Shopping

By Ms Sherry

As we close in on Thanksgiving—just a few days away with “Black Friday” and the official start of the holiday shopping season around the corner—please remember to patronize your local garden centers too. This been a difficult growing season not only for us home gardeners but also for garden shops over the last few months. As water restrictions increased and the drought continued, most of us were not visiting the nurseries to plant; but these shops still had to do business–they still had to carry an inventory and to care for it the best they could. I have heard that in some communities the watering bans even extended to the plant stores. Pike’s Nursery has filed for bankruptcy, I have read, due to the effects of the drought. A recent e-mail from a nursery in North Carolina mentioned that one of the locally owned nurseries up there was closing also due to the drought. So my point, as we shop until we drop, is let us do some of that shopping in our garden centers, especially the locally owned and operated ones. I visited a family owned garden center in Birmingham last week; the plants, in spite of the past months, were beautiful; the staff was helpful and smiling. There were many wonderful things to be bought there: amaryllis, narcissus for forcing, glorious houseplants, flower pots, yard ornaments, tools, supplies, and even gift certificates. And yes, the sight of all those beautiful pansies melted my heart; instead of the usual twelve flats that I buy and plant, I came home with one flat and a part of another which I am hoping will be kept watered by some winter rains.

Hopefully, next year the drought will be long past, just a bad memory; water will be plentiful, and the garden centers able to survive ready to please our every wish with a wide variety of irresistible plants.