The nursery that almost became condos

This week the Palm Beach Post ran a story about us — “SmartyPlants’ new owners to modernize longtime Lake Worth nursery” — covering the $5.2 million sale of this two-acre corner of North Dixie Highway and what we have planned for it. It’s a good piece, and we’re grateful for the coverage. But there’s a part of this story we want to tell in our own words.

Because the headline could have been very different. It could have read: “Longtime Lake Worth Beach nursery sold to developers.”

What almost happened here

Two acres of land on North Dixie Highway, minutes from downtown and the beach, is exactly the kind of parcel that gets snapped up, cleared, and stacked into condos. When word got around in 2025 that the nursery’s longtime owners were looking to retire and sell, that was the future most people assumed was coming. The rumors wrote themselves: another beloved local spot making way for another tall building.

We bought the land — not just the business — specifically so that couldn’t happen. On July 10, our company closed on the full two-acre site for $5.2 million, and we purchased the SmartyPlants business from its retiring owners, Paul Harding and Marta Edwards, alongside it. Owning the dirt under the nursery is the whole point: nobody can develop it out from under the plants, because the people who own it are the people running the nursery.

We’re Ryan Boylston and Ed Mileto — two hobby gardeners who had known and loved this place for years. When we learned it might go away, we spent more than a year working with the property’s owner, Virginia Palhof, and with Paul and Marta to make sure it wouldn’t. This corner of Lake Worth Beach will stay green — for good.

What we’re building instead of a building

Saving the nursery was step one. Step two is opening it up. As we told the Post: we both loved this place, but nine out of ten people didn’t know it was here. That’s changing.

The plant palette has already grown dramatically. With our partners at Urban Abundance now based on the property, we’ve moved in more than 1,000 edible plants and 300 to 400 fruit trees — spinach, herbs, tea and medicinal plants, mangos, avocados — things this nursery never sold before, all non-GMO and organically raised.

Café Tico, our coffee shop, opens Saturday, July 18. Coco Market’s garden-set Coco Mini series is already here, with yoga, vendors, live music, and drop-in classes on gardening and growing your own food. And yes — weddings, parties, and community gatherings are coming to the garden too.

We’ve also made the quieter changes that make a nursery feel welcoming. Our full inventory is now published online with prices — hundreds of ferns, succulents, shrubs, flowers, seeds, tools, and decor — and we’ve rethought the pricing itself, which, as the Post put it, used to lean a little more toward the island crowd. We’ve been reaching out to garden clubs across Palm Beach County for the first time in the nursery’s history. This place is for backyard gardeners everywhere, not just collectors.

The same soul, more open doors

None of this changes what SmartyPlants is. Paul and Marta built something rare here, and our job is stewardship as much as it is growth. The shade houses, the wandering paths, the free advice — all staying. What’s new is simply more reasons for more people to discover it: a coffee in hand, a yoga mat under the trees, a mango sapling in the wagon.

So thank you to the Post for telling the story, to Paul, Marta, and Virginia for trusting us with it, and to everyone who’s stopped by since June to say some version of “I’m so glad it’s not condos.” Us too. Come see what two acres of saved green space looks like.

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