Our official opening for season 2023 was March 10th and we want to thank everyone for a warm “welcome back” and your good wishes for another season. Weather still cold and unpredictable, but that is March and we are ok with that, technically still winter. This year we have opened our doors a little earlier than usual, lots to do around here and we are excited for spring to come soon! The yard will begin to fill up, as plants wake up from their winter “slumber”, annuals will fill the tables as soon as it is safe to plant out. I know we all feel impatient waiting for some color in our yards but remember, most annuals are tender and easily damaged by a dip in temperature. 

Right now, pansies and cold-weather vegetables can be planted and left outside. We already have an assortment of pansies, ready to be planted on the ground, window boxes, planters or hanging baskets. Vegetable plants will be available after March 18. 

And who is excited for March 20th? The first day of spring and we will start with our annual OCEANGROW sale. If you are not familiar with this fertilizer, stop in and grab a pamphlet and learn more about it. On March 31, we will feature our Easter plant sale, lots of beautiful bulbs, all wrapped and decorated with pastel ribbons, ready to be enjoyed or gifted. The Easter sale goes on until Easter Sunday when business hours will be 9 am – 10 pm. 

And if all goes well with the weather, our first annuals of the season will begin to arrive on April 13. And this is when we get very colorful and very busy around here. 

And now to the business of inflation. As consumers and as business owners, we have felt it also and been affected. No way of getting around it, except try your hardest to keep prices reasonable, eliminate some things and find ways to save on expenses. To our customers and all others that have entered our business, we have earned your trust, you know the value of the products we put out and our exceptional customer service, always there to help and as posted in the stores, we continue to maintain a “no tipping policy”.

As a way to save on expenses, we thought of maybe, doing away with the credit card services, as you all know the fees that they charge the business owners just keep getting higher and really add up to something crazy. After much thought we decided not to put the burden of us trying to save some money on the public. We will continue to provide the convenience of accepting credit and debit cards, at no cost to you, but we will highly encourage you to use cash and we will give you an additional 5% saving on the total of your sale. We feel everyone wins with this model and it creates goodwill with the customers. 

So for now this is all I have to share. On behalf of Frank, myself Claudia, and “the girls”, welcome back and let’s have a great planting season.