Without Saul Nadler, I would still be landscaping out of the back of my Honda Civic.

When I met Saul Nadler, I had a small landscaping company and a dream of opening my own nursery. I have since learned that most landscapers dream of opening their own nursery. My nursery might have stayed a fantasy forever, had I not met Saul.

I wish we had some pictures of what Saul and Susie’s garden looked like when I arrived. It was a steep up-slope, hard to even walk on. He just wanted to change a few things. A little pruning. Maybe add some veggies. In the end, we slowly replaced just about everything, dug out yards and yards of soil, and planted what was at the time the most beautiful garden I had ever designed.

As soon as I began working with Saul and his then-girlfriend Susie, it instantly became clear that something magical was happening. They were delighted. They were obsessed. They were in love with their garden.

After working on the garden together for several months, Saul asked if I wanted a business partner. Saul is a classically trained French Chef with a degree in Russian History.  He was looking for something new and different to do. Eventually, we agreed we would open a nursery together if we could find a location. Within just a few weeks, we had purchased The Palm Broker, a run-down funky palm tree nursery on Guerrero Street in SF. Is it too cheesy to say, “and the rest is history?”

Neither of us had ever worked at a nursery. Neither of us had ever worked at any store. Neither of us had ever taken a single plant ID class, or any class on any garden topic. We just hopped in. Saul is a really, really smart guy.  He is an incredibly hard-working guy. I often say that I know a thing or two about what is pretty, and Saul handles everything else.

So why then, is it called Flora Grubb Gardens? Because Saul says nobody would want to shop at “Saul Nadler Gardens.”

I bless the day I met Saul Nadler.

We are currently featuring art by Spy Emerson. Spy, besides being an astoundingly prolific artist, is the lady friend of my little brother Moses. Together, Moses and Spy perform and make art, and earlier this year were part of the crew for the  Swimming Cities of Serenissima . The project was living art, designed by New York artist SWOON, and executed by 30 individual artists. The crew build boats that defy description and sailed them on the Adriatic Sea, eventually crashing the Venice Biennale by water. This winter, Spy and Moses will curate a show at the Anonymous Gallery in New York.

I am thrilled to be part of the team designing a garden for the first completely off-the-grid building in the city of San Francisco. The building will serve as headquarters for Literacy for Environmental Justice. LEJ is a coalition of youth, educators, and community leaders addressing the ecological and health concerns of Bayview / Hunters Point and the surrounding communities of southeast San Francisco.

I will post some pictures of the design soon, and let you know how you can volunteer to get involved with this fantastic project.

Come and get your pumpkins, and check out the garden in its Indian Summer Glory.

We were delighted when the amazing folks who run the Boys and Girls Club Willie Mays Clubhouse asked for our help in getting their edible schoolyard garden up and running. Jim Kumiega the merchandising manager here at FGG, has spent many years involved with community gardens as a coordinator and city-wide organizer, so I knew he would be just the guy for the job. Jim has helped the club plan the garden, and with donations from our store and others, the garden will have its grand opening on Oct. 17.

For more information, tickets or sponsorships contact:
Sheila Steinberg, Special Events Manager at 415-445-5418
or ssteinberg@kidsclub.org

If you did not make it to the Tiny Shed Challenge event, Inhabit did a nice piece on it you can see here.

We are experimenting with offering flower arrangements using cuttings from our growers and neighbors.

Isn't this lovely?

Look at the raw material before we transformed it into bouquets.

Those are mostly palm flowerstalks.

Here are a couple more beautiful arrangements:

We love to cut our favorite dry-growing plants to enjoy indoors.

Can you guess which type of succulent is binding these stems?

We hope you will come visit the store in the next few days to let us know what you think of the designs.

The baristas at Ritual get to look at this between espresso shots.

The raw materials can be stunning displayed on their own.

We designed and installed a vertical garden  for Shotwell, a boutique in on Grant Avenue near Sutter Street in Union Square. Go and check it out if you are downtown.

The garden was installed by our own Liam Supple.

Kevin made a new vertical Tillandsia garden (we call it a thigmotrope) that is hanging at the Ritual Coffee Roasters on Valencia  Street here in San Francisco.

This garden was the prototype for the installation we did for the Bardessono Hotel. You can read more about it here. Here is the installation at the Bardessono.

Bardessono Hotel Vertical Tillandsia Garden

My buddies at  Boor/Bridges have put together a program for the Architecture and the City Festival about sheds that we will be hosting here at Flora Grubb Gardens. Seth Boor has become fixated on designing perfect, tiny,  sustainable, off-the-grid buildings that are sized to fall under the SF Building Department’s definition of small sheds (which do  not require a permit).

If you are getting vision of really cute little reading rooms or potting sheds, I must tell you that Seth has let me see designs for some of his still-top-secret sheds and they are way beyond what you might imagine. Please consider joining us if you have a dream of adding a little bit of living space by building in your back yard, and be prepared to be amazed by the possibilities.

Sunday Sept. 27 11am: here at Flora Grubb Gardens

$15 AIA members | $25 nonmembers