Beacon Gardens
82 Osterville-West Barnstable Rd., Osterville 774-361-6619
Set on two acres on Osterville-West Barnstable Road, recently refurbished Beacon Gardens is a welcome bastion of lush greenery and flowering plants set amid beautifully restored greenhouses and manicured paths. Three glorious Armstrong maple trees greet you at the entrance and it only gets better from there. “We have a different concept of a nursery,” says management team member Rob Zindman. “We want customers to be able to walk through here and say, oh, I like that, or I can imagine this at my house.” The welcome mat is always out at Beacon Gardens.“ The idea is we want people to feel free to come in for their daily walks and browse our curated gardens.”
Customer service and the health and happiness of their plants are paramount, and it shows. Each flower, tree, shrub and houseplant is perfect and every customer important.“You’re never going to walk into another place that has this level of customer service.” Zindman adds.
Owner Jeffrey Kaschuluk learned about good customer service when he was 10 years old. He worked at a neighbor’s farm stand and made enough money in his first year to buy a ten-speed bike. With a background in landscape design and construction, Beacon Gardens was a natural fit for Kaschuluk. A nod to Kaschuluk’s humble beginnings is Beacon Garden’s farm stand featuring locally sourced produce from across the Cape. The farm stand is slated to be expanded in the near future.
He credits students from Barnstable High School with the restoration of the grounds. “They worked so hard all summer watering, pruning. This place required a lot of work and a group of 16-year-olds made this place what it is. These kids – I should say, men and women – crushed it.”
“The big word here is ‘restore’”, Zindman continues. “We’re just getting started. Looking ahead, we may offer outdoor workouts, yoga, talks about beekeeping and more. I tell people all the time, come in to Beacon Gardens and take a walk. “ It’s a beautiful garden.”
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Mahoney’s Garden Center 2929 Falmouth Rd., Osterville
Open year-round.
Located at the corner of Route 28 and Osterville-West Barnstable Rd, Mahoney’s Garden Center is an Osterville landmark. Known Cape-wide for its premium plants and services, Mahoney’s Rocky Ledge, as it was first known, opened in Winchester, Mass. in 1959. A family owned business, Mahoney’s today boasts seven locations in the state.
Mahoney’s is a full-service garden center offering a gamut of inventory from large evergreens and deciduous trees to a vast selection of orchids, cacti and succulents. Whether you are a finicky rosarian or just like messing about in the vegetable patch, Mahoney’s has you covered. Osterville location general manager David Carpinella has worked at the Osterville location since 2017.
“We’re the place to shop for everything gardening and landscaping,” he says. “We not only offer what you would expect to find at a garden center, but we have unique plants as well.”
While gardening has long been a popular pastime for many, Carpinella notes a surprising trend among his clientele today. “Plants and gardening are slowly gaining in popularity among young adults,” he says.“The trend is definitely on the rise.” To satisfy these budding hobbyists as well as long-time plant lovers, Mahoney’s has one of the largest collections of flowering, foliar and tropical plants available on the Cape. They offer advice on how to care for all their plants and will work in-store with clients to design garden space.
Mahoney’s grows many of their annuals at their own facility in Woburn, Mass. “We grow a variety of annuals, including geraniums, mums and hanging baskets,” says Carpinella. “This means excellent quality control. We also grow most of our Christmas trees on a tree farm in Nova Scotia,” he continues. “That way we can provide the freshest trees because we cut them much later than most tree farms.”
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Flora 1245 Main St., Osterville Open year-round. 7 days a week in the summer.
Located just outside the village on Main Street at the rear of Amie Bakery, Flora opened in June 2020 during the pandemic. Owner Karen Metois and her assistant Amanda Pickering were concerned but happily surprised. “This community really loves having a flower shop and have been very supportive” says Metois. Flora specializes in weddings (on- and off-Cape), offers floral arrangements for everyday or special occasions and events. They also provide a myriad of other services such as working with clients to choose plants for their homes, providing plant maintenance, and decorating homes for the holidays. In 2021 they plan to host in-the-shop, among-the-flowers events, workshops and baby and wedding showers, often in collaboration with Amie Bakery.
Flora is an exquisite, light-filled shop where visitors are welcome
to observe magic in bloom. “People like to come in and watch
us work creating arrangements,” notes Pickering who adds that
personal service and attention to detail is the emphasis of what
Flora does. “We will go to the market and choose flowers based on the client’s color scheme. We’ll often send the client pictures as we shop and welcome their input.”She adds. “We hand pick every flower.”
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Foraged Floral of Cape Cod 23 Wianno Ave., Osterville
Open for delivery year-round.
When Linda Stella retired after 30 years of teaching elementary school students, she returned to one of her earliest passions: flowers. Linda is the owner of Foraged Floral of Cape Cod, a beautiful and inviting shop centrally located in the village on Wianno Ave. She runs the shop with her daughter Steph and a team of talented staff. The ambiance is a little old world, a little Cape Cod, and incredibly unique. Opened in 2017, Foraged Floral was originally located in West Barnstable and relocated to Osterville last year. “We love being here. We’re members of the community and really community based,” notes Stella. Foraged Floral specialize in flowers for daily delivery, sympathy and private events.
A passionate commitment to the environment is this business’s hallmark. “Most of our flowers are sourced locally from a variety of different small farms. “If we cannot purchase locally, it’s sourced from within the US. We are really committed to mak-ing sure our footprint is small. We compost all our greens each week. Most people don’t realize florists produce a lot of green waste. Putting that in landfills is deplorable. It’s organic product that composts over the course of a year,” explains Steph.
In 2020 Foraged Floral ventured into retail and began carrying the goods of local vendors. In addition to being able to walk in and order floral arrangements shoppers may purchase candles, jewelry, unique paper products, vintage items, fun signs and more. Gift baskets featuring fruit, cheese and snacks mixed with beautiful blooms are especially popular. House plants are also available. “But only the cool ones!” laughs Linda Stella.
article by Lisa Sheehy
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