The palm nobody had — not even here

When I was working on that dead corner in the backyard, I had my heart set on a dwarf sugar palm — Arenga engleri, sometimes called the Formosa palm. Lowe's and Home Depot didn't have it, which I expected. What I didn't expect was striking out at Jesse Durko's too. A 10-acre nursery stocked with rare tropicals from all over the world, and even they didn't have a dwarf sugar palm on the lot that day.

The nursery you'd drive right past

It's easy to miss if you don't already know it's there — no big retail signage, no garden-center parking lot, just a gate off SW 70th Ave that opens into 10 acres of rare tropicals: palms, aroids, heliconias, gingers, bromeliads, bamboo, flowering trees, all of it collected over decades. Jesse Durko started the place in 1990 after running Flamingo Gardens Botanical Garden for years, and it's been a go-to spot for serious plant people in South Florida ever since — even if most people driving past on 70th Ave have no idea what's behind that gate.

Jesse Durko's Nursery

  • 5151 SW 70th Ave, Davie, FL 33314
  • (954) 873-4563
  • Open 7 days a week, 8am–4:30pm

Jesse passed, but the place hasn't lost what made it good

When I was there, I was told Jesse himself had passed away not long before my visit. I didn't know the man, so I can't tell you much about him beyond what the nursery he built says on its own — 35 years of hunting down unusual plants from all over the world and putting them in the ground for anyone willing to make the drive to Davie for them.

The guy running it now

Whoever's there now clearly learned from him. When I told him I was set on a dwarf sugar palm, he didn't just shrug and point me somewhere else — he gave me the full lecture on why it was probably the wrong call for my spot anyway, the kind of palm that can look fine for a while and then quietly die on you if conditions aren't right. Instead he walked me over to a dwarf fishtail palm sitting off to the side, one that had come in from Hawaii, and made the case for it instead — tougher, better suited to what I was actually trying to do with that corner.

He was right. That's the difference between a nursery like this and a garden center: the guy behind the counter has actually grown the thing you're buying, and he's not going to sell you what you asked for if he knows it'll fail on you.

Dad's tip Go in with an idea of what you want, not a rigid demand. At a specialty nursery like this, the staff knows their inventory better than any website ever will — let them redirect you if they've got something better suited to your spot. Mine was worth listening to.

Worth the drive

The dwarf fishtail palm I ended up going home with — not the sugar palm I walked in wanting — is in the ground now, doing exactly what it's supposed to do in that corner. But honestly, the plant almost isn't the point of this post. If you're hunting for something a big-box store doesn't stock, skip the third trip to Lowe's and just make the drive to Davie. Places like this — built by one person's decades of obsession, still standing after they're gone, staffed by people who'll talk you out of the wrong plant instead of just taking your money — are worth knowing about even if you're not shopping that day.