Nursery Visit: Sky Nursery Seattle

What do plant nerds do the day after the Northwest Flower and Garden Show? Visit nurseries, of course. Since I had yet to really explore any nurseries in the Seattle area it was an eye-opening experience for me. In this post I will give you a tour of Sky Nursery, a very large operation in Shoreline, north of Seattle. This was one of three nurseries visited, the other two, Molbak's and Ravenna Gardens will be covered in later posts.

Sky Nursery started out in 1953 selling mostly farm supplies; customers could dig out plants from the ground if they wanted them...could you imagine doing that today? It is still owned by the same family, the Landrys, the four-acre site is now full of garden products. This place is enormous.

The entrance. I think I ran in.

So far so good...a little color and a huge welcome sign.

Once inside I could see we would be here a while.

Plenty of mason bee supplies. It was very pleasing to see that they are being promoted in this part of the world, too.

Plenty of hummingbird supplies. 

I can't recall having visited a place with more containers than this up to this point. Here are just a few.

Blues, turquoise, yellow. Tall, textured, swirled.

Greens, browns, neutrals, jumbo, square, round.

Metallic, patterned, short, tall.

Beautiful greens. There were many many more in a rainbow of colors. I was quite impressed with the selection.

 Did I mention this place is huge?

Now on to plants in the enormous greenhouse showroom. My colleague Gina and I especially loved this area and these signs. What a lovely way to categorize plants.

There were large groupings of genera.

There were also large seasonal displays.

Great variety, too.

There was a decent section for natives.

The place was so huge I felt quite lost at times and had to physically run around to find my colleagues. We never really did just "bump into" one another.

The Epimedium table looking quite fresh.

Small displays capped the ends of larger table displays, often with interesting garden artworks.

Detail of the lanterns pictured above.

Little out-building vignettes are sprinkled throughout. This had some suet feeders for birds, shrubs, firewood and a rustic feel.

 A pine cone garland and bird feeder round out the feel of this rustic vignette.

Now to go outside. Yes, it continues. This is where the trees and shrubs are located. The four greenhouse peaks to the rear left of the photo are where we have been up to now.

A really full selection. I got lost out there but did manage to find my persimmon tree. Yay!

Inside a few more miscellaneous surprises. This bench was fantastic, I think the price point was $600.

Another rustic outbuilding...and again, good displays.

A little more garden art.

And garden cats and dogs.

Garden birds of all feather - duck, crow, owl, sparrow....wow, I've never seen so many all at once.

Of course birdbaths, a decent selection. 

And fishies.

And...hedgehogs, of course. Don't all garden centers carry hedgehog art?

A few other details round out the selection. Of course, there were terrarium-making materials, candles and orchids.

Nice selection of rain chains. I do get asked about these more than you would think at the nursery. It's difficult to find good ones.

Yay! You know I love any place that offers worms for sale.

Inside the house plant greenhouse. Yes, they have one of those too.

Amazing light and airiness in this space.

Some of the more tender outdoor plants are also kept here.

Bonsai!

Philodendron 'Xanadu'. I really like the leaf shape of this one.

See what I mean about the airiness? Fantastic light in this nursery.

When we left this nursery, I asked my colleagues to state three things they did not like about this nursery and three things they do really well. The answers were varied but we were all generally on the same page. What we didn't embrace was that it sometimes felt too big. Maybe it was the gargantuan greenhouses and vertical volume, but even with all those plants it felt empty. Maybe if they filled some of the vertical space with...I don't know, giant orbs or something? We weren't greeted by anyone nor asked if we had any questions or if we were looking for anything in particular. While that may not bug everyone, it is a common courtesy in retail. For me, the fact that they carry Roundup and other similar products is a negative. The positives? It was clean, well-organized with good displays and wonderful signage, a good selection (ok, an overwhelming selection which can work against a store), they also have a coffee shop. The wooden tables used for plant displays are attractive. They had so many items, it is definitely a place to shop if you have some free time or need a good gift for a gardener. They also represented a lot of beneficial products for habitat, i.e., mason bees, hummingbird supplies, worms, etc., along with their native plant selection. Definitely a destination garden center to look to for inspiration and it offers just about anything you need from a gardening perspective.

They have more than what is pictured here, of course. They have bulk materials -- that is to say soil, compost, amendments, gravel and the like, as well as delivery and container planting services. They also have events, such as the Prune-A-Thon happening this Saturday the 5th of March. Check their website for more details on any of these services.

Overall it is a fantastic nursery that I would likely spend a lot of money in if I lived close by. As it was, I walked away with a persimmon tree which I was very happy to find.

That's it for this week at Chickadee Gardens, until next time, thank you for reading and happy gardening!