For garden centres, the province’s decision to ease back on opening restrictions couldn’t have come at a better time.
For the first time in weeks, garden centres were allowed to open to the public Friday and will be followed today by hardware stores throughout the region, which until now had been restricted to offering curbside pickup and delivery of their wares.
“It’s very big for us,” said Bill Norman, co-owner of Norman’s Garden Gallery in Midland. “The long weekend’s traditionally when people start planting their gardens.”
But besides the aforementioned upcoming Victoria Day weekend, Norman said garden centres should also benefit from Mother’s Day shopping today and tomorrow.
Norman said that nearly 60 per cent of the Yonge Street operation’s annual business is conducted over the next six weeks as area gardeners prepare their treasured green spaces with annuals, perennials, trees and shrubs along with fruit and vegetable plants.
“That’s the best way I can describe how important it is for us,” Norman said of being finally able to publicly open the store, which also sells a wide range of mulches, soils and seeds as well as garden and outdoor accessories and furniture.
But from a health point of view, Norman said there are also positives for customers.
“Plants are a glimmer of hope when everything else has gone haywire," he said.
As it stands now, the local garden centre is allowing 10 customers into the store at a time, which is about five times fewer people than they’d normally have perusing the various flowers, shrubs and trees throughout the outdoor portion of their gallery at this time of year.
“Like grocery stores, the carts customers use provide us with some form of social distancing,” he said, noting Norman’s benefits from being part of a 10-store independent consortium that allows them to purchase items in bulk.
As well, the local store has installed a lot of extra phone lines to handle orders over the phone and also boosted its online presence since it’s still offering curbside pickup and delivery.
Norman said that website work had been ongoing for the past 10 months, but the COVID-19 situation really “put a bee in our bonnet” to get things moving more quickly.
And while garden centres like Norman’s that have built a solid reputation for offering high-quality plants and other items can still sell online, many customers would still prefer to visit the store.
“People like to pick out their plants,” he said. “It’s not like buying a brick of butter, not all geraniums are the same. People like to pick out the best ones.”
