Great Catskills Greenhouses to Check Out this Spring

It’s nearly Memorial Day, which means it’s time to get planting! If you’ve got a knack for starting seeds… congratulations! For the rest of us, it’s much easier to pick up vegetables, flowers, and houseplants from a greenhouse or nursery.

And sure, you could make a trip to Walmart or Home Depot, but there are quite a few reasons why you’re better off buying from the professionals at a local greenhouse.

After doing some research (and a lot of driving), I found a number of great Catskills greenhouses. I’ve included a brief snippet on what I found special about each one, but give them a call or stop by to learn more!

Delaware County

Delhi – The Green Thumb

My grandmother always spoke highly of this place – and she was right to! Most people remember it being in Hamden, but they moved just outside of town on Main Street in Delhi.

The Green Thumb has a good selection of annual flowers and vegetables, including some colorful double impatiens, but what really set this business apart were the two rooms filled with indoor plants. There were cacti, tropical flowers, and even young orange trees for sale.

Of all the greenhouses, they also had the largest collection of potting supplies. There were plenty of sturdy terra cotta pots, as well as some decorative pots and terrariums for indoor plants.

Hamden – Steve’s Greenhouse

This business had, by far, the biggest set of greenhouses on this list. I lost count of how many different greenhouses there were. And the plants – there were plants outside, plants in the entryways, plants in the checkout area, plants throughout the main greenhouse that had multiple doorways into even more greenhouses filled with plants… you get the gist. I might have missed a couple of doors, but I can guarantee more plants would be behind those, too.

One greenhouse was almost entirely filled with cacti and similar houseplants. This place, along with the Green Thumb, were the only two that had rhubarb plants for sale. Another unique item was squash growing in a bucket with a trellis – you could buy the whole thing and set it on your porch.

The prices here were reasonable, especially for small stuff. A pack of growing lettuce was just $1, and pansy packs were $2.

Roxbury – Quarltere’s

While on the pricier side, Quarltere’s is a local favorite. They have one greenhouse filled with beautiful flowers, and another with a variety of vegetables. They have a collection of indoor plants, and there’s a bunch of shrubs out back. Their biggest draw may be the wide selection of gardening supplies available inside the main building. Whatever tool or potting medium you need, they probably have it. The staff were all tremendously helpful, as well!

Greene County

Jewett – Kerns Nursery

I’m pretty sure you could spend all day wandering around the grounds of this nursery and still find plants you missed the first time. They’ve got it all – different flowers, multiple varieties of just about every vegetable, trees, bushes, shrubs, ground cover, lawn ornaments… all of it.

This nursery has the distinction of being the only place where we could find onion sets. They also have a small greenhouse with indoor plants. Have you ever seen a light pink African violet? They had several!

Windham – Catskill Mountain Country Store

Full disclosure: this place isn’t just a greenhouse – they sell all kinds of interesting food, gifts, tourist memorabilia, and apparently there’s a restaurant built in somehow, too. We noticed the greenhouse part driving by and checked it out. It earned a place on the list by having pretty flowers (including an apricot begonia I couldn’t pass up), unique perennials like lupine, and more types of mint than I knew existed.

Windham – Smitty’s Nursery

This greenhouse also offers landscaping and a gift/furniture shop. There were trees, bushes, and shrubs for sale, including roses and lilacs! They also had nice flowers and succulents. They had some beautiful hanging baskets – my mom fell in love with a red, white, and blue one that we didn’t get, so someone should go snatch it up.

Sullivan County

Bethel – L&M Greenhouses

It looks deceptively small from the road, but don’t worry: there are several large greenhouses behind the tiny front building. I counted at least five, and another one was being built when we were there. There were many annuals, perennials, and vegetables. They even had a row of blooming rose bushes for sale!

Cochecton – Wild Yarrow Farm

This small nursery in western Sullivan has many varieties of unusual herbs, hot peppers, and tomatoes. When I say many, I mean possibly every. All kinds of thyme, sage, mustard, leeks, escarole… they even had cinnamon and cardamom plants for sale! They had a few flowers for sale, too, including poppies. We got strawberries and a tabasco pepper plant.

White Sulphur Springs – Everlasting Spring Garden Center

This place was hanging basket heaven – there were so many colorful ones to choose from! They had all kinds of flowers already in baskets, and of course plenty still on ground level that weren’t. They also sold wax begonias growing out of an interesting bag (it looked kind of like this) which might be a useful alternative to a hanging basket, since you could hang it on a wall or door or something. There were some trees and vegetables for sale too – with several big greenhouses worth of plants, they had a decent variety of everything most people would want.

Happy Plant Hunting!

I highly recommend you check one of these out the next time you’re looking for plants. This isn’t an exhaustive list; I’m sure there are other great greenhouses tucked away somewhere in the Catskills. If you know of any, please leave a comment so more can hear about it.

Have fun shopping, whether you’re looking for something delicious to grow in the garden or a new houseplant to keep you company. You can always just stop in to browse, too – it’s wonderful to be surrounded by hundreds of happy plants on a warm spring day.