A green light for green thumbs
Region’s garden centres prepare for a busy Mother’s Day online
Jerry Moes grew up in the greenhouse business. He knows how flowers are supposed to be sold.
Doing it online just felt so wrong.
“The first two weeks, every time I came home I told my wife I’m quitting. I don’t need this anymore, why am I doing this?” said Moes, who owns Rice Road Greenhouses and Garden Centre in Welland. “Now I’m having a lot of fun.” On Friday, the province announced greenhouses and garden centres can reopen Monday for curbside pickup only. That confused some operators, because they’ve been operating that way for several weeks already.
Niagara owners said the new reliance on their websites — and competition from new roadside flower stalls — was a big adjustment.
“Now I look at it as a challenge. Bring it on, folks,” said Moes, whose parents, Gerrit and Margaret, started Broadway Gardens in St. Catharines in the mid-1960s.
The flower and landscaping industry is unique. Customers not only want to see and touch the product, they want to smell it, too.
COVID-19 and its safety precautions fell during the busiest time, April and May with Easter and Mother’s Day sales.
Until recently, the only thing Moes sold from his website was gift certificates.
But in the past three weeks he has put in a new phone system and answering machine, created an online webstore and installed a new PIN pad for checkout.
Staff had to input every item he sells onto the webstore site.
“I’ve got a thousand different perennials, probably 30 or 40 different kinds of tomatoes. It goes on and on,” he said.
“We’re talking thousands upon thousands (of items to post online). And we don’t just sell plants. We sell fertilizers, we sell pesticides, we sell gifts.
“I’m going to say 20,000, or 30,000 — I have no clue how many items are going on.”
He admits: “I love it, because I’ve never had this. I’m sleeping and I’m getting orders.”
Around Easter, larger flower growers said they were suffering from reduced or cancelled orders from grocery stores, one of their biggest markets.
Many had to sell their product for lesser prices curbside, or risk having to dump it.
Moes, who sells all his product on site, admits “Easter plants
were a wash” and sales are still far from where they normally would be.
Tonie Mori, who owns Mori Gardens Design and Garden Centre in Niagara-on-theLake, expects the days leading up to Mother’s Day on May 10 will be busy.
She said the business has been operating with a skeleton staff for now.
“We are seasonal, we do twothirds of our business in 10 weeks — which is now,” she said.
“So we’re definitely not doing the same amount of business.”
Her business is retail, it doesn’t do its own growing. Selling online has been a big change, and with no customers coming in she lost out on their impulse purchases.
With people isolating at home, she said, customers want to work in their backyards.
“Big sellers for us this year are cedars. Privacy things, right?
“Trees and hedges, things like that. A lot more fruit trees, herbs … I’ve had so many requests for vegetables but it’s not the right time yet, it’s too cold.”
Sales of flowers for Mother’s Day, she said Thursday, are “far away from where we were before.” But the store reopening could change that.
She and Moes both say they’ve seen more roadside pop-up flower stands than in normal years.
“Now — and we don’t blame them — the wholesalers who grow the product are selling it on the street, curbside,” said Mori.
“The stores aren’t selling the normal amount and they have to get rid of their product because they grew it ahead of time.”
Moes said it’s been frustrating at times, with customers not allowed in.
“But this is a safe place to work right now, and I like that.” Gord.Howard@niagaradailies.com