Never been to Gerten's, kinda far away from me. I like Green Barn in Isanti, Mickman's in Ham Lake although they tend to be pricey, Branch Landscape Nursery in North Branch, Rice Creek Gardens in Ham Lake is expensive but huge selection. Busse's in Elk River mostly for their ceramic pots, but they have nice plants, too. Lone Wolf Nursery in Oak Grove is not really well known but they have lots of decent plants at reasonable prices. Otten's in Buffalo (I think) is huge, expensive, but a good selection.

Linda

Thanks for this! when Ithere is a decent weekend I am going to make a special trip out to one of these places- Otten's in Buffalo might be the closest. If they have unique items (like plant-packs of old fashioned annuals not usually found other than in the seed bins) it will be worth it.

I do like Gerten's although I tend to shop closer to home. I am in South Minneapolis. Being a city girl I mainly shop in the city.

My favorites- Tangletown Nursery, 53rd and Nicollet Ave S Mpls,
Sunnyside Gardens, 3723 West 44th Street Mpls, Southside Farm Store, 1534 E. 38th St, Mpls, and Mother Earth Garden, 3738 42nd Ave S, Mpls.

Tangletown is fun to walk through it has a beautiful hosta garden. They have unusual sedem and succlents.

Southside Farm Store is funky, more the old neighborhood store, some exoctic pets for sale, cat and dog food, organic supplies, there are two store dogs, several cats, rabbits and frequently rescued cats to adopt all in with the seeds and plants some of which are hard to find other places.

Sunnyside is larger, layed out in rows and a wide variety of plants and isn't as fun.

Mother Earth Gardens carries very healthy plants I bought the most vigerous shrub rose there four years ago it is covered with flowers most of the summer.

Pauline

Well, here goes my list:
Rice Creek Gardens (Blaine): pricey but hard to find hardy plants and wonderful miniatures and lots of sage advice from Betty and the crew. Nice display gardens. www.ricecreekgardens.com

Halla Nursery (Chanhassen): plants are displayed very well and easy to locate what you are looking for by catagory. Watch out for the peacocks. They scream...! LOL http://www.hallanursery.com/

Gertens (So St Paul?): Nice, very busy and not too many unusual plants. More run-of-the-mill.

Linder's (Main store Cty B?): I like the main store, lots of nice tropicals, good literature and easy to shop. http://linders.com/

Otten's (Long Lake): nice variety, easy to shop, friendly staff, ample parking and hard to find roses are here. ottenbros.com

Ambergate Gardens (south by Victoria): Wonderful collection of plants, former Arboretum employee who has co-authored books on northern gardening. AND yellow lady slippers! http://www.ambergategardens.com/

Dundee Nursery (on 55 going west towards Buffalo): Nice selection, easy parking, has a good variety of pots, outdoor garden art and a good staff to help.

Sam Kedem's (south of Hastings): If you are into roses, this is the place to go. Carries Buck roses. kedemroses.com

Orion Farms (Waverly): Roses again. Very good selection of hardy, shrub, rogosa, Canadian and Buck roses.

Eidelweiss (Duluth): Just go there and you will be sold on Magnolias, azaleas, rhodys and other magnificent plants, and wonderful display gardens.

Wagner's (Richfield): Great container and hanging plants.

Tatanka Gardens (Buffalo): Breezed through there in a hurry but they had a little bit of everything.

Gray's Gardens: Just a cool place to check out! and, a fun website. They landscape very upscale homes around Minnetonka and are fun to visit with.

Farmington Greenhouse (Farmington): Nice selection of bedding plants.

Bergmann's Greenhouses & Farm Market (Stillwater): Lots of unusual bedding plants and tons of bird feeders, houses, etc.

Thompson's out on cty 9 headed to Rockford

Because I travel throughout MN for my job, I get to see and search out all the great greenhouses/nurseries. I know there are tons more in the metro area and of course Bachmann's, Lyndale Garden Center and others but these are some of the mom & pop places I love!

HAVE FUN!!!!

Thanks this is great!

I also like Highland Nursery on West 7th Street a block east of the Lexington intersection in St. Paul because they have more unusual things and it's very pleasant to walk around. It's much larger than it looks like from the street!

I love Funky Gardens in Prescott, Wisconsin. They own a whole square block in a residential neigborhood. Their house is turn of the century with an old carriage house they use for the business. Nice, friendly folks. Lots of perenials.
Address is 618 Pearl St., Prescott. Telephone - (715) 262-5593.

Tania

I went today to Funky Gardens for the first time. They have a great selection of hard to find plants. For example, I don't know any garden center in the Twin Cities that has martagon lilies. Funky Gardens had 8 varieties to select from, all potted up and growing. I also bought a variegated Japanese fairy bell, Disporum 'Cricket'. A Google search gave only one other sourse, which is a mail order only nursery in New Jersey. It was quite amazing to actually see plants that I have only seen in pictures.

Here is a link that might be useful: Funkie Gardens

Landscape Alternatives off of Laurpenter? in St Paul just down the road (east) from Linders is a great local place for buying local natve plants. They have very healthy strong plants!
This is a grea post- I can't wait to visit some of your favorites listed here!
Julie

A couple that I don't think have been mentioned are

Phillips Nursery (on cedar and about 25th in south minneapolis)

Lilydale Nursery off 52 in Lilydale

Phillips is fun and has lots of interesting plants I don't see anywhere else.
They're especially good at having plants in unusual colors that aren't usually offered. They also have a good selection of seldom seen annual plants in packs. They have good prices too.

Lilydale has lots of native plants and a great hosta selection. The prices are maybe a little high but the plants are very healthy.

