Flo's Gardens: Growing With Brooklyn for 20 Years

Sponsored By Flo's Gardens

The founders of Flo's Gardens have worked their magic on gardens and decks for clients from Park Slope to Brooklyn Heights and Manhattan.

Created By Brownstoner

Florence Sheers and Cecilia Kuhn started Flo’s Gardens in 2004. Both have pedigrees that lend themselves to their business: Florence grew up with her father’s nursery, Cecilia studied architecture in college.

Both of them are from France, and yet both find inspiration in English, not French, gardens. “French gardens are very formal and organized,” said Cecilia, “but English gardens are loose and organic in feel and shape.”

Florence says that a well-planted English garden should have interest all year round, and that’s what Flo’s Gardens has been doing for customers for nearly 20 years.

They do adhere to French formalism and organization principles when it comes to business. When taking on a project they first ask clients about their lifestyle: What’s the family makeup? Young children? Teenagers? Do they like entertaining?

“Then we discuss the style of our client’s house to reach a good harmony between the garden and the house,” said Cecilia.

And thirdly they consider light exposure, which brings us to shade — the bane of many Brooklynites with a garden.

In fact, many clients come to Flo’s when an old garden needs replanting because of trees that have overgrown and created shade, limiting the choice of flowers. “We inherit a lot of gardens that were planted previously with the wrong horticulture,” said Florence.

Much “wrong horticulture” occurs on roof decks, where plants usually bathe in sun but also endure a lot of wind. Up there, plants have to be hardy. Grasses, penstemon, sedums, creeping phloxes, catnip, and geranium Rozanne (their favorite) do well.

“Rooftop areas freeze quickly and we have to deal with drastic variations of temperatures, ” said Cecilia.

Sudden changes in temperature are not limited to rooftops. Over the last 20 years the pair have been adjusting their tactics due to climate change. “The change of weather has been challenging,” said Florence. “We have to figure out the horticulture accordingly to rising temperatures.”

Brooklyn itself has always been a place of variation and movement, with neighborhoods evolving, the pandemic bringing new people in, and others scattering to the country. With remote work, gardens are leaned on more heavily now than ever to be spaces for more than solace.

“It makes it interesting for us, dealing with various expectations, various types of gardens,” said Florence. “Running this business has been tremendously satisfying — creating gardens and maintaining them, nurturing them, and witnessing their evolution and maturation, some of them for 20 years!”

For more information go to Flo’s Gardens.

[Photos via Flo’s Gardens]