Ah, spring. That delicious time of year when New Yorkers emerge from their urban grottos to indulge their love of moist earth, scented bulbs, and the occasional earthworm. That is, they garden, or, equally likely, they have someone garden for them.

Except for Barbara Israel, whose springtime gardening activities are more likely to involve winches and hoists as she hauls weighty stone nymphs, lions, and urns from one property to the next.

Mrs. Israel is one of the country’s foremost experts and dealers in antique garden ornaments; she has been known to take a client’s garden to a whole new level.

Mrs. Israel, who lives in New York, sells period statuary and ornaments from her country house in Westchester. Most of her inventory resides outside in her backyard, where, of course, it is perfectly happy, since it was designed to survive the elements. This storage setup does preclude Mrs. Israel from dealing in wood objects, but keeping inventory inside would, she suspects, try the patience of her husband.

Happily, of that commodity the gentleman in question appears to have copious amounts. Mrs. Israel’s first venture into the antique garden business occurred in 1985 when she went off innocently enough to look at quite a large number of pieces being sold from an estate on Long Island.

By the end of the day, she had bought the entire collection – some 40 objects – and hired a seriously inadequate delivery fellow to cart them up to her home. The trip was a nightmare, involving thousands of pounds of rare and fragile stone objects shifting around in the back of a van, but at the end the purchase miraculously arrived more or less intact.

Imagine the family’s surprise when the back yard in one afternoon went from a likely spot for a cookout to an outdoor vault.

To her surprise, Mrs. Israel broke even the first day she put the lots on sale. She sold some pieces to dealers, and was shocked to see the prices that had later been newly assigned to those objects. This was an important lesson; indeed, dealers do buy from dealers.

Mrs. Israel was moved to this somewhat impulsive purchase by the beauty of the pieces offered – elephants with obelisks, Chinese magicians, classical statues of the Four Seasons – and by the recollection of many afternoons she and her sister had spent ambling through an extraordinary country estate in Peapack, N.J.

The home, originally called Blairsden and now known as St. Joseph’s Villa, was built in the style of Louis XIII. It was a magnificent building, but what particularly caught the fancy of the young Mrs. Israel was the immense collection of urns, busts, fountains, and other items which so elegantly decorated the landscape. These youthful trespasses led to a lifelong admiration for this particular art form.

Today, in addition to selling from her home, Mrs. Israel participates in some of the most prestigious antique shows in the country. She can be seen at New York’s Winter Antiques Show, the Botanical Gardens Ornament Show, and will for the first time this year be participating in the exclusive Philadelphia Antiques Show in April.

She also has a very active and lucrative Web site, where much of her inventory is on view. She decided early on against owning a shop, being “allergic to rent” and also wanting to preserve her flexibility as she went about raising three children.

This year, Mrs. Israel celebrates her 20th year in the business. From her almost accidental beginning, she has become an undisputed authority in her niche. In 1999, she wrote a scholarly and beautiful book, “Antique Garden Ornament; Two Centuries of American Taste.” The well-written volume carried a flattering preface by the decorator Mark Hampton, which praised its focus on American traditions, and also its practical and definitive nature.

Mrs. Israel has consulted with the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 19th century cast iron, sold pieces to other major museums, and appeared in numerous publications and on television shows discussing her specialty.

She has learned, over the years, a good deal about the works she trades, and about how to turn a childhood passion into a thriving business. She has learned, for example, that customers, even at a high level, expect to negotiate prices. Also, she has discovered that a competitive edge is to be had from being able to move quickly.

On a recent snowy Saturday, she received a call from someone who was about to move, but didn’t want to leave behind a medieval wellhead worth more than $30,000. Of course, the object was firmly frozen into the ground. And, of course, it had to be moved that day. Mrs. Israel was able to muster the requisite rig and personnel to thaw the earth and hoist the wellhead out of the ground, and so acquired a valuable piece of merchandise.

She has discovered how to clean up an antique piece to suit the finicky American buyer – to remove rust from a marble bench, or black soot from stone. In fact, she now employs an in-house restorer.

She can also spot the new fake pieces, especially of cast iron, that are being made in China and Mexico and then distressed to look old.

She has amassed an impressive library documenting and authenticating the pieces she sells, as well as a sizeable network of sources in England, France, and America.

She has also learned to watch out for stolen objects. Because garden ornaments are on view outside, they are occasionally stolen and then put up for sale through unsuspecting dealers. Cemeteries are especially vulnerable to theft; Mrs. Israel once bought an entire truckload of statuary before discovering its true source and sending it back.

Mrs. Israel travels all over the country advising collectors on their gardens and creating showplaces of otherwise ordinary country homes. These adventures are not inexpensive. However, clients have come to rely on Mrs. Israel’s eye and knowledge, and certainly appear to enjoy the end result. Especially now, as the crocuses push through the snow.