Nursery Review: Alexander Farm Market

Alexander, like our last reviewed nursery, Blocks, is distinguished by decent prices (for the most part) and quality of product.  They are not nearly as large, but perhaps because they are a bit more out of the way for most in metro Detroit (but pretty much easy to get to from most of greater SE Michigan), they tend to be ready and waiting for the customer a bit longer.  As a smaller operation, they tend to take longer to get everything up and running, but this year they exploded onto the scene within their opening week with almost everything laid out.  They certainly do an excellent job at presentation.

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Scratch that... they have some of the finest nursery displays I have seen anywhere in the industry.  Greenhouses four and five are a feast for the senses. 

Aside from the sheer beauty, they have a friendly, helpful staff who can tell you everything you need to know about making their products thrive.  If the staff and the selection of merchandise is any indication, Alexander Farm Market is run by gardeners who like beautiful and vigorous plants.  Why?  Because they practically give away their flowers and veggies, yet they are plants which of the same quality would qualify as premium offerings at many other nurseries.  Here you will find heirloom and rare varieties of vegetables, a huge selection of perennials, and flats upon flats of more types of annuals than you can imagine. 

Seriously, this is just a slice of the buffet.  Go see for yourself ASAP!

Picture your typical gardening dictionary, and you are likely to find everything and anything from it here.  That's right, this is a small, basically mom-and-pop operation, yet it makes Bordine's look small in terms of variety.  My only wish for them is that they start getting a native plant section going, but I would not be surprised if that is right around the corner; they improve noticeably every year I go there.

Even when the plants start to run out, there is still every reason to come visit for the fresh produce from local farms and their own home grown corn, picked daily.  Once they start opening the produce store on site, the place turns into a rival for the best farmer's markets of the region.  I could gush on and on...

For the novice, Alexander combines both an extensive variety in a very local, non-threatening small scale atmosphere.  You will find stuff to try here that will be more than suitable for most area gardens, but you will also have many options that will invite, rather than dissuade, you to dive in even deeper.

For the experienced green thumb, this is the place to get really crazy with perennials for a very obvious reason... wait for it...

They offer starter perennials at 99 cents.  That's right, 99 cents.  We're talking everything from coneflowers to lupines to lobelias and then some.  Yeah, they start out small, but by the end of the season they are positively huge and the following year, for an investment of around 20 dollars, you can have a garden that looks like you poured gold into the making thereof.  They rotate the stock too, so that every new year you are going to find new things to grow.  The same goes for their cells of annuals, which run 1.09 for four plants, or for their veggies which run a little bit more.  This year I encountered all the coolest heirloom varieties I figured I could only get by seed from the mail order places like Baker Creek.  They even sell flats of corn.  Corn!  Sorry, but I think that's fantastic. 

This is not to say that they don't have high end offerings either.  Do you want designer 70 dollar peonies?  They have those, and at a fraction of the cost that you would find them at big box garden centers.  They have bananas, cannas, variety pots, and even moderately priced faerie garden crap, which I will probably find a new love for with a niece on the way, meaning I will be sucked in even further into this awesome place. 

Just go pay them a visit, and bring as little as ten bucks, even though you will easily want to spend thirty and have to dig a whole new garden bed.  The downside to them is that you will wish you had spent over a hundred once you get home.  Yep, I love this place just that much.  OK, so the real downside is that the parking can be a pain in the behind on a busy day; don't bring a massive truck or try to come during the dead of the afternoon on a weekday.

Alexander Farm Market is located off of US 23 just north of Ann Arbor, off of Whitmore Lake rd, which is a left turn off of North Territorial which exits off the freeway.  Head west on North Territorial to the first light, which is said road.  Alexander is a few hundred feet down the next left, but you can't miss it for the giant sign at the corner.

Best time to visit: Now! Why aren't you there yet?

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