Greetings All, and Happy Spring. What a year it has been ! Our latest Plant Stock availability is ready to send out to everyone but we wanted to quickly recap this past crazy year.
A year ago, on Sunday, March 28th, 2020, we turned our tables on end, after running 2 weekend yard plant sales as the Covid situation became a reality, after losing all our spring plant shows and our mainstay of Saturday Morning Market closed down too. We closed our business down and isolated like so many and wondered if we could get through it, although not knowing how long of an ordeal it would be. We worried about losing the business entirely, we worried about losing our house, we were worried for all our friends and family, as well as worried for millions of people who were affected.
We worried about having enough toilet paper ! We worried about whether we could pay the utility bill to be able to water our plants !
We worried about our plant man, Mitch, who had just gone through 9 weeks of daily radiation therapy for treatment of his advanced prostate cancer, and whether it would work (hint: it did !)
We laid low till the first of May, and figured that we would have to re-invent ourselves, like so many were figuring out. I sat there in my little office room at home wondering what we could do. And Eureka..the one upside of the Covid crisis was, people stuck at home, started working on their gardens and their homes..they had the time, Lord knows and they needed plants !
I woke the Plant Man from his ongoing naptime, and told him "you know what we are going to do?"..and he shook his head as he knows I can't be idle, and said "what?"...and I said to him...."we are going to work our Ass*s off" !
And so it began, I figured that if people can't come to us, we can go to them, and do it safely. So, I surveyed our home nursery for 2 days and made an inventory. I put the inventory out on our website, and used lots of social media to promote it. I offered that we could deliver plants, to porches, with safe no-contact interaction. We cleansed and alcoholed all pots, wore masks and gloves, and we hit the road. We drove all over St. Pete north to south, and Gulfport and beyond actually enjoyed seeing new areas and of course, admiring so much great landscaping from little porch gardens to big to-do's.
And what happened ? People supported us in our efforts ! The support of the St. Pete Plant society members and customers of our market and strangers reached out to pull us through for many many months. And the great side benefit, we "met" so many new friends even if it was only on facebook or private messages, it just filled our hearts with such joy during a very hard time when we all were feeling so isolated. And we are so glad to say, that so many of these new friendships are still in place today and we have gained life long new friends that might not have happened if it weren't for the Covid crisis. So I guess that we have made lemonade out of the Covid Lemon xxxx
We could not have even started this reinvent process without the huge support of John Lopez and the St. Pete Plant Society Inc members, such a wonderful group of Plant Nuts, who are so supportive with their time and knowledge and buying power. Anna Lapidus who from the first day, took pics of our plants and did so many posts on our behalf. We hesitate to try and thank every individual as we are afraid to leave someone out, but we hope, that you reading this, that you know who your are, and how you helped and supported us, and we will be eternally grateful for each and everyone of you.
Starting late summer, we returned to the re-start up of the summer market at Williams park, that segued into the re-start of Saturday Morning Market in November, and here we are in Spring of 2021. Although all our spring botanical shows were cancelled, we are very grateful to be a part again of our community market and we continue to welcome visitors to our Home Nursery.
We have survived, we still are able to have our business, we were able to save our home, and most important, we have stayed healthy and well during the process ! We acted responsibly, we stayed safe and made sure our interactions with customers was safe and now Mitch and I have been our double vaccines so we are grateful that is in place. We will continue to act in a safe manner for ourselves and our customers.
Today, I looked out at our beautiful Clivia plant and observed that a new beautiful bloom was popping it's head up.....It gives us hope that we can continue. Bless everyone that got our little Nursery and us personally, through this...we love you all 💕
Okay, enough yakkin...ready for the plant list ?! (pics to come !)
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