New York City Edition

Gardening in NYC

I recently visited a friend who lives in New York. This friend ---whom, for purposes of this story, I’m going to call Philip (Hi Philip!)---lives and works in The City that Never Sleeps. 

Proving the veracity of this statement he woke me up early---crack of dawn early-- Monday morning to drive me across the city to show me the Chelsea Flower Market.

Philip at the Flower Market

The Chelsea Flower Market is an amazing street full of wholesale flowers and plants, but be wary! The only prices you will see posted are for the very limited parking and it is $27 for the first half hour. And no, I am not kidding, $27. For 30 minutes.

Roses of every color
That's me in the pink shirt

The flowers are sold in bunches, when you inquire as to the prices they will either recognize you on sight or look you up in the computer before answering. I watched my very talented friend navigate these procedures and when he was given an answer ($4) I thought ‘Oh, that’s not bad, it’s wholesale after all.’ What I didn’t realize is that you have to buy the bunch--10 stems—and the price is PER STEM. Yikes. $40 wholesale. But, then again, it’s cheaper than an hour’s-worth of parking.

You make your choices, lay them on a rack, then move on to the next shop while they wrap your purchases in plain brown paper.  Philip was hunting for “modern” flowers, so no roses---even though they had roses in every possible shade imaginable---no peonies, daffodils, etc. Instead he chose pale blush colored tube-roses---tall and spiky; lots of green things that I don’t know the name of but they looked like blobs of lime green moss on a stem---sort of like flowers by Dr. Seuss. He chose orchid colored water lilies, and several bunches of feathery, spiky grasses---it was all very modern.

Said and done we got out of there for just under $500. Not counting the parking.

There were even dried roses in EVERY color combination you can imagine .
And some that should have never been imagined...
For the love of ----WHY???!!!