Mark’s Score 8.5
Spring is here, so it is time to plant. I suppose you could go to Lowe’s or Home Depot to buy your garden pants. Alternatively, you could support local businesses. Fortunately, there is no shortage of local garden supply and farmers markets on the Delmarva. We have an embarrassment of choice when deciding where to buy supplies for our gardens. One of the more famous and largest garden centers on the Delmarva is Thomas Gardens in New Church, Virginia.
Since its opening in 1978, Thomas Gardens has almost become an institution on the lower peninsula. This is no ordinary garden center. They carry one of the largest and most varied plant, shrub, and tree inventories on Delmarva, both native and exotic. They claim to use only reputable wholesalers whose stock is “rich and hardy.” They maintain 8 greenhouses on their five-acre (2 hectares) plot located on Rte 13 in New Church. If native plants is your thing, they have one of the largest selections of native plants anywhere.
I’d passed Thomas Gardens multiple times on trips to Chincoteague Island. Thomas is located on Rte 13 just north of the exit for Chincoteague. I was aware of it but didn’t think much of it until a neighbor, a life-long resident of the lower shore, waxed lyrical about Thomas Gardens and claimed it was the only place where she would buy plants. So, I decide that on my next trip to Chincoteague I would stop and check them out.
It is spring, so it is time for me to repopulate my herb garden. I went to Delmarva Home Grown downtown, but they didn’t have any basil so I decided to drive down to Thomas Gardens. If you have never been to Thomas gardens, it is a rabbit’s warren of greenhouses full of native and exotic plants. The herbs are grown in the back, which is great because it gives me an excuse to wander among the plants. It was still on the cold side, the day I visited, so the warm humid musky atmosphere of the greenhouses was a welcome break from the cold.
If there is a rhyme or reason to their layout, I have failed to discern it. The greenhouses are a maze of plants to your right, to your left and even above your head. They have many flowering plants but in early March you don’t see many flowers, except for the cacti. The cacti were a riot of pink and bright yellow. But my personal favorite is the greenhouse with the hanging plants. Every time I walk into that greenhouse, I feel like I am in a scene from Jurassic Park. At any moment I half expect to find a velociraptor poking its head through the dense leaves of the bushes and hanging plants.
If you haven’t been to Thomas Gardens you should make the effort. In my experience their claim is accurate, their plants are hardier and are of a better quality than the big chain plants.
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