Wow! I want to go to NYC now.
I want to go back, preferably with permission to import whatever the hell I like into the UK!! It was pure torture knowing I could not buy anything.
Did they have any cold hardy palm trees?
I live in Chelsea in Manhattan, and i came across your very interesting blog today while searching for information on an exotic plant. I noticed this post describing our "flower district".
I live three or four blocks from the street you describe, where plants are sold during the work week, mostly wholesale (for decorators, party companies, hotels, business and institutions). While I myself do occasionally purchase both live plants and the pots I place on my very fortunate roof terrace, most of what I have brought home over the last ten years I've purchased at the Union Square Greenmarket about a mile away, where there are colorful tented and open-air booths belonging to a dozen or so wonderful local farmer/retailers who set set up their wares on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
There are dozens of other markets scattered throughout the City, in all the boroughs, and they can be accessed by people who live near them. I would definitely say that New Yorkers generally get both their live cut flowers and their indoor and outdoor plants for their "community gardens, balconies, conservatories, windowsills and actual proper back gardens" from these sources rather than from the merchants on 28th Street.
This is especially true since that street/"district" has begun to shrink in the face of real estate pressures during the same period that the greenmarkets have totally taken off, as a source for food as well as a destination for selecting flowers or plants.
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