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Frank Di Piazza
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Frank Di Piazza
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Frank Di Piazza
You would be forgiven if, driving by Garden Heights Nursery (1605 S. Big Bend, 314-645-7333, gardenheights.com), you imagined it to be part nursery, part pottery shop. Outside of the store are hundreds of giant pots stacked in colorful columns, and even more are inside.
“We probably have the best selection of pottery in St. Louis,” says owner Louis D’Agrosa. As he points out, people mostly garden for aesthetic reasons, so the pots are almost as important as what’s in them.
With a background in landscaping and a degree in horticulture from the University of Missouri–Columbia, Mr. D’Agrosa approaches gardening with an artistic eye. He opened Garden Heights 15 years ago to provide a quality garden center in the central corridor and “inspire [gardeners] while they’re here.”
How does he provide that inspiration? “You’re going to find more unusual things at Garden Heights than you would at a regular nursery,” he says. “We carry, of course, the tried-and-true annuals and perennials. But we [also] carry things that are brand-new on the market and new in the industry.” This spring, for instance, the shop is featuring vertical plant hangers: “You put them on your wall and it’s like a living picture. So you can actually have a kitchen garden of herbs on your wall.”
Also featured this spring is the ‘Vanilla Strawberry’ hydrangea, a new variety whose flowers gradually turn from pink to white and is hardy enough to handle St. Louis’ weather changes. If you have the touch of death with plants, Garden Heights’ blog (gardenheights.com/blog) is a good resource, with tips on everything. For the gardener who has an entire yard to arrange, Garden Heights offers landscaping services. If you want to get rid of those plastic plant trays, the nursery will send them to the Missouri Botanical Garden for recycling.
Mr. D’Agrosa values recycling: The old Chrysler truck in front of the store once belonged to a friend’s father. “It doesn’t run, so we had to load it on a trailer, and it was quite an ordeal to get it. But it’s been fun, and we plant it up seasonally,” he says. With the hood and trunk both being planted this spring, it is the greenest car on Big Bend.
