The best plant nurseries and plant shops in Sydney

This indoor plant boutique tucked into a corner terrace in Newtown is your go-to for hard-to-find fronds, handmade pots and plant accessories from local artists, and novice-friendly advice to help you keep your plant babies alive and thriving. “We're a local small business run by locals, for locals,” says Trent. “Our philosophy is, if we wouldn't like to have this item in our home or to use it ourselves, we would never recommend it to a customer. We only want the highest quality, environmentally conscious and naturally made products.”

Our favourite? We love the "Smooth Criminal Garden" – a handmade succulent garden that makes for the perfect gift.

Deliveries? Plant Daddy offers free delivery for all orders over $120. Monday and Friday orders are hand delivered around Sydney (within a 25km radius of the store). Cut off for next day delivery is 5pm. They also offer courier shipping to all states except WA, NT and TAS due to their quarantine laws. 

This is a mega-market for plant hunters. They have all the supplies, soils and accessories you need alongside native and exotic seedlings, fruit and veg starters, and full grown trees. The prices are also lower than most bigger nurseries and at the Mascot outpost there’s an on-site café for injecting caffeine into your botanical excursion. 

Our favourite? The Chinese Star Jasmine will transform your garden into a fragrant haven every spring.

Deliveries? Flower Power has 11 locations across NSW, and they all offer delivery. You can check out the ins and outs on their website.

This tiny shopfront on a corner opposite the National Art School packs a lot of lush greenery into very limited space. The savvy use of footpath and tight interior demonstrate just how much jungle you can fit into inner-city abodes and it’s hard to resist wanting to replicate the store’s set-up in your bedroom. The range of indoor and outdoor plants is extensive, but curated, and the personable service makes this a confident purchase point for tentative gardeners without a garden. It’s also perfect for last minute gifts, with tasteful ceramic pots and a focus on low-fuss indoor leaves.

Our favourite? This place gets top marks for friendliness, so all plants here get our vote. 

Deliveries? The shop is currently open Thu-Fri from 10am-5pm and Sat-Sun from 10am-3pm. Visit in-person to place your order or call 02 9361 4786.

On the posher end of the neighbourhood nursery scale, Garden Life is all about landscaping with an aesthetic edge. The pots, water features and ornamental accoutrements here are beautiful and, if you can afford it, you could be sashaying through an IRL lifestyle magazine shoot in your own home. It's the perfect place to pick up that camera-ready monstera deliciosa for the corner of the lounge room or find a cool antique brass planter for that plastic-clad cactus you’ve been ignoring in your yard. Garden Life also has design and installation services so you can skip the hard yakka and pay them to stylishly spiff up your garden without lifting a thumb.

Our favourite? The range of "indoor and shady" plants are perfect for brightening up a corner of your home that doesn't get too much sunlight.

Delivery? Garden Life uses third party couriers to deliver plants Australia-wide. You can check out the online store here for more info.

This cute block of greenery in the tiny urban village of Annandale has been supplying locals with plant smarts and goods since 1980. Head to this garden centre for a huge range of indoor and outdoor plants and a variety of endangered and rare species from around the country. They've also been featured on a Catalyst episode about the importance of bees, so you know they know their stuff.

Our favourite? The super rare varieties (sourced from across Australia) set this place apart.

Deliveries? The shop is open seven days from 9am-5pm where you can visit in-person to organise deliveries, or call them on 02 9660 0874.

Though Heathcote is stretching it in terms of ‘Sydney’, this May Gibbs wonderland is worth a potter around if you’re ever in the area. The grounds of this native plant purveyor have an enchanted bush vibe and it’s the perfect place to pick up some wattle, kangaroo paw or banksia and start building the Snugglepot and Cuddlepie habitat of your dreams. The Sydney Wildflower folk also specialise in bush foods and can give you advice on growing native ingredients at home.

Our favourite? The stunning golden banksias get our vote.

