Looking for places that are different, not real expensive, natives, hummingbird plants...I love scruffy backyard nurseries as well as the places with gorgeous displays.

How about the pick-your-owns?

I love Rare Find Nursery; great people, nice selection, and they have a great sale in late summer. If you're not alrady on their e-mail list, sign up for that now so you don't miss anything. Just now I'm drawing a blank as to any others that meet the criteria you listed above, but if any come to mind I'll be back to post them.

For starters, just a few miles from Rare Find (didn't you
say "not real expensive" ?) is one of my backbone nurseries
called Cicconi Farms. . .although they've gone a little more "upscale" in recent years, they have retained one of their long-time treasures: quart-sized starters for about
$2.75 each (less in quantity) of virtually hundreds of
different perennials - and those smaller starters are full-sized plants by the end of the season without you're having
to pay full-sized prices! Interesting tidbit: these folks
also sell wholesale, and I know a LOT of area nurseries
that buy the quart sizes from them and then pot-them-up into gallons so you can pay four and five times as much!

If you check their web-site (below) and click on "Availability", you'll find an exhaustive PDF listing of
everything they have (NOTE: their much larger Spring listing isn't there yet, but at least looking now you'll see the various sizes and the range of their offerings).
And those quart-sized plants are all out in the hoop-houses
where you have to wander about collecting them on your own
(don't worry, it's "roughly" alphabetical) - the staff can be very helpful in the retail operation up front, but the
most fun is trolling the hoop-houses at your leisure and
unearthing relatively cheap tresures. . . Full directions
to the nursery are available on their web site. . .

Carl

P.S. What exactly do you mean by "pick-your-own"? For
fruits and vegetables? 'Cause I also belong to an
organic farm co-op (in Mercer County) and can
probably give you every farm stand/pick-your own
with-in 50 miles ! Told you I was certifiable. . .

The program is accelerated and insanely paced, so I'll have a 7 to 10 day window between semesters to do all my planting in early May... can't afford to get too much, though, it'll die in the pots for lack of care.

Pick your own - fruits and vegetables, sure. I'd pick raspberries last fall at Van Thuns, I think it was, in S. Brunswick. Very relaxing. And there was a little farmstand on 522 just north of Jamesburg that was fun, but not for lingering.

I'm probably just going to LOOK at Rare Find this year ;)

Sickles Market in Little Silver
Dearborn Market in Holmdel
Colonial Nursery in Lincroft
Barlow's in Sea Girt
Middletown Garden Center in Middletown
Guaranteed Plants and Florist in Locust (Middletown township)
Forcellati's in Wall
Brock Farms in Colts Neck and Freehold
Littlebrook Farm Herbs in Howell Township
Dutch and Olga's on Rt 36 in Hazlet (haven't been)
Capelli's in Middletown (off of Rt. 35)
Gasko's in Monroe.

There are small nurseries up and down Rt. 35 south of Belmar and also some north of Middletown, I always mean to stop in, but I haven't.

There is a u-pick berry (raspberries and blackberries) farm behind Delicious Orchards on Rt. 34 in Colts Neck. Eastmont Orchards on Rt. 537 in Colts Neck has u-pick apples and peaches, ususlly starting in July.

Carl

My husband got me a county atlas for my birthday, so I can explore! Little did he know it would lead to him having to dig holes in May ;)

There is another one on Sunset Ave, just east of Rt. 35 in Ocean Township.

A lot of the smaller places are only open during the summer months, most open by Mother's Day.