Bay Laurel Home & Garden

Our story

A Garden Center, back on the Farmer Girl corner.

Bay Laurel opened in April 2026 at 18940 Coastal Highway, on the corner where Farmer Girl Exotic Gardens operated from 1995 to 2020.

The white Bay Laurel barn with a cupola and a patriotic bunting, above tiered benches of red, white and blue flowers

Three chapters, one story.

  1. 1995–2020

    Farmer Girl Exotic Gardens

    Mary Elizabeth Rash ran Farmer Girl on this corner for twenty-five years, from 1995 to 2020.

  2. 2025

    Wharton’s closes

    Rehoboth’s Wharton’s Garden Center, on Airport Road, closed its retail doors at the end of the year.

  3. 2026

    Bay Laurel opens

    Four local owners opened a garden center and a home shop here in April — and several of Wharton’s people came too.

The front of the Bay Laurel shop with its circular painted sign and green shutters, beside a stepped run of yellow mums, ornamental kale and clipped boxwood

Faces you know, names you trust.

When Wharton’s closed, the town lost a garden center and the familiar faces who made it special. Those familiar faces are back with the trusted advice and personal service you remember.

Four local owners.

  • Stuart Ortel

    A landscape architect with roughly three decades of landscape and architectural design behind him.

  • Scott Marker

    Retired from commercial insurance before Bay Laurel. He and Stuart have been part of Rehoboth since 1999.

  • David Lyons & Rick Hardy

    Part of the Rehoboth community since the ’90s, and the pair who opened Coho’s Market on Rehoboth Avenue in early 2020.