Business is blooming at local garden centers

Even with the COVID-19 outbreak, most local greenhouses have seen an increase in customers since spring has sprung.

“We’ve seen an uptick of customers,” observed Michelle Grigsby at Plant Land in Kalispell. “We’re selling about four times as much as we normally would.”

Spring is traditionally a busy time for greenhouses, which are considered an “essential” business under Gov. Steve Bullock’s stay-at-home order to prevent the spread of coronavirus. This year is no exception, even though many businesses are temporarily closed and people have been ordered to stay at home as much as possible.

Grigsby believes the widespread closures and extra free time at home have driven larger numbers of customers to Plant Land than ever before.

In addition to the regular seasonal customers who frequent greenhouses at the start of the popular growing season, Grigsby said grocery store shortages and concerns about the future availability of produce have driven more people to the greenhouse to buy vegetable seeds and bedding plants.

“We’re just going into the growing season,” pointed out Michael Connolly at Hooper’s Garden Center. But, he said “interest in vegetables is super high. There’s a great demand for seeds.”

“We all want to believe the food chain supply is invulnerable, but unfortunately we’re seeing now it’s not,” Connolly said. Garden centers like Hooper’s have recently emerged as a popular do-it-yourself alternative to relying on the uncertain grocery store supply chain.

FOR GARDEN centers, however, Grigsby said “the supply chain is not affected.” Popular garden items during the pandemic have included potatoes, tomatoes, herbs, berries and onions. At Plant Land, they have even instituted a limit on the number of potatoes each customer can buy in order to make sure everyone gets their fair share.

Grigsby said a lot of new customers have also come in since they have more time to spend at home with their children. “There are more people staying at home with kids and homeschooling and deciding to show their kids how it’s done,” she noted. “I’ve got that realm of customers now.”

Connolly added, “People are at home, their kids are at home and the best thing you can do is be outside.”

He said a lot of the newer customers have turned to gardening as an enriching, family-friendly activity to do at home. “It’s a good thing to mix in with the arsenal of online school,” he noted.

Connolly said there has also been an increase in purchases of fruit trees, shrubs and other plants that people use to beautify their homes, since most people homebound people now have more time for “honey-do” projects.

And Grigsby said there has even been an increase in people browsing the store, just to get out of the house and into a calming, natural environment.

“We’re seeing upward numbers of people coming in, just smelling the dirt,” Grigsby related. She said some visitors just want to “come and relax and they don’t have to think about what’s happening outside the doors.”

FOR THOSE who can’t get to the store, Grigsby said Plant Land has also launched online seminars through Facebook Live and Youtube. Gardeners can now watch videos from the comfort of their home on topics like seed starting, how to grow potatoes and onions or a weekly series about what to plant each week.

“We try to help those that are at home that don’t want to come in,” Grigsby said. She said these virtual options help “so they can kind of see and be here even though they might not be able to leave their home.”

“We’re really here as an information source, too,” she pointed out. Local planters are welcome to call the store with questions. “We’re here to help any way we can,” Grigsby stated.

However, some of the trends related to coronavirus have upset the apple cart at local garden centers. The preference for edible options has made flowers less popular this spring than they normally would be, and Connolly said Hooper’s has seen a decline in the demand for custom-designed planters and baskets.

Hooper’s usually receives a lot of regular Canadian customers in the summer tourist season, and Connolly said many of them have already informed the greenhouse they won’t be traveling to the Flathead this summer due to the virus.

But he said even these hiccups have not represented a “huge percentage” of Hooper’s regular business, and he said the economic impact so far has been “better than I expected.”

“We’ll see how this progresses,” he said cautiously.

Grigsby said Plant Land has not had to resort to any layoffs, even though they decreased their hours to Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. At Hooper’s, Connolly said they are actually currently hiring more staff.

However, Connolly said the situation is “unprecedented.”

“We’ve had nothing similar to this at all,” he said of the longstanding garden center. “We’re trying to be business as usual during these very unsettled times.”

But, he pointed out, “gardeners who are old enough to remember back to World War II know that people will always buy flowers, because it makes them happy.”

Reporter Bret Anne Serbin may be reached at (406)-758-4459 or bserbin@dailyinterlake.com.