Floral demand in full bloom
By CHRISTINE HAINES
chaines@yourmvi.com
Between Mother’s Day presents and spring planting, this is traditionally the busiest time of the year for florists and garden centers.
This year is no exception, although precautions are in place. Some of them are mandatory and others are being done by customers of their own accord.
“Some people are coming in for baskets, but I also have a lot of phone orders,” said Kristen Joseph, office manager for Joseph’s Nursery in Monessen. “We offer contactless delivery. We’re trying to adapt to the times.”
The first adaptation of the times was applying to the state for a waiver to remain open, since garden centers were ordered closed by Gov. Tom Wolf under the coronavirus shutdown. Greenhouses, nurseries and floriculture operations were allowed to remain open, and Joseph’s operations, including the garden center, fell under that umbrella.
Joseph said she has seen more new customers this year than ever before.
“It may be because they are home more and we’re only open until 5 p.m. and if they were working, they wouldn’t be able to make it,” Joseph said.
She is also seeing more people buying vegetable plants for gardens.
“May 1 is when we get our flowers and vegetables in. In addition to the virus, people have had the weather to deal with,” Joseph said, referring to this week’s unseasonably cold weather and the extensive rainy periods that have thwarted earlier gardening.
Joseph said that in addition to the contactless delivery for hanging flower baskets, Joseph’s has set up curbside pick-up for all garden center orders.
The service has resulted in an extra employee being added to help pull the orders, which are then loaded onto a cart for customers to load into their vehicles, with assistance available if needed. This is the first time the garden center has offered that service, Joseph said.
“We’ve been here 65 years and we’ve never had to do that. Some people are comfortable walking around (the garden center) and some people aren’t,” Joseph said.
Joseph said individuals opting to select their own plants and supplies are asked to wear masks and practice social distancing as they shop.
Jan Barton, owner of Barton’s Flowers and Bake Shop in Elizabeth, said his business was permitted to remain open because of the specialty bake shop.
“When Gov. Wolf asked everyone to shut down, we did,” Barton said. “Then he made the suggestion that bake shops be allowed to reopen and we did and then he suggested that flower shops be allowed to open.”
Barton said his internet orders have been going well.
“We have the ability to add something sweet for mom,” he added. “Anything from the bake shop can be delivered — pies, cakes, cupcakes, cookie trays — right along with the flowers.”
Barton said the business is adhering to all health regulations to keep his customers and his staff healthy.
“Curbside has worked well,” he said. “We’re at the top end of town, so there is parking available on both sides of the street.”
Ross Trax, greenhouse retail manager at Trax Farms in Finleyville, said the pandemic meant a month’s delay in opening the nursery and greenhouse operations and a slight reduction in staff.
“The food side was always open, but the rest just opened last week,” Trax said of the garden center and nursery operations.
He said when the nursery first reopened, it offered drive-through service, with customers driving between rows of plants, pointing out what they wanted, having it loaded into their vehicle and paying as they exited.
“We closed that up once people got more comfortable coming into the store,” he said. “Everyone’s wearing masks and keeping their distance.”
Trax said Mother’s Day and Memorial Day usually bring the two biggest sales weekends, but the cold weather and predictions of snow have slowed some of that. Trax said social distancing has reduced the number of customers browsing and making trips to the farm as a holiday outing.
“In the past it’s always been sort of an outing with mothers, but with the coronavirus, it’s probably a good idea for the older people to not be out,” Trax said.
The weather in general has been more of a problem than the coronavirus, Trax added, with people putting off planting because of the rain and cold. Still, the business has been doing well.
“We’re listed as agricultural, so legally we could be open, but for customer and employee safety, we closed initially,” Trax said. “Plant sales are as good as can be expected.”
Trax was worried that he wouldn’t be able to get plants from some of his West Coast suppliers, but found instead that shipments were arriving in record time, with truckers saying there wasn’t any traffic to worry about.
In addition to masks and social distancing, Trax Farms has added curbside pick-up to its services, with about 40 customers a day taking advantage of the service. Trax said it’s labor intensive, with five people dedicated to pulling orders, but it’s a necessity for now.
