New Retail Garden Center Opens in CWE
Please do not buy plants at Home Depot. Preferably, don’t buy anything at Home Depot or the new Lowe’s when it opens in Loughborough Commons. I would be thrilled to see both of these big box chains close their St. Louis area stores due to everyone shopping at locally owned stores instead. But, I’m getting sidetracked on a big box rant. This is a positive post!
A very cool looking new garden center has just opened in the West End at 4605 Olive:
Bowood Farms has been growing quality plants since 1989, specializing in perennials, roses, ferns, groundcovers, grasses, shrubs and vines. We have an extensive line of missouri native plants as well. Now we are bringing these quality plants directly to you so please come check out our new St. Louis retail garden center when it opens this spring. Please call for hours and directions. We can also special grow native plants for you landscape projects, please call to inquire.
4605 Olive St.
St. Louis, MO 63108
Telephone: (314)454-6868
This company is making a huge investment in the area. They’ve done a great job with the buildings so far and they are planning more, including a cafe. From hellmuth+bicknese architects:
The project is being designed as a destination point featuring a central street side cafe with a terrace overlooking the plant displays. A high loggia surrounds the open-air displays with an upper gallery beneath a green roof. The cafe itself contains a bar and seating area with 14′ ceilings and views to the plant displays through a green screen archway. The inside seating area is around 860 SF with an outdoor terraced seating area of 1,200 SF.
The cafe are is still under construction but the retail garden center is open for business.
St. Louis City and County are dotted with other locally owned retail garden centers such as Bayer’s on Hampton. I’ve also bought plants at the place on the NE corner of Watson & Fyler (I always forget the name). I think the South Side Garden Center is still open on Cherokee at Compton. Even if you are not in the city you most likely have a locally owned nursery near you home. Some are small but others can be quite big and offer a larger selection than the big box places.
So back to Bowood.
The building is located on Olive just East of Euclid. But, if you are going there by car don’t take Euclid because you can’t get through. The streets in this area have been blockaded for years.
At one time these concrete barriers may have made sense but today they stand in the way of investment marching through areas where it is needed. A few places, like Bowood, have leapt over the barriers but the area still has the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ feel. Take them away, or at least move them a block or two every few years.
– Steve
That place is way cool! I would be shopping there right now if I hadn’t … well, you know.
And — those barrier have GOT TO GO. They send all the wrong messages and kill the vitality (past and potential) of the area.
I’ll need to check them out this weekend!
Watson and Fyler hosts Colors of Spring.
[REPLY – Yes, Colors of Spring! Love that place too because they really, well, packs lots of color there in the spring. – SLP]
Barriers are everywhere and they’re pissing me off. I was trying to show some family members the new Gaslight Square and couldn’t get to the end of it from Grand. Heading back to Lindell was out because I came across more barriers. I just gave up. I tried to drive through the new McRee Town area and felt like a rat in a maze. Gave up there, too.
If neighborhoods want streets blocked, do my tax dollars go toward upkeep of those streets? If so, why? I can’t use the streets. Does the neighborhood pay for all the street/lighting maintenance?
Back to the new plant business: It looks great. I was watching the upgrades last summer and wondered what it was going to be. I can’t wait for the cafe to open.
The new garden center does look great–I’ve been watching it come together as I take my daughter to and from school. I can’t wait for the cafe to open! and I keep hoping to see the old Sinclair station get some love. My husband’s grandfather did a lot of those back in the 30’s.
The only good the barriers on Olive and Washington serve is to provide some break in traffic so that kids can play more safely. Just the other day, I noticed that a group of boys had set up a basketball court on the Olive side of triangle. With the redevelopment of Kennedy Park (triangle at Olive and Washington, just west of the garden center)into a functional playground (construction to start in the Fall, if I recall correctly) that’s an important consideration.
However, if we want to foster all of the new development on Olive, we need to make them easier to access without going through areas that most St. Louisans deem to be “scary”. Take out the barriers on one street–Washington would get my vote.
all of this talk about the street barriers makes me happy to be a scooterist… ZOOM! right through those assinine things! hahaha!
yeah, Brian, I tried that on my bicycle the other day and nearly killed one of the aforementioned basketballers who suddenly swerved in my way. Got another skinned knee out of that one …
Lowes and Home Depot have some good prices. Some stuff they sell is not of good quality–like some of their lumber. But if you stay away from those things you can really save some cash.
Brian, will you still be a happy scooterist when you get hit by my chinese food leftovers as I drive by?
**Brian, will you still be a happy scooterist when you get hit by my chinese food leftovers as I drive by? **
What the heck does that mean?
Would you still be a happy motorist when I pick them up and throw them back in the window like I did to the woman that tossed out a giant milkshake-like thing at the intersection of Kighshighway and Oakland? Or like when I threw back in the lit cigarette butt at the same location last summer?
Some of us are capable of watching where we are going and thus avoid near-mises with playing children. Others would also be responsible enough to teach their children not to play in the street.
Don’t mind Craig. He’s just an ass.
Believe me, Brian, the last guy on a scooter that got hit by my leftovers (it was Italian food)was in no shape to get up and throw them back at me.
I love that stretch of Olive. It has soo much potential. Driving down it, you can sense what it must have once been like. I would love it if someone developed on of those old theaters to host concerts, events, etc…