'Nice to have that glimmer of hope': Garden centres initiate pickup and delivery service

Spring is here, meaning summer's warmer days, sunnier skies and garden bountywill naturally follow.

But in the midst of these challenging and uncertain times, it can feel somewhat incongruous to look to the future with anydegree of excitement.

On March 26,B.C. deemed garden centres an essential service.Gardening hobbyists as well as thosedreaming of taking it upafter being cooped up inside breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"They're just thankful that they can get outside and do something that makes it feel that life is still relatively normal," said Robyn Duineveld, co-owner of Port Kells Nurseriesin Surrey, B.C.

Container your excitement

To adapt to physical distancing norms, some Metro Vancouver garden centres have closed their doors and started delivery service and parking lot pickup in an effort to keep staff safe and customers happy.

Some stores ask customers to either email or call in their orders, while others use online forms. The completedorders are usually ready in a day or two for now.

"We've got anywhere from three to five people kind of running around the store throughout the day just filling out these orders," said Duineveld.

Scott Pearce, a partner with GardenWorks, says mostpeople prefer to pick up their soil, bulbs, and veggie seedlings ratherthan have their order delivered because there is no charge for pickup, and it gets them out of the house.

Delivery costs depend on the size of the order and the distance from thegarden centre, of which GardenWorks has several. Delivery of small orders starts at around $15, which some might consider a small price to pay for open-ended enjoyment.

Customers who are picking up their much anticipated orders call the store once they've arrived in the parking lot.They remain in their car, pop the trunk, then staff load theorderright into thevehicle physical distancing at its best.

"As you can imagine, our No. 1 priority is to make sure[staff and customers] aresafe," said Pearce."Everybody is really careful. Everybody is quite spaced apart."

Growing pains

Changing the waygarden centres operate has come with more than a few challenges, however. From organizing online photographs, to cataloging inventory and making sure it's allup to date some garden centres have been pushed to get up to speed faster than they would have liked.

"We're not set up with that sort of Amazon type of system fulfilment," said Pearce. "It's definitely changing the way we do business."

Seed sales through the roof

Conor Preston with Figaro's Garden in Vancouver says customers have been supportive, patient and understanding as they work out the kinks of doing business differently.

He says vegetable starts and herbs are very popular right now, but seedsales have gone through the roof, compared to previous years.

"When there's uncertainty, there's nothing like putting a seed in the ground and really taking it down to the basics of seeing something grow," said Preston.

Duineveld says customers are just grateful they can still get outside, away from swirl of information and social media, and enjoya little time working in their gardens.

"It's just nice to have that glimmer of hope," she said.