sip: Drinking In ‘The Great Gatsby’ With Martinis And Mint Julep.
• Mouth Safari: The Stein & Vine Brings Great Eats, Outstanding Drinks To Valrico
• Weekend Eats: ‏Pork Tonkotsu Ramen, Spicy Chicken And Waffles, Oysters With Crispy Shallots
• The Underbelly Tour Devours Central Avenue Restaurants In St. Petersburg
• Hot Rod’s BBQ In Lutz Serves Up It’s Last Plate Of Barbecue Fruit Bat. Or Whatever It Was.
• Hank Shaw - Hunter, Gardener, Fisherman, Cook - Wins A James Beard Award
• Gary and Amy Moran Out At Wimauma Restaurant In South Tampa
• This Is Tampa Style. This Is Who We Are. Take It And Eat It.
• Weekend Eats: Snickers Flapjack, Thai Donuts, Sushi On The Beach
• The Sip: The Best That A Very Thirsty Tampa Has To Drink
• Rooster & The Till; Seminole Heights To Get New Restaurant
• Weekend Eats: Nutella Latte,  Foie Gras Wagyu Burger, Rootini

More

• The Stew
• The Dirt
• Hot Pursuits
• HOMEwork
• Inside USF
• L Archive
  • Green Lite
  • Bring It!

Monthly Archives

• May 2013
• April 2013
• March 2013
• February 2013
• January 2013
• December 2012

New map takes Tampa down the garden path

Posted Jul 21, 2009 by Penny Carnathan

Updated Jul 21, 2009 at 11:49 PM

A reader e-mailed in May asking Kim and me to recommend a good nursery.

“This is the nursery I grew up with and, unfortunately, the standard by which I judge all the others!” Stacy Tabb wrote, including a link to an article about Bennett Nurseries in Huntsville, Ala.

I clicked on the link, curious about what could inspire such emphatic loyalty. Lots of nurseries offer an ever-changing palette of tempting finds. My neighborhood favorite also happens to come with a horticultural Dan Aykroyd, but that’s a bonus I wouldn’t dream of demanding anywhere else.

What’s so special about Bennett’s?

Free Starbucks coffee and, old-fashioned bottles of Coke and Dr Pepper, and spiced tea in the fall.

An electric train chugging through and around bonsai shrubs and trees.

Live music and help-yourself barbecue chicken on weekends in April and May and during the Pansy Festival in October.

And 15 greenhouses of plants.

“On average, it probably takes over an hour to see everything, especially in the spring,” employee Carol Shafer said when I called to see if Stacy was pulling a fast one on us.

She wasn’t.

It got Kim and me thinking — how do we find good nurseries beyond our neighborhoods? Like pollination, it’s pretty random: we hear about them, read about them, or spot one on the way to someplace else.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have that all-too-important information at our fingertips?

We dug through our archives and sent shout-outs to nurseries for information, then enlisted the technological talents of colleague Emily Seawell, who created what we hope will become a comprehensive map of Bay area nurseries. Click on the flower and find out about the nursery there. If we’ve written about it, you’ll also see a link to the story. And soon, you can add your own comments.

If you have a favorite nursery that isn’t on the map, e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or post a comment here and we’ll add it.

Stacy, who lives in Lakeland, did find a nursery she likes — Kerby’s in Seffner. It doesn’t have Dr Pepper, but it does have lots and lots of plants.

Stacy started gardening in earnest last year and writes about her experiences at floridabackyard.org—a blog I’ve been visiting regularly since early spring.

Here’s a link to our map to save: bit.ly/nurseries.