There are plenty of orchids, decorative pots and garden accessories available at the Delray Garden Center.
Robert Glynn with one of the five macaws that have found a home at the garden center.
Classic landscape materials like this stunning hibiscus are available.
The garden center also offers non-traditional plants like this yesterday, today, tomorrow —
known for the blooms’ progression from small bud to lavish color
and then fading to a pale shade before falling off.
Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley
In 1988, Robert Glynn bought over 4½ acres of land along West Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach. Here he opened a little sod stand.
“We started the business when Delray was nothing. As the town grew, we grew with it,” says Glynn, who owns what today is the Delray Garden Center.
Come wander through two acres of gardens he developed over the years using bits and pieces he had left over from landscaping job sites. “It’s a mosh posh that just adds to the garden effect,” he says.
Today the old sod shack is a funky gift shop featuring wind chimes, glazed pots and garden art.
Near it stands a 4,000-square-foot shade house filled with fishtail palms, bamboo, variegated ginger, medinilla with its hanging pink flowers, the red leaves of the cordylines and more.
Follow the brick path under the vine-covered archway and you’ll enter an area rife with blooms.
There are red, pink, orange, white and salmon hibiscus; butterfly-attracting species such as dwarf fire bush, Mexican petunia and cassias; blooming raspberry Knockout roses; the vibrant purple flowers of the tibouchina; and a happy looking yesterday, today, tomorrow.
“It’s all about showing the customers what can be done,” says Glynn. “People come in with blinders on, and we try to open up their eyes and educate them.”
Walk east and you’ll find a holding area for what Glynn calls his “bulletproof plants.” These are the heartier varieties such as podocarpus, liriope, foxtail ferns, crotons and bougainvillea that he uses on many of his landscaping projects.
“When customers tell me they want something I know isn’t going to work in our climate, I tell them. I don’t want to come back six months later and see a lot of dead plants,” he says.
Wander back toward the parking lot through one of the older areas of the garden that’s shaded by plenty of towering palms including reclinata, coconut, Chinese fan and robellini. A manmade waterfall has added its gentle flow to this garden for 18 years and is now home to waving papyrus and plenty of ferns.
Here, too, is a small hut where you’ll find Brandon Hawkins. He’s in charge of turning pieces of driftwood into works of art.
For the past 14 years, two fishermen have collected the wood in North Florida and Louisiana. After it’s delivered by the trailer truckload, Hawkins selects his pieces and then tucks bromeliads, orchids, bits of moss and tillandsia into their natural nooks and crannies.
Make an event of your garden visit by bringing lunch. There are mosaic tables and cement benches with blue umbrellas set under a strangler fig that is holding a eucalyptus hostage. That tree has been here from the beginning. But early on, Glynn planted oaks, royal palms and poincianas that provide plenty of canopy.
Don’t be surprised if you see people dressed in medical uniforms with stethoscopes draped around their necks sitting at a nearby table. They are the staff from the dental office next door. A gate connects the office to the gardens so that staff can enjoy a break and patients can relax before or after a taxing dental procedure.
On weekends, you’ll probably be entertained by Carlos, Pedro, Cracker, Candy and Sanchez, colorful macaws that rule the gardens and endear themselves to kids.
Back in the parking lot, first-time customer James McGinnis of Boca Raton loads his red dwarf ixora into the trunk of his car. “This place is bigger and better than I expected. I got these plants I couldn’t find anywhere else,” he says.
Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley is a certified master gardener who can be reached at debhartz@att.net when she’s not in her garden.
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