A New Era for Buckley’s

An ad in last week’s paper may have caused palpitations among those who frequent Buckley’s Flower Shop on Montauk Highway in East Hampton, because the ad gave the impression that the shop was closing.

In fact, the only thing that will change, said Charles Limonius, who has owned the shop since 1960, is that it will no longer sell cut flowers or arrangements designed by his wife, Heidi Limonius. The couple have retired and the business will be run henceforth by their three sons. 

The retail shop will continue to sell the plants grown at the family’s Buckley’s Wholesale Farm on Long Lane in East Hampton.

Mr. Limonius and his wife bought the business from Jerry Buckley at a friend’s suggestion during a Sunday excursion to the East End from Farmingdale, where he was working. 

At the time it was a small flower shop and garden center with a bungalow for the growing Limonius family to live in. Mr. and Mrs. Limonius took out the old greenhouse, put in a new one, and went to work. “In the beginning I thought I might have made a mistake because there was not much business for the first six months,” and he had to keep his job in Farmingdale. But then the business took off and he left Farmingdale to work here.

In the greenhouse today is a ficus elastica Decora that has been in East Hampton almost as long as Mr. Limonius. He bought it at Otto Keil Florist in Huntington in 1964 along with a handful of other plants. It is the only one he purchased there that did not sell. A story about this 54-year-old houseplant appears in the Garden Book in today’s Star.