Swan Cottage Gardens & Nursery is a family owned and operated cottage greenhouse and nursery operation. Marilyn Blair, owner of Swan Cottage Gardens & Nursery, loves plants and ‘plant people.’ I love the ‘un-conventional’, whether its plants, pots, or people. I like to think ‘outside the pot,’ so to speak. My philosophy is that gardening is a living art form and it’s a joy for me to share my love of plants with others.

Located in Alexandria, AL, Swan Cottage began retailing ornamentals in 2001. Since our beginning, we have dedicated ourselves to providing high quality plants for reasonable prices. Because we are a small operation we can provide personal service and knowledgeable assistance to customers who need help choosing flowers and foliage for their summer containers and flower beds.

Swan Cottage is located off the beaten path at 410 Glenvale Road in Alexandria, AL. We have a brief retail season, April through July. While we are open for business on weekends only, customers are also invited to stop by during the week after work. During our open season, we’re typically puttering around the nursery during the late afternoon/early evening hours [5:30pm ‘til dark]. People are more than welcome to stop by, browse through the greenhouse, shop and talk plants.

Over the years, Swan Cottage has cultivated a core clientele of plant lovers who appreciate the benefits of summer container gardening. Over the years many of our customers have become good friends. Often, customers will leave notes with questions or requests, and often drop off their favorite containers asking us to design and plant. We design and fill patio pots for our customers with stylish mixes of specialty annuals and perennials. We also prepare mixed hanging baskets, window boxes, and the occasional out-of-the-ordinary container, selling many drought and heat tolerant plants that do well in Alabama poolside spaces and patio niches.

We enjoy making each creation an artistic expression, using varying plant forms, textures and colors as our palette. Whether we are planting the container ourselves, or helping a customer choose plants to take home and plant, each design is custom fit to the specific customer and application. It’s important to us at Swan Cottage to sell plants and products that look good throughout our very hot (and lately, very dry) summer seasons. As a result, we try to choose heat and/or drought tolerant varieties for our product lineup. For container-scape designs, we make every effort to choose attractive plant combinations that thrive from spring until frost, giving our customers long-lasting, spectacular-looking containers that require less care. We’re always looking for new plant introductions or planting techniques that improve on these qualities. As a result, you never know what new and different things you might find at Swan Cottage from year to year.

So if you’re new to gardening or just new to Swan Cottage, we invite you to stop by this season and become a member of the Swan Cottage family. Make life a “garden-venture!”