Planting time: Garden centers losing business to big stores at height of season

Shelly Stallsmith
York Daily Record

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, it’s too late for Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale and Swiss chard.

Gardeners and farmers who live in central Pennsylvania should have those plants in the ground before the end of April.

That didn’t happen for a lot of people because of the coronavirus pandemic. And if people were able to get plants for their gardens, it isn't likely they bought them at small local garden centers.

In an effort to prevent the spread of the virus in Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf closed non-life-sustaining businesses, which included garden centers.

Some managed to stay open, either through obtaining waivers or by claiming status as life-sustaining because they also sell food.

John Rockelman, owner of Rockelman's Nursery in York Township, has seen some companies receive waivers and others, like his, be denied.

"There's a lot of inconsistency," he said. "We also have a tree farm, and that could always be open."

Rockelman said his employees wear masks, and people were asked to maintain social distancing after he reopened late last week.

"We can do curbside pickup, but we haven't had much of that," he said. "People like to pick out what they want."

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But for many garden center owners and their employees, they can only sit back as the most important weeks of their livelihood pass by them. What has to be another bitter pill to swallow is watching stores, deemed life-sustaining for other reasons, selling vegetable plants and flowers.

Some grocery stores, big-box stores like Walmart, Home Depot and Lowes, and hardware stores have racks after racks of plants for sale. Pop-up stores housed in colorful tents have begun to dot area parking lots with signs advertising vegetable and flower plants for sale.

State lawmakers are calling foul.

Bills in the House and Senate have been introduced to force the governor to reopen garden centers. The Senate bill passed that chamber and has been sent to the House for approval.

Wolf said recently that should the bill make it to his desk, he won’t sign it.

The governor’s press secretary, Lyndsay Kensinger, said Monday that there is a difference between garden centers and greenhouses and nurseries.

“For the growing of crops, food and seeds, greenhouses and nurseries fall under an agricultural industry sector and are therefore life-sustaining businesses and are permitted to remain open,” Kensinger said in a statement to the York Daily Record.

She said the same goes for farmers markets and on-farm markets.

But garden centers are classified in the “lawn and garden equipment and supplies stores” sector.

“[They] are not authorized to maintain in-person operations, and this applies to both independent garden centers, as well as those attached to large retail chain or grocery stores,” Kensinger said. “Garden centers may offer delivery or online services.”

Kristin Phillips-Hill is one of four senators to author a bill requesting that garden centers be allowed to reopen.

Rep. Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-York Township, sees this as a problem. She was one of four senators to author a bill designed to reopen the state’s garden centers.

She has seen how some local centers have been able to operate under the social distancing mandates and doesn’t see why others can’t do the same.

“If a couple of garden centers can get a waiver, all should be able to get one,” Phillips-Hill said. “Every time I go to a garden center, I don’t see people milling around. It’s just not the setting for that. When I look at small garden centers, I think they can adhere to social distancing.”

She said it’s difficult for her and her colleagues to get a handle on why some businesses appear to have gotten waivers and others are closed. “I know there are some garden centers that are open, who maybe shouldn’t be open,” she said.

But no one outside of the state officials making the decisions about waivers has seen any of the lists. Not one showing the businesses that were granted waivers and not one showing who was turned down.

“We’re flying blind as legislators,” Phillips-Hill said. “The Senate requested the waiver and declined documents, but we haven’t seen them.”

Numerous media outlets have filed right-to-know requests to get the same documents, and those requests have gone unanswered.

Some of the state’s garden centers can reopen beginning May 8, when 24 counties in the northwest and northcentral part of the state move from the red to yellow phase of shutdown.

“As counties move into the yellow phase, in-person retail is permissible with curbside pickup and delivery preferable,” Kensinger said in Monday’s statement.

York County is not among the 24 counties that will move to yellow on Friday. Wolf said counties in the southwest and possibly southcentral will be under consideration to open in the next wave, but neither he nor Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine would say when that might happen.

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Phillips-Hill said gardeners will soon be hitting a somewhat mythical deadline.

“Growing up, we were always told you have to get your plants in by Mother’s Day,” she said. That day comes Sunday.

She said the current stay-at-home order would have been the perfect time for people to be able to plant.

“There are supply chain issues with our food, so what better way to take care of your family than with your own garden,” Phillips-Hill said. “But where are they going to get the plants?

“Plants are being sold at box stores, grocery stores and hardware stores, but if garden centers can’t sell their plants, they can’t get their revenue.”

And unlike some businesses that don’t have specific timelines based on weather and seasons, garden centers have a short period to sell their wares.

Shelly Stallsmith is a trends reporter for the York Daily Record. She can be reached at mstallsmith@ydr.com or followed on Twitter at @ShelStallsmith.