Plants In A Pandemic

For the past few years Hubby Tony accompanies me on a trip to the nursery to pick out annuals and vegetable plants. He pays for whatever I put in the shopping cart and we consider it my Mother's Day present.

 Now that we're in a condo my plant requirements are minimal.-basically two hanging baskets, one for each end of the deck. On Mother's Day it was still too chilly to have annual plants outside, so we put off the trip, but yesterday we headed out to my favorite plant place to see what I could find.

Each year this nursery pops up on the parking lot of an Aldi in early April, and is gone by July 4th. The "walls" of the nursery are landscape timers inserted into stacked cinder blocks. Inside, more piles of cinder blocks hold wood shelves for the plants that can take the sun, two greenhouses hold the shade-loving plants and vegetable starts, and hanging basket racks hug the ends of the greenhouses. Close to the entrance there's a tiny shed big enough for two associates and a cash register.

Calibrachoa

When we pulled into the parking lot I saw a sign that indicated they were practicing social distancing measures, and customers weren't allowed inside the shopping area. Instead, Tony and I stood outside and surveyed the hanging baskets from a distance. An associate came over to us and asked what he could bring over for us to look at. I asked to see "the pink flowers that look like little petunias". The associate said they weren't petunias, but were actually calibrachoas. I inquired about the plant's sun and water requirements, which jived well with what I could offer on my deck.

In addition to pink, the associate also pointed out the purple, red, and orange baskets, then brought several baskets of several colors over for me to pick from. I decided on pink and purple. Tony gave his credit card to the associate, who walked it over to the shed and processed the payment. He returned with our receipt and thanked us for coming in.

The process was easy, but I much prefer being able to browse through the plants myself and take my time choosing the exact one I want. Hopefully things will be back to normal by next spring.

Five years ago today: How Do They Know?