I also like highland nursery. It's been a favorite for a long time. (If you go in june make sure you take a peek at the front yard garden across from the burger king down seventh street. It's a pretty small yard--about 20x20-- but the lady there must have 500 huge oriental poppies crammed in there it's unbelievably cool to see it right in the city! I've even made special trips to show it to friends a few times..)

Birdwing,

Much to my disappointment and I would guess yours Phillips garden is no longer selling plants. They have decided to specialize in landscaping.

I really like Malmborg's in Brooklyn Center (there is one in Rogers too...but I prefer BC). They have sales on small perennials a lot!

Where is Busse's in Elk River? I've heard them mentioned before. Are they spendy?

Kristy :)

Today we went to Brewery Creek Farm Market out Hwy 169 between Jordan and Belle Plaine. They have 270 varieties of tomatoes alone! One two-sided row was just for the small cherry-type tomatoes. It was hard to limit myself or I'd have had enough for the whole neighborhood. Plus over 200 kinds of peppers - over 100 types of hot ones. Many heirloom plants - both tomato and annuals. Lots of interesting annuals - some I had only heard about. There herb greenhouse was a dream! It is definitely worth the trip and you can always have lunch later at Emma Krumbees. We will definitely be going back.

Here is a link that might be useful: Brewery Creek Farm Market

Pahl's is another south of the metro goodie. Apple Valley - quarter mile east of Cedar on 160th Street. I think KARE ranked them one of the best local greenhouses last year in one of their Extras.

Steve

I just discovered Lyndale Garden Center off of Hwy 62 in Richfield. They have a huge selection of starter plants for $1.99--perennials, annuals, herbs, vegies. Since I'm a relatively new gardener, and I'm still trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, I hesitate to shell out $8 to $15 for plants.

I used to go to Highland Nursery, but have decided to take a break from them for a while. I got frustrated by the number of times I bought plants labelled one thing that turned out to be another.

Another nice place to go is Leitner's on Randolph in St. Paul. They're very friendly and helpful.

That's too bad about phillip's I was wondering if they were going to be able to make enough money to stay open..I tried to tell everyone I know!

I went to Highland yesterday. some of their stuff is really pricey, especially some of the bigger perrennials, but they have tons of great and interesting stuff. Someone above was talking about martagon lillies; Highland has a white one(which I want) and a pink one. They are $19.99 though so I'm going to see if I can find one for less in a catalog because I think they look best in groups...

Lynde's in Maple Grove has great prices and very nice plants! I am surprised noone else mentioned them. I got most of my annuals there.

birdwing,

I drove by Philip's Gardens last week and they look like their landscaping buisness is going strong. I didn't have time to stop by to talk to them then. Maybe they just didn't have time for the retail part of the buisness.

I don't live near there anymore so don't drive by everyday like I used to. A couple years ago one of the guys that worked there came to a party at my (new ) house with a friend of mine. I was so nervous to have him see my garden! Any way I 'm sure they will be fine doing the landscaping thing...

Also I wanted to add my little "review" of Tangletown. It really is beautiful. I'll never go there on a weekend again though. It was SOO crowded and cramped in that little space. People there were very helpful though and I remembered the guy from highland (who I guess used to be one of the owners there who now owns TT) He in particular was very helpful and knowledgeable. Other people tried to be, but didn't seem to know too much about the plants. I think they must have a lot of extra help on the weekends.

They did have beautiful plants but I don't think they are any better than Highland.

I went somewhere else that I've never been. Larson's nursery in Lilydale. They have an interesting selection and their plants seem really healthy and huge. In particular I bought some giant morning glories that already had opened. I was able to plant them on my front porch trellises and soon will have blooming morning glories. I usually have to wait till july for that when I start my own seeds!

I said Larson's was in Lilydale, It's not. It's Mendota basically hwy 13 and 110, I think.

It's a little bit of an odd place & easy to miss but they have great plants & most big pot perennials are 8.00 and giant...Also always something unusual that I haven't seen elsewhere.

Whispering Gardens in Woodbury South 19 to 70th east is a little, unknown, quiet place with some unusual perennials and fairly high prices but worth a look.

This might be a little out of the way but Prarie Moon Nursery in Winona has a beautiful seed catalog and a great website.

i just visited 'uncommon ground' on lyndale avenue today. i thought they had some beautiful and unique things. a few memorable things were the corkscrew grass, miniature plants for rock gardens or planters, and beautiful handblown? glass hummingbird feeders. i was after prairie smoke/guem triflorum and found it there. went home with a patchouli plant as well. i am just starting to get around to the garden centers, so i really have nothing to compare this one to, it's not huge, but seemed to have a nice variety of your not so run of the mill stuff in a smaller area. as far as prices, i thought they were reasonable if you are looking for a couple special plants, but again i have nothing to compare it to and i am pretty thrifty in my gardening and usually start things from seed, so anything over $4.00 seems like a lot to me. the staff were also very helpful and friendly. i am excited to visit some of the other nurseries mentioned in this thread!

If you ever take that beautiful drive along the Wisconsin side of Lake Pepin be sure to stop by Stockholm Gardens in Stockholm, WI. They have wonderful display gardens and always an interesting variety of well-priced, healthy plants. We make at least one trip there a year and always come back with the pickup loaded with plants, usually including some new discoveries. This spring I asked about a plant (Veronicastrum 'Fascination') that they didn't have out for sale and they happily dug some out of their own garden for me!

Fantastic Thread! I've been in Wisconsin now for many years but always make an annual trek back to the TC. I'm printing out this whole thread and will be sure to hit a few of these places. Thank goodness my non-gardening friends who I'm staying with have to go to work during the day!

...The last post in this thread was in 2005...does Kelley & Kelley still exist? I haven't been there since 2006, and they don't have a website.