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Come spring, garden centers are usually doused in chaos as cabin fever and flower-demanding holidays make way. This year, madness still arises but from a different cause.
As rules and regulations surrounding the coronavirus constantly change, some states deemed garden centers essential, and have categorized them as hardware stores and/or important in offering food-producing plants and landscape maintenance services. In other states however, some garden centers have not been as fortunate.
As of April 27, New York state has designated horticulture as non-essential with the exception of operations that offer food-producing plants and landscaping for maintenance and pest control. For Dimitri Gatanas, third-generation garden center operator and owner of Urban Garden Center in New York, New York, his IGC falls into the essential category because he sells vegetable and herb seedlings and garden services.
In the past, Gatanas prepared for the Mother’s Day rush by prepping staff, working long hours and seven-day weeks. But now, he has scaled down to phone, email and online orders, delivery options and temporary operating hours with minimum in-person contact that follows social distancing guidelines.
Regardless of the pandemic however, Gatanas says Mother’s Day is still important and should be treated as such.
“I think historically, the holiday had a lot more meaning. And I feel that, yes, people come in and buy Mother’s Day gifts, but I think over time Mother’s Day has become a barometer or a benchmark for the spring season more than anything else. It’s [still] the pinnacle of our spring and it’s quite a stressful but happy time.”
While roses usually serve as the classic floral gift, Gatanas said for him, that is no longer the case.
“It’s no longer your standard rosebush or hydrangea,” he says. “Now it's a succulent. Now it's an air plant. Now it's some other kind of arrangement that isn't the classic gift. We have our finger on what's in demand for today and we respect the rosebush but there’s now a new array of demanded products. The taste and expectation of the recipients also differs too.”
Gatanas also notes that other common purchases include “spectacular looking fishhooks or a string of pearls, maybe a magnificent bowl of succulents” and says his consumer seems to be “finished” with the standard product. But considering his melting pot-based location in New York, he believes it is contingent upon his location and that other owners should pay attention to what drives their customers.
In previous years, Jodie Bross, owner of Glenwild Garden Center in Bloomingdale, New Jersey, said the most important thing for spring is preparing staff for the holiday rush. Now, she jokes that her staff is calmer than she is, and that preparation now looks different.
To combat financial offsets, Glenwild now has fewer employees but the employees who remain are strongly taken into consideration. While the state of New Jersey allows Glenwild to remain open as a home improvement store, Bross has implemented a ‘no contact’ shopping experience — something most businesses have diverted to.
Options like delivery, curbside, parking lot pickup and propane refill drop off/pickup are available, while payments are required over the phone or from the car. The garden center has also created online photo galleries to ease the digital shopping experience, but still requires phone-in orders since they are not set up to sell online. While inside, she and her employees exercise safe social distancing standards and sanitary practices.
Unlike Urban Garden Center however, Bross says its popular Mother’s Day purchases are still the classic hydrangeas, lilacs and azaleas, and prior to the ‘no contact’ guidelines, they were used in displays and décor to encourage purchasing by customers.
But Bross isn’t the only owner who understands shop appeal. Before the coronavirus outbreak, Ray Greenstreet remodeled his garden center, Greenstreet Gardens in Lothian, Maryland, to make the store “sexy” in hopes of driving millennial sales. That included updates to paint, new signage and shop arrangements.
Since Maryland deemed garden centers as essential, some customers can still take in the new environment while practicing social distancing measures and precautions. Greenstreet also offers curbside pickup and delivery options for those who desire that instead. But even with the new buying options, appeal and presence are still strongly kept in mind.
“We want to make the customer feel like they got more than what they really paid for,” Greenstreet says. “Sometimes when I observe my staff, I correct their sloppiness and say, ‘Would you want to give your mother that?’ We put the [moms’] name on it, use pretty mixed-color tissue paper and it feels special because of those little things. You’re not getting that from Amazon. You’re going to get a box with a bunch of air bubbles in it instead. It’s never going to be beautiful when it comes in a box that says ‘Prime’ on it. There’s not much presence in that and that’s one thing we have over big-box stores.”
While each owner has different consumer bases and product demands, what is not different is their outlook on the future.
“Knowing that some years are not so good because of weather or the economy anyway, we know we can get through this,” Bross says. “My customers are fantastic — very supportive — and they motivate me more than anything. Also, I hope that there is a silver lining to this whole thing, and that we as a species shift our priorities and realize we need to support each other. It’s a stretch, but hey, one can hope.”
As for Gatanas, this is not his first time at the rodeo.
“Our garden center has experienced several catastrophic events in our long history,” he says. “We’ve had greenhouses demolished by fallen buildings, our garden center was partially blown up by an explosion at a neighboring building and we’ve had a serious fire. We got through those with very few financial resources. We got through those times because we got up every day ready for the challenge — the challenge that each and every one of us signed up for being an entrepreneur and self-employed individual. This tragedy has some lifelines and safety nets pulled out for us. They’re not perfect but it’s an opportunity and there is some comfort in knowing that we are not alone in the struggle.”
He also says the ability to get up each day and give it another try is what motivates him and advises others — those in business and those who are not — to remain optimistic.
“Try to keep things super positive and be lighthearted, but vigilant at the same time. This too shall pass.”