One-on-One with Dimitri Gatanas

Dimitri Gatanas is the man at the helm of Urban Garden Center (www.urbangardennyc.com) in New York City. Being hemmed in by skyscrapers hasn't stopped him or his customers from greening up their spaces. Gatanas said both ornamental and edible gardens are popular with city dwellers.

"The ornamental gardening aspect of city gardening will probably never die in New York City," he said. "Real estate is expensive here, and a valuable outdoor space requires the same planning and design one may consider for a kitchen. The interest in edible gardening has skyrocketed in the past few years. The edible gardening craze has brought the concept of "farming" at home—whether in or outside their apartment or townhouse—to the highest level we have seen in years.

"For instance, in the past we would never sell out of seeds. This year is the first time in a long time vegetable and herb seeds have sold out."
 

GARDEN CENTER: Do you find that people have misperceptions about urban gardening?
DIMITRI GATANAS: Most people are almost always surprised by the extent of gardening that takes place in our city. I would say that most of our city clients do more in their tiny spaces than our suburban counterparts.

From rooftop farms to rooftop pools, this city never ceases to surprise us with imagination. There is also a big surprise about the cost. In order to garden in our city, you need to bring the garden to rooftops or cramped rear yards. Getting nature to these places is challenging and labor-intensive.
 

GC: What is the most rewarding aspect of serving urban customers?
DG: The smile brought to customers' faces when they realize that they can grow and cultivate in their tiny spaces is always rewarding.
 

GC: Tell us about GRNRF?
DG: GRNRF—the word "GreenRoof" without vowels—is an offshoot of our retail garden center. We design, consult, maintain and build gardens throughout NYC. We use tried-and-true principles with a cutting-edge approach. Most of our gardens are traditional rooftop gardens, terrace gardens and townhome gardens. We generally use a variety of different containers in our designs. We try to design a space as an extension of the interior. We like to "frame the view" of the NYC's stunning skyline.

On the technical side, we try to build lush gardens using lightweight planters and planting mediums. We also take into consideration the inescapable "micro-climates" that are unique to almost every space we design or maintain.
 

GC: What is on your "must have" list for urban gardeners?
DG: I would say that lightweight planters are top of the list. Other must-haves are lightweight soils. We sell a lot of soils with a high content of peat. Most of our clients request that a drip-irrigation system be installed on their new or existing gardens.

Most city folk are super busy and do not have the time necessary to water their plants. We also have a lot of requests for portable decking and synthetic lawns. Overall, green and organic products are the most-requested by our new gardeners.
 

GC: What's in the works for 2012?
DG: We hope to have our water reclamation and solar power installed by then. Being that we are under a train trestle, we learned a lot about the natural sunlight we receive in various parts of our property and how it would impact this project.

The sale of tropical houseplants has become a huge part of our business. We hope to amp-up the variety of choices in that area. We also hope that we can expand on our community compost program. We have a lot of people who bring us food scraps daily, and we have run out of space to receive it. We hope to have a lot more compost bins available to expand this free program. We also intend on creating more displays to give our prospective clients ideas on how to make best use of our products.
 

GC: Where do you see your business five years from now?
DG: We hope that we will expand our idea and concept to other parts of our city and possibly other metropolitan centers. Our family has over 50 years experiencing retailing and gardening, and we feel we can deliver the same experience in other urban centers. We want to be the first choice in the urban-gardening retail world.