Plants for sale at Lillian Farms.

Like most gardeners in my area, I’m still mourning the 2019 closing of our favorite garden center after 89 great years. (Its closing is reported here.) And lately I’ve turned to its former employees for this blog post and followed another to his new gig at the Air and Space Museum.  

I live just 10 minutes from that beloved garden center, where I used to wander the aisles and chat up its employees all the time.  Now, it’s a 40+ minute drive to the closest garden center, so I don’t go often. 

But finally and happily I discovered a new nursery/art store just 10 minutes away – Lillian Farms. It opened last November and seems to be thriving.

Signage in front of Lillian Farms, in a residential neighborhood.

I visited and to my surprise, found it on a strictly residential street. I wondered how it ever get approved and a clue to the answer is the “farm” part of name – because urban farms are allowed by right in our county.  And in order for the nursery to have a retail component, most of the plants sold there have to be grown on site. Good to know! Fortunately the neighbors of Lillian Farms been very supportive, anyway.  (The cynic in me is doubting that residents of a more upscale neighborhood would been so happy about it.)

A one-of-a-kind business

Floral arrangements and art for sale at Lillian Farms.

Plants sold at Lillian Farms – perennials, shrubs and trees – are mostly natives, and mostly grown on site. Plants can be bought in person or online for pick-up or delivery.

That’s not all. There are also dried flower arrangements, art and jewelry by local artists. (Two artists rent studio space there, too.) And there are workshops and lectures about painting birdhouses, flower-pressing frame, foraging, mindful gardening, increasing biodiversity with native plants, so far.

Meet Kellie Cox

If you’re wondering who’s behind this fun and creative new business venture, it’s the work and vision of someone with surprisingly long roots in the gardening world, for such a young woman. I took a deep dive by phone to find out what skills and experience proprietor Kellie Cox is bringing to this little shop and nursery.

It helps to know that her mother owned a dried and fresh floral business, so plant-related entrepreneurship is very familiar to her. She’s also passionate about painting and with Lillian Farms she can combine both loves in one business that sells plants and art and supports local artists. She described the store to me as “somewhere peaceful for people to come.” 

Then suddenly my interview with her took a turn and our horticultural connections became clear. As a high school student in the Wilmington, Delaware area she worked at the local garden center – Gateway Gardens, established by Steve Castorani, who’s well known in the plant world as a pioneer in growing and selling native plants. (He also owns the wholesale North Creek Nursery and established the successful American Beauties brand of North American natives. In a recent phone talk with Steve on another topic – coming soon to this blog – he remembered her well and commended her artistic talents.) 

So at the impressionable age of 14, Kellie was working at a pretty special place, where she “fell in love with it,” in her words. She then studied landscape horticulture and plant sciences at the University of Delaware, where she learned a lot from its connections with the amazing public gardens in the area, like Winterthur and Longwood Gardens.

After college she found work in the plant business, including managing a wholesale green-roof nursery in Upstate NY, where she drove a tractor, and “did the whole thing.”  She then moved on to working on museum gardens, including Dumbarton Oaks and her more recent gig as head of grounds at Tudor Place in Washington, D.C. My garden-writer friend Charlotte Germane worked with Kellie at Tudor Place and wrote to tell me “Kellie is so talented as both a painter and a horticulturist. Lovely person, too.”

I probably know a dozen more people who know Kellie as a horticulturist, grower or designer. It’s a small world here in the Mid-Atlantic hotbed of horticulture.

But to complete her story to date, six years ago she had her first daughter and decided to stop being an employee and start her own business – which she did, with Strawberry Fields Landscape Design and Millie Farms, not far away. And now with Lillian Farms, she’s expanded.

I just love seeing young women – especially young mothers – as kickass businesswomen! Especially if they’re pursuing values that I support, as in this case. So I’m blogging about her on my local blog for potential customers to read and here, where I can at least give Lillian Farms some Google juice!

Photo of Kellie with her daughters by Shannon Ritter Photography