YOUNGSVILLE, N.Y. – Tucked away in Youngsville is a greenhouse so packed with plants there’s barely space to walk through. Sylvie Wise, owner of Little Snail Nursery, peers into her nursery draped with dozens of hanging potted plants.
Wise opened Little Snail Nursery in May after noticing pockets of Sullivan County lacked a nearby local plant nursery.
“Everything here is perennial and hardy to our zone, meaning that nothing that you purchase here will die at the end of the season. In theory, you only have to buy [or] make your garden once, although it’s a never-ending project,” said Wise.
Having grown up in Florida, Wise had always spent a lot of time outdoors with big plants and animals. But it wasn’t until she spent years working in the horticultural industry – wholesaling and growing plants at a garden center in Brooklyn – that her love for tending to plants really clicked.
Now, Wise focuses primarily on offering a wide variety of native perennial plants at her shop, a gap for the area, she says. “I don’t sell any annuals because you can get that around here.”
Her greenhouse is home to dozens of unique indoor plants, like fragrant vanilla orchids, aphelandras, deep red fuschia bromeliads, and several pothos varieties. Wise carries many outdoor plants as well, including foxgloves – a customer favorite for ‘deer-proofing’ their garden.
“Probably 70, maybe 80 percent of the plants I have are native to the Northeast or North American in general,” said Wise. “It’s really exciting.”
Wise says it was with the help of her community that she was really able to get Little Snail off the ground. The week before she opened the nursery, she called on her neighbors to help her get the space ready for the public.
For plant newbies, Wise suggests to just get started. “I kill plants all the time. It is okay,” she says. “It makes me so sad when people come and they kind of bashfully [say], ‘I don’t have a green thumb. I don’t know what I’m doing.’ It’s like, girl, it’s okay.”
You can find Little Snail Nursery at 278 Mengues Road in Youngsville, New York. They are open from Friday to Monday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. On Saturdays, you can find them at the Livingston Manor Farmer’s Market from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., then at the nursery from 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Image: Sylvie Wise, owner of Little Snail Nursery, and a four-legged friend in Youngsville, New York (Photo Credit: Kimberly Izar)