North Dakota’s Green Thumb – ready to discover a container gardener’s treasure trove in this unassuming northern state?
Let’s be honest – what do most people think of when they think of North Dakota? Well, there’s those recordbreaking winter cold temperatures. And there’s the movie Fargo. Historians will think of Lewis and Clark expeditions and wildlife lovers may know that it is the home to more wildlife refuges than any other state. Did you know that they are also the No. 1 producer of honey in the nation and the leading producer of sunflowers in the United States?
Crescent Garden Bleeker Planter
And if you wander down County Road 15 West out of Minot, North Dakota, you will discover a botanical oasis called Green Thumb Greenhouses. Green Thumb Greenhouse was established in 1965 by Jack Hunter and is now owned by son Terry Hunter. Terry added the addition of a fully automated, 14,000 square-foot greenhouse in 2005, making Green Thumb cover 50,000 square feet. In 2014 Terry’s nephew Calvin Berry took over ownership of the greenhouse. All the plants that are sold there are grown in their greenhouses and they carry both bedding plants and vegetables. This past December Green Thumb Greenhouse was selected as one of the best Garden Centers and Nurseries in North Dakota by Best of AmericanTowns, a property of AmericanTowns Media.
So next time you are zipping through the state that has been billed “the least visited state in the nation”, make sure you stop at a few garden centers along the way like Green Thumb Greenhouses in Minot and stay a while to smell the flowers, all 50,000 square feet of them.
