Name: Delightful Odds & Herbs
Address: Joyce & Jerry Cass
Delightful Odds & Herbs
27 S Main St.
Poland, Maine 04274
Phone: 207-998-2107
Email: oddsandherbs@aol.com
Open Hours:
May: Mon. - Friday in May:
9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
May: Sat. - Sun. in May
9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
June:
closed on Mondays in June
9-5 Tuesday through Friday
Sat. & Sun. 9 to 4
Products & Services:
-dried flowers, wreaths, arrangements
-greenhouses
-organic compost & loam
-vegetable seedlings
-herbs
-flowers
-Common Ground Fair
-Fryeburg Fair
-Christmas Craft Festival - Boston World
Trade Center
-Oxford Hill H.S. Crafts Festival
-some Castleberry Craft Fairs
-house and cottage painting
What Makes Delightful Odds and Herbs Unique?
There is a sign outside the Delightful Odds & Herbs greenhouses that reads, “Poland’s Best Kept Secret.” It’s not that Joyce and Jerry Cass are the secretive type, but they operate their seasonal greenhouses without much advertising. They don’t maintain a website or have specialized brochures. For years they have relied on the recommendations of customers. Gardening enthusiasts learn about their dried flowers, greenhouses, and garden supplies at the fairs in which they participate.
Joyce Cass always grew up around flowers and plants. Her grandmother, Elizabeth Coolidge, tended a large herb garden on the property where Joyce and Jerry now reside. In 1984, Joyce began growing perennials and herbs and drying flowers. When she decided that she would also like to grow annuals, she knew it was time to introduce a greenhouse. One was constructed in 1989. She opened a shop for her dried flowers.
What began as a hobby, soon evolved into a full-fledged business. Joyce began landscaping for customers and offering classes in dried flower wreathmaking and basketry. Ellie Jewel, a former florist owner, suggested to Joyce that she should consider opening a florist since gardening slowed down in the winter. Ellie was admired in the Poland area for her gardening abilities and lovingly named “The Lupine Lady” because of her beautiful flowers at her home on Route 26. Due to the encouragement of Ellie, Joyce began a florist business in the late 1980‘s and Ellie served as her mentor.
Joyce took advantage of the various classes offered by the Maine State Florist and Growers’ Association and became certified as a Master Florist. She displayed her dried flowers at the Common Ground Fair in 1984,
and has been a participant at the fair every year since then. Joyce was the very first person to sell Sweet Annie at the Common Ground Fair!
Joyce and Jerry also sell their dried flowers and garden-related items at the Fryeburg Fair, the Christmas Craft Festival at the Boston World Trade Center, several of the Castleberry Fairs, and at the local fair at Oxford Hills High School. Jerry has been a professional house and cottage painter for the past twenty-six years, and he has also been integral in helping to run the greenhouses and assisting at the fairs.
Delightful Odds & Herbs is a seasonal business. Joyce and Jerry explained that they
do not view what they do as a job. They really enjoy working with the plants and flowers and value the lifestyle that it provides for them. Each winter they try to get away for a few weeks to the Caribbean. This past winter the get-away didn’t materialize as Jerry needed shoulder surgery for an injury that resulted from shoveling snow.
The Cass’s begin planting in the greenhouses in March. They are open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in May. In June, they are open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day with the exception of Monday, when they are closed. Their season usually ends around mid-July.
Twenty years ago one of their customers brought in some seeds for rare heirloom tomatoes and asked Joyce if she could grow some tomato plants for her and keep the rest
to sell. Each year since then the same customer comes in with some different varieties of heirloom seeds, and Joyce and Jerry grow the plants for her and their customers. It has been a great way for new varieties of old-fashioned plants to be enjoyed.
The Cass’s greenhouses and garden center are
decorated with quite an artistic flair. It’s not every day that you can walk in a greenhouse and see a saxophone, old propeller, and antique lantern hanging above you! Joyce explained that they enjoy re-purposing all sorts of items from the dump and yard sales! There is a gigantic rusty two-person logging saw, antique wagon wheels, and old pails and baskets. The vintage VW bug has a special place on the property and the center of the wood pile surrounds an old wagon wheel. Throughout the grounds there are overturned barrels and antique wicker chairs displaying potted plants and various floral arrangements.
Organic compost and loam are sold at Delightful Odds & Herbs. There is rack of garden seeds and several different types of
organic garden soils that are produced by Coast of Maine. There is lobster compost,
potting soil, compost and peat, and organic fertilizers.
The Cass’s displays at the various fairs are quite aromatic. They set up large metal buckets of a unique selection of potpourri.
Lemon verbena, lilac, rose, mint, strawberry, and orange are some of the scents. Many bouquets of dried flowers and several stunning dried wreaths and swags are offered. Dried apple stackers and potpourri containers are also sold.
A trip to the Delightful Odds & Herbs on South Main Street in Poland, when they are open in the spring through mid-July, is
definitely worthwhile. The atmosphere is
laid back and welcoming. Jerry admits to
enjoying a rather eclectic choice of music so
you might be able to listen to a little music
if you happen to end up in one of the greenhouses where he is watering or working.
Both Joyce and Jerry have many years of horticultural experience and they are happy to
make recommendations and share gardening tips with their customers. A visit to the Cass’s greenhouses is a “delightful” way to experience plants, dried flowers, herbs, and greenhouse supplies, just as their business name implies. When Unique Maine Farms visited this past spring there were many customers enjoying the grounds so “Poland’s Best Kept Secret” seems to have somehow been revealed!