Deliveries? The nursery can arrange mail order deliveries far and wide. Just check out the stocklist on the website and send the team an email. 

This nursery’s cartoon butterfly-adorned walls are hard to miss if you’re driving through St Peters, and beyond the mascot’s euphoric glare lies a thriving selection of flowering pots, seedlings and healthy full-grown plants. Butterfly Blooms is a family run business and the staff boast over 30 years of experience in advising the plant lovers of Sydney. It’s also only an eight-minute walk from Sydenham Station, so if you’re car-less this is a great place to pick up a transportable succulent or bonsai from their extensive range and carry it home on the train.

Our favourite? The orchids here are magnificent.

Deliveries? The nursery is open seven days from 8am-5pm and arranging orders and deliveries over the phone. Check out their website, or give them a call on 02 9557 5995.

If you're not local to Campbelltown, Tim’s is worth the drive for entertainment alone. This nursery has a resident pig statue that sits out the front and shares its thoughts on a giant sign for passers by to enjoy. Tim Pickles is the ‘Tim’ of this horticultural marketplace and he plies the public with his own specialty magic potting mix and even has a signature breed of fruit fly resistant tomato you can nab seedlings of. Plants come in great batch deals and the selections are divided into zones for perusing with ease.

Our favourite? Our favourite thing about Tim's Garden Centre might be its Instagram presence – follow for heart-warming content.

Deliveries? This nursery is open seven days. Call them on 02 4626 7022 or visit their website for more information on what's on offer, and whether they can do deliveries for you. 

This tiny pocket of a nursery shows that size doesn't matter when it comes to quality. Newtown Garden Market embrace their truncated size and even proudly display the tagline "little oasis in a big city" on their website to prove it. Smaller is better in this instance because the plant display here gets a more overgrown and lush quality, like shopping in a pocket jungle. There are plants over your head, plants below you, and plants joyfully popping out of the walls at you compelling you to take them home. 

Our favourite? The plant pot selection here is second to none.

Deliveries? This store is open seven days a week for pick-up orders and deliveries. Give them a call on 02 9516 4044 or order online here.

Located in both Turramurra and Mosman, the Honeysuckle nurseries are certainly doing something right as they collect just about as many industry awards as they have plants. The business has been running in some incarnation since 1977 so you know you’re in good hands when enquiring about the longevity of your new green acquisition. They have a great range of species and a section with the most chic ‘luxury hoses’ we’ve ever encountered. 

Our favourite? They offer a great selection of fragrant plants, if you want to add a floral aroma to your home and/ or outdoor space.

Deliveries? Honeysuckle Garden offers local deliveries, with quotes available for deliveries further afield. Find out more on the website.

Eden Gardens is a nursery, florist, café, family play area and sculpture park spread over several hectares. The fenced play area features a beehive cubby house, and the display gardens feature waterfalls, archways and bridges. A popular venue for weddings and events, Eden Gardens offers services for green thumbs including a plant doctor, backyard briefing, plant ID check-ups and soil testing. They host workshops on topics such as flower arranging, terrariums and kokodamas, and an annual sculpture show.

Our favourite? We don't have a favourite plant, but our favourite menu item from the on-site café has to be the warming seafood stew – the perfect feed to fuel you for a big day of gardening.

Deliveries? Eden Gardens has partnered with Gro Urban Oasis for online orders. We'd suggest heading instore for the full experience.

Sophia Kaplan and Lauren Camilleri are on a mission to make plant giving easy and more accessible with their simple online shop, Leaf Supply. The two green-thumbed friends came together over their love of monstera deliciosa and begonia and decided to go into business together, launching a plant delivery service with new plant varieties and 'sexy' pots available each month.

Our favourite? Throw in a copy of the Leaf Supply book with your order, and you'll learn all there is to know about caring for your plants.

Deliveries? The team delivers to most parts of Sydney, Monday to Friday. Shipping is free for orders over $150 or $10 otherwise. Find out more on their website.