Zone 8 is great

This entry has a rating of 4

“When You’re Serious About Gardening” reads the marquee of the pleasantly obscure garden and landscape center on South College Road. And while I can’t say that I qualify as a “serious” gardener, I can say that I am a serious Zone 8 fan.

My personal, quiet Zone 8 worship began the very first day I stepped into the large greenhouse structure that serves as, well, greenhouse, vintage seed-bin storage room, and check-out station. I was immediately taken in by the enormous butterfly kite hanging illuminated by the sun from the ceiling. Mouth still agape, I looked down to see that I was being greeted by an old, white-chinned Golden begging for a scritch behind the ears. Already I’m in love with this place, but it doesn’t stop there. The music throbbing through the warm, earthy walls of green is the soulful—bordering on melancholic—voice of the barefoot diva herself, Cesaria Evoria. Folks, let me tell you, I’m not much into religion, but on that day, I felt something of a spiritual nature take hold of me.

The plants—acres of them—and the funky hippie staff are great too.

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Greenhouse

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Butterfly

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Zone 8 interior
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Entrance

This entry by rachel was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 and is filed under Feature, Living, Places, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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5 Responses to “Zone 8 is great”

  1. Susan on April 1st, 2008 at 7:28 pm

    Are those Roudabush’s seed bins?!?!?

  2. Grant on April 1st, 2008 at 11:55 pm

    Nice post and excellent photos. We don’t live in the Wilmington area but my wife & I love to garden & I’m sure would enjoy Zone 8. In our area we love to patronize a joint called Cactus Jungle and for many of the same reasons: earthy (no doubt) owners, the 3 whippets on site & of course the amazing array of succulents.

  3. Rachel on April 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm

    Susan,
    I asked about the seed bins and, yes, some of the bins are from Roudabush, ‘Wilmington’s Oldest Seed House’.

    roudabush.jpg

  4. Susan on April 3rd, 2008 at 5:06 pm

    I always coveted them - don’t know what I would DO with them, but I always coveted them. It’s nice to know they found a good home and maybe I’ll finally stop in to Zone 8 as I’ve been meaning to do.

  5. Rachel on April 3rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm

    I have the perfect excuse for anyone to make a trip to Zone 8 (aside from seed bin worshiping).

    The American Association of University Women (AAUW) is going to hold their Spring fund raising benefit there on Wednesday, May 7th from 6-8pm. The event is going to be a wine tasting and silent auction held in the greenhouse. Tickets are $20 each and will be on sale at Zone 8 toward the end of April.

    Buy them there or you can email me for more information at the following address:
    rachel@groveproject.org

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