Garden Centres
Large No. 5 Road nursery with an unexpectedly deep range of indoor, outdoor and tropical plants along with pots, soil and gardening supplies. It opens at 8:30 each morning, which suits gardeners who want to shop before the heat.
No. 5 Road is unlike anywhere else in the Lower Mainland. The eastern edge of Richmond runs through farmland and greenhouses, past a long line of temples, churches and mosques on the stretch people call the Highway to Heaven, and it makes for a genuinely odd and pleasant drive. A large nursery belongs out here. This one at 7609 carries a deeper range of indoor, outdoor and tropical plants than the address suggests, along with pots, soil and the rest of the supplies.
Opening at 8:30 each morning is the detail to build a trip around. Gardening in July means getting the work done before the heat, and an early start lets you buy, plant and water in the same morning rather than leaving a tray of bedding plants in a hot car until two in the afternoon. Early is also when the benches look their best, before a Saturday crowd has picked through them.
East Richmond stays agricultural because the Agricultural Land Reserve holds it that way. That is why you can be among towers and ten minutes later be standing beside a blueberry field, which is not a transition most cities offer.
Tropical and indoor stock changes constantly with whatever has come in. Browsing suits this place better than arriving with a fixed list. Driving is the only sensible way out here, and bringing a car you do not mind getting soil into matters rather more than usual.
In the Shellmont neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other garden centres and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
Plant nursery on No. 5 Road in Richmond's farm belt that is far bigger inside than it looks from the road. Indoor, outdoor and tropical plants, vases and gardening supplies, with staff who help match a plant to the room it is going in.
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Destination nursery on No. 6 Road in east Richmond known for unusual perennials, edibles and rare plants you will not find at a big box. It runs plant workshops and mail order, and is open daily through the growing season.
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Family greenhouse operation on No. 2 Road near Steveston that grows about 90 percent of what it sells across roughly 25,000 square feet of glass. Best known for hanging baskets, geraniums and bedding plants, plus bulbs in fall.
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Steveston garden center on No. 1 Road with a strong perennial, annual and ornamental grass selection, plus containers, garden statuary and giftware. Its hanging baskets pull in shoppers from well beyond Richmond each spring.
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Larger-than-average flower shop on No. 5 Road in east Richmond with a big cooler and long daily hours. Worth the drive for volume orders such as funerals, banquets and Lunar New Year, and for staff who walk you through the options.
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Family practice on Blundell Road near Garden City, weekdays only and entirely in person rather than by telehealth. Also handles driver's medical exams, Pap tests and diagnostic imaging, with non-MSP walk-in appointments available.
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