The flower shop that never wilts

Max Zahn

Lillian Lindergren, who has run a flower shop on Plandome Road in Manhasset for 50 years, said her role helping partners express affection or families celebrate milestones makes her privy to some community secrets.

“Being a florist is like being a priest,” said Lindergren, who owns and operates Olive Duntley Florist. “You have to keep your mouth shut. A florist knows it all.”

As with many priests, Lindergren began her vocation at a young age.

“I made my first bow when I was 11,” Lindergren said, recalling the hours she spent “doing everything” for a Hicksville shop owned by her parents.

She initially disliked the business because it required her family to work over the holidays and did not yield consistent income.

“When business was good we ate filet mignon,” she said. “When business was bad we ate potato pancakes.”

After high school, she left the family business to attend Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School in Manhattan.

The floral hiatus was short-lived.

“I hated the routine of secretary work,” she said. “Flower shops are always changing; we do births, funerals. As the saying goes, ‘a complete flower shop has a customer from the womb to the tomb.’”

She worked as a freelance florist for customers throughout the New York metro area for several years, and eventually took a job as the florist at the Americana Hotel in Manhattan, where she made arrangements for large events from 1963 to 1967.

She took a job in 1967 as a designer at Olive Duntley Florist, which was owned and operated by its namesake, a retired teacher. Two years later, Lindergren took ownership of the store but left the name unchanged.

“Olive Duntley was a spinster and wanted this store to be her legacy,” Lindergren said. “I said ‘fine’ because I didn’t have the finances to change the stationery and the signs.”

Lindergren looked back fondly on those early days.

“Manhasset was such a gracious little bubble,” she said. “People were very loyal on Plandome Road. They shopped here first and then spread out if they couldn’t find what they wanted.”

“Women shopped on bicycles wearing tennis outfits and pom-pom socks,” she added.

She said the internet has changed the floral business significantly.

“People no longer frequent stores,” she said. “They tend to stay home and buy on the internet.”

She said for stores to survive they “have to adapt to their customers’ needs.”

When big box stores began selling Christmas wreaths and garlands, Lindergren countered with a home decoration service, she said.

On Jan. 18, Lindergren’s shop and 13 other longtime businesses were honored by the Manhasset Chamber of Commerce.

While appreciative of the recognition, Lindergren doesn’t plan to close shop anytime soon “unless somebody offers a pot of gold with a couple of leprechauns dancing around it.”

For now, as for every one of the past 50 years, she is bracing for Valentine’s Day.

“I dread Valentine’s Day because the men are the ones who plan it — and they don’t,” she said.

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