Sunshine Nursery

(map) This isn’t your typical chain-store nursery, with plants marching along in rigid rows. This place is like visiting a park where you get to pick the flowers. Huge, ancient live oaks provide plenty of shade while you meander along the stone-lined paths. Here and there are fountains and garden benches, fairies and gnomes. The staff here is incredibly knowledgeable – some have actual degrees in horticulture. They’re like Google for plants. They have a lot of experience with native Texas plants and know what appeals to deer and what doesn’t.

Nothing tastes as good as a home-grown, vine-ripened tomato, so we were shopping for tomato plants. Sunshine has 24 different varieties, including hardy heirlooms. And they can tell you all about each one.

Colorful character Rico is the resident macaw. He's 18, and quite the chatterbox.

Sunshine is a local place that’s been around since 1976, so they’re obviously doing something right. They also carry Lady Bug soils from the Natural Gardener, just the right stuff for our new tomato plants.

Sunshine Nursery website