please help me find a quality garden center

I hope someone here can help me. I want to send my sister-in-law, Mary, a sizable gift certificate from a very nice garden center. We live in Illinois and for several years she bore most of the burden of helping my husband's aging father in Federal Way, Washington. He passed away last Fall and we would like to send a nice gift to Mary to thank her for those years. Her children are finally all in college or working and now she has time to do the gardening she has been wanting to do for some time.

She does a lot of container gardening and has some shrub borders, and some newly started flower borders.

I would like to find a really nice garden center which would have quality plants and also a nice selection of containers and other garden supplies in pleasant surroundings. You know, the kind of place that you go to for an afternoon because it's so pretty and relaxing and the plants are great. We had one out here (which unfortunately closed a couple of years ago) that had demonstration gardens that were gorgeous, excellent quality plants (a little pricey but worth it) and a sweet little tea house where you could have a cup of tea or coffee and a cookie etc. Sigh...I miss it. there are a couple of others that are very nice but none have quite the charm that one had.

But, I digress.

Anyway, Mary lives in Kent. I have tried looking on the internet but didn't find much information. The only website I found that looked interesting was Magnolia Garden center in Seattle but I don't know if that would be too far away and I'd like to hear some real "eyewitness" reports from folks out there.

Any suggestions?

Can anyone help me?

Molbak's, in Woodinville (25 or 30 minutes away without traffice) is a widely known garden center destination in the area. And Flowerworld, a few minutes away from that is an up-and-coming garden center with all the variety, a nice park, and some good prices.

A group from this forum is going out to Kingston Washington (a 25 minute drive up the freeway, 30 minute ferry ride and then 10 minute drive - so about an hour and a half from Kent) to Dragonfly Farms Nursery for a tour by the owner, Heidi (cattledogs on this forum). There is a thread on the forum from late last summer of a trip with lots of pictures of Heidi's place.

Unfortunately I don't know much about the south-end and the nurseries there. Hopefully someone can help you find a good garden center. I do have friends who live in Kent and will e-mail them and post if they know of anything.

It's a lovely thing you're doing!!

What a nice gesture on your part and I'm sure she'll be thrilled to be acknowledged.

Using a Kent zip code search on Dave's very own "Go Gardening" feature shows these results.
http://davesgarden.com/products/go/advanced.php?zip_distance=25&zip=98031&state=wa&country=XX&type=gardencenters&search_text=&sorter=distance&submit=Search
I have only been to Carpinito Brothers once, but it is chockful of many container plants, all supplies needed for gardening, bulk soils/amendments and a fairly large assortment of landscaping plants to suit just about anyone. I can't speak to how rare any of their stuff is, but there is a lot to choose from.

Big Dipper Farms has great hostas and quite a few rarer plants. Their display stuff is nothing fancy to look at, but they do have high quality products and cater to the mail order business. Pretty drive to get there.

Hayes and Squak Mountain both have a pretty broad selection of both plants and trees, more hanging planter or container plants at Squak Mountain. I have used both for years and like them.

That's a start. Sorry I don't know more about places further south. Someone will!

Magnolia Garden Center, hm? Yes, it is nice, but quite small, and very inconvenient for someone from Kent.

Seems to me from Kent you either need to go a little further south to someplace good in Tacoma (i'm clueless-Pixydish or Rachierabbit would know what to suggest down that way, although Big Dipper does have cool plants.)

But as far as "wow" factor, and our own Katye's very favorite-and she really knows her plants, there's always Wells Medina, in Bellevue-it's in one of the poshest areas around (close to Bill Gate's mansion, in fact) but has fabulous plant selection and yet prices that aren't completely outrageous (according to Katye, and I think she'd know). So, I think that she would definitely feel "treated" with a gift certificate from there. (I sure would, anyhow!)

http://www.wellsmedinanursery.com/about.aspx?n=165157

There used to be the original Fuerney's on Hwy 99 close to Kent. I don't know if it is still there, but it was good.

thanks for the help. I've been looking at some of your suggestions and also checked out the "Go Gardening" section. I have several possibilities now. Now I don't know how I'll decide. Happy Spring everyone!

Good luck - and stop in again sometime!!

I enjoy shopping at Windmill Gardens in Sumner which would be fairly local to Federal Way. They have a lovely display garden as well which looks great at this time of the year. http://www.windmillgarden.com/

Looks like they have lots of fun stuff!!

Chris,
What a lovely gift to give your sister-in-law! You should give her a subscription to DG as well and she can meet all of us wacky PNW DG'rs!

I grew up in the Auburn/Kent Valley and now live in Olympia so I know the area quite well. I would recommend a gift certificate from Windmill Gardens in Sumner (Suzyq gave the link in her previous post) or Watson's Nursery in Puyallup http://www.watsonsgreenhouse.com/. We have alot of great nurseries in the area that have great plants. The nice thing about both Windmill and Watson's is that they have amazing display gardens, well stocked & good selection of plants and darling garden cafes. I must admit that Watson's is my favorite of the two but Windmill does run a close second! Hope the information is helpful. Rachel

Wow! Watson's and Windmill both look great. Just what I'm looking for. Now...how to decide...

Thanks for all the help!

PS I think it's also a great idea to give a subscription to Dave's garden. I will do that for sure.