Two-of-a-Kind: Terrain Home & Garden Shops

The Terrain sign at Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, acknowledges its co-existence with the pre-existing Styer’s Nursery. / MyLittleBird photo.

Disposable (if you must) Twig flatware by Michael Aram, better known for his metalwork. Four place settings are $10. The matching, oversize Twig salad servers are $14 (although we feel we must tell you that we found them for $10 at Aram’s own madhousecollection site). From Terrain, shopterrain.com.

Packaging is everything: Terrain offers classic metal bistro tables ($168) and folding chairs ($78) in candy colors. / MyLittleBird photo.

Terrain’s Shiitake Mushroom Log may be a great Father’s Day gift. Inoculated with spores, it should sprout shiitakes for about three years,Terrain says. It’s $32 at shopterrain.com.

The Westport, Connecticut, Terrain shop in full seasonal color. / MyLittleBird photo.

Maybe birds should come in this color! This cheery aluminum doorknocker is $36 at Terrain, shopterrain.com.

A handsome lineup of plants and outdoor furnishings at the Westport, Connecticut, Terrain. / MyLittleBird photo.

Ice cream deserves its own summer spoon, right? Terrain has birch spoons in several patterns and plain. The patterned, like these, are 20 for $14; the plain kind are 25 for $16. Shopterrain.com.

We desperately miss paper parasols in our drinks–they were a great reason to order something silly. But if we have our own Garden Fiesta paper drink garnishes, well, who says we can’t use one with our brother-in-law’s Johnnie Walker Blue? The parasols are $14 for a set of 24 at shopterrain.com. The Garden Fiesta pattern also extends to paper sipping straws, $8 for a pack of 30.

Engineered for green roofs, these 10×20-inch coconut-fiber mats are densely planted with sedum varieties and can be used for wall gardens and can be cut to fit, say, around the edges of a planter or just the odd corner of the patio. Each mat is $40, and a set of three is $108, all at Terrain, shopterrain.com.

No doubt lots of nurseries have these String of Pearls succulent vines. But Terrain’s editing brought them to our attention. Each 6-inch pot, with 16-inch-long tendrils, is $28–and you can propagate more from cuttings. At Terrain, shopterrain.com.

Slabs of wax impressed with lavender and tangerine infuse closets with fresh scent. They’re $20 for a pair; also available in lemon & lychee, apricot & rose, and petal & vine (gingko leaf and pressed flowers). All from Terrain, shopterrain.com.

Update: As of February 2020, there are seven Terrain shops: the original two (in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, and Westport, Connecticut), and now in Devon, Pennsylvania; and in the Anthropologie stores in Bethesda, Maryland, and in Century City, Palo Alto and Walnut Creek, California. 

WHEN URBAN OUTFITTERS customers grew out of their dorm rooms, they discovered that UO had spawned a sister store, Anthropologie, which had a similar funky but international vibe and could furnish their dinner table and even their more-grown-up wardrobe. When those friendly dinners paid off, young women repaired to UO’s BHLDN, with its edgy but romantic wedding dresses.

And, for the past six years, URBN, UO and Anthropologie’s corporate parent, has followed its customers while they nest and spread out. Hence, Terrain, a two-of-a-kind garden and home shop that sells plants, plus the outdoor furniture in which to enjoy those plants, plus a few nature-inspired accessories and outdoor-life accouterments (think fire pits, melamine plates for backyard picnics).

If you stop to think about the things sold at Terrain (earrings and citronella candles, bath soap and bottles of elderflower pressé), it may not make sense. But when you wander into one of the two Terrains–one in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, the other in Westport, Connecticut–it all makes some crazy kind of sense. If only because, if you’re like me, you wind up wanting to take a whole bunch of stuff home with you. Yes, even though your (ahem) house is stuffed to overflowing and you’ve vowed never to buy one more thing that can’t be consumed immediately or given away.

Which is how I come to own a pair of Michael Aram’s plastic Twig salad servers (for outdoor salads, of course) and Garden Fiesta drinks umbrellas. And have my eye of some of those sedum-planted mats and the String of Pearls succulent vine. Go to shopterrain.com, and you’ll come up with your own list.

–Nancy McKeon