Just Opened

City Planter

by Liz Tung

Tue.-Sun., 10 a.m.-6 p.m., 814 N. Fourth St., 215-287-0090, cityplanter.com

Wedged in alongside Honey's and just down the block from the Random Tea Room, City Planter fits right in on NoLibs' rustic-chic Fourth Street. Boasting a polished selection of planters, greenery and garden ornaments, the store caters to those with a tasteful-but-quirky take on domesticity. Under the influence of owners Mary Costello and Peter Smith (who have spent the last 20 years running a gardening business in Chestnut Hill), City Planter looks more like a gallery than a gardening store. The space, which was rehabbed from a gutted seltzer warehouse, is narrow but spacious, with 17-foot ceilings and massive domed skylights. Exposed brick walls hint at the building's past life as a stable.

The idea, Smith says, was to create a store that would cater to the limitations of city life. Costello adds, "Our job as gardeners has always been to help people translate their style to the outdoors. In an urban setting, it's a smaller scale, so the details become much more important." For their less DIY-inclined customers, they keep an assortment of cards for gardeners, designers and landscapers on hand.