A vision of an urban homestead is taking hold in what was once a ramshackle commercial building on a side street not far from downtown Fort Worth.
The grounds hold a table for a fledgling organic farmers market. Barred Plymouth Rock chickens cluck near large beds of organically grown vegetables and flowers. Rows of plants fill the grassy aisles of the outdoor retail nursery.
This is Elizabeth Anna's Old World Garden, one of the off-the-beaten path retail nurseries in Tarrant County.
Owner Elizabeth Anna Samudio's path to her shop was a rocky one.
Shortly after being diagnosed with inoperable cervical cancer in 2002, Ms. Samudio was told she had to leave her small nursery in a Fort Worth shopping center that was filling up with large chain stores.
"I was still physically sick when I took it on, but I was excited, passionate," says Ms. Samudio, 45.
She and her husband, James, detoxed the land with ample sprayings of compost tea and organic soil amendments. Nursery stocks of native and well-adapted plants were delivered. Beds were established to grow squash blossoms, lemon cucumbers, arugula and other vegetables and flowers for Fort Worth restaurants. A plan to host an organic farmers market took root earlier this year
"I couldn't find enough organic sellers," Ms. Samudio says. "So I asked my customers, 'If I teach you to grow will you sell at my market?' "
Cancer, she says, taught her to focus less on her destination and more on her journey.
"It reinforced to me that gardening is not about performance. It's the process that is rewarding," says Ms. Samudio.
Her 2 Hands vegetable gardening program for urbanites drew 70 participants, most of them novice gardeners. Participants receive consultations, compost tea and discounted products in return for donating a portion of their crops to the 2 Hands market. The first markets started last spring and are expected to continue next spring.
In the meantime, visitors to Elizabeth Anna's can visit with the shop cat that rubs against their legs, watch the shop chickens scratch for bugs and browse among nursery stock, including a supply of hardy Buck roses.
More than five years out from her diagnosis, Ms. Samudio is planning on building a residential loft above the shop and cementing her future, a green one on the little homestead she is creating in the city.
Tim's Landscape
When Tim Doogs set out to create a retail garden shop four years ago in Benbrook, he didn't stop with simply stocking it with plants. The long-time Benbrook landscaper turned the grounds into a park-like certified wildlife habitat, with three ponds and a stream. He installed an 8-foot-tall pink flamingo by the driveway and erected a tepee, just for fun.
These days Mr. Doogs is busy converting 200-year-old church organ pipes into a waterfall. He's stocking up on garden-decor oddities such as a cast-iron horse once used as a child's swing and a collection of cypress knees, the gnarled and knobby woody projections of the swamp-dwelling tree. Next, he's planning to put in a Japanese garden on land he purchased next to his organic nursery.
Two retail greenhouses at Tim's hold native and near-native plants, most of them grown within 100 miles of his nursery. "I want to sell things that are grown locally. That way they already are acclimated. If you get shipments in from California you don't know if they'll adapt," Mr. Doogs says.
The nursery is known for stocking sturdy landscaping selections, including hardy native grasses. Yet Mr. Doogs also is willing to reach to the edge of the North Texas gardening zone and sell plants such as his favored drought-tolerant, yellow-blooming bird of paradise ( Caesalpinia gilliesii) tree, perennial in Zone 8a and warmer.
His stock is small, but like him, often surprising.
Home to Garden
Some years back, Mark Criswell earned a living mowing lawns in Fort Worth. These days he is designing tropical landscapes on golf courses, planting pots for Neiman Marcus and stocking an eclectic nursery with plants and garden goods that are hard to find anywhere else.
His shop, Home to Garden, was nothing more than a tiny, rundown house when he bought it 10 years ago. He transformed the property with a street-side planting of desert willow, Mexican feather grass and a monster agave now 5 feet high. A weathervane depicting a brass grasshopper went up on the roof. Broken tile and mirror make a mosaic around the front door. A shed in back was converted to a succulent house made homey by bent willow furniture on a pea gravel rug.
His small stock of unusual plants changes frequently. "I don't want a big parking lot full of plants," Mr. Criswell says.
You may find the houseplant known as the artillery plant (Pilea microphylla) or the loquat oak (Quercus rhizophylla), typically found in areas with warmer winters.
Buying plants is one reason to visit. Getting design ideas is another. Stroll through the grounds now and you'll see pots of succulents mulched with mirrored discs or bright turquoise rocks.
The garden shop is an ever-changing mix of old and new. The owner sells works by local artists, test tube vases are shelved near tall, hand-blown vessels in shades of citrine and aqua and gently tinted capiz-shell strands hang in windows framed in reclaimed ornamental casings.
"It reminds me of a place you'd find in Austin," says manager Katie Stewart.
Green Mama's Organic Garden Center
When Dan Ross started gardening organically, his parents took note.
"Everything just grew so well. Flowers seemed to put on more blooms," recalls his mother, Cyndee Ross.
Cyndee and Doug Ross, a former corporate pilot, were so impressed that they bought Green Mama's Organic Garden Center in North Richland Hills when it went on the market four years ago. Their son and daughter also work at the garden center.
Green Mama's is known for its collection of uncommon plants, including Carolina buckthorn (Rhamnus caroliniana), Mexican plum, Eve's necklace (Sophora affinis) and other trees that do well in North Texas. The nursery also carries supplies for ponds and fountains, natural pet food and wild bird seed, including Green Mama's own "Ain't Gonna Sprout" label that prevents spilled seed from germinating.
Education on the region's plants and landscaping techniques is a big thrust at Green Mama's. Free classes, listed on the store's Web site, usually are held at 11 a.m. on Saturdays.
Archie's Gardenland
Seventy-four years ago, N.E. Archie, Sr. started a landscaping business in North Texas.
Mr. Archie loved to plant trees.
His grandson, Rick Archie, and great-grandson, Randall, still run Archie's Gardenland in Fort Worth, continuing the long-standing nursery and landscaping business from a low-slung, retro-style building the family bought in 1952.
Archie's has expanded its scope over the years. Its nursery carries a large selection of bedding and landscaping plants plus a greenhouse full of orchids, bromeliads and other exotic tropical plants.
Topiaries, including leafy giraffes, horses and monkeys, are part of the collection of garden gifts.
Weston Gardens in Bloom
The last time Randy and Sue Weston stocked vegetable starts, 24 years ago, they went unsold. "We had to throw them out. Finally we quit carrying vegetables," Mrs. Weston says.
This year the couple started raising organic vegetable transplants to sell, and customer response now is a vastly different story.
"More people tell us they care about the quality of their food," says Mrs. Weston. "They want to raise it themselves."
The nursery also carries freeze cloth, a lightweight material that protects hardy cold-weather vegetables and ornamentals when a freeze is forecast.
Weston Gardens is known for its 4-acre setting that belonged to an abandoned estate. The couple restored the gardens and uses them as demonstration gardens. Its specialties are native and drought-tolerant plants, antique roses and ornamental grasses.
