Once spring arrives, our gardens and nursery will be open more days per week in 2020. We plan to devote more time to building new gardens our property, and offer more how-to chats and workshops. Expect to find many plants grown from seed (instead of the sterile clones you see everywhere) with an emphasis on pollinator friendly annuals and perennials. And please note, that we grow our own stock and do not use neonicotinoids.
If you subscribe to our email newsletter, you probably saw our message saying that we are going to take a sabbatical year from our online store/mail order shipping in 2020. Sounds like a crazy business decision, right? Everyone has a web store these days. Why would we want to take time off from that growing part of our business?
Things in the word of e-commerce change so quickly. In 2014 we hired a team to create a very customized website for plant lovers with hundreds of offerings. We loved it, and hoped our customers did too. Well, secure technology changes in a nano second. The platform that our site was built on has fundamentally changed in 6 years, and our site needed a complete rebuild. Since our e-commerce site was already an expensive one to maintain (tech support has skyrocketed in price), we came to the realization that we would have to create a radically different online store, and it may have to be without the many customized features we wanted. We need more time to consider our options.
Another issue we’re grappling with is the increased cost of shipping. We ship large actively growing plants, and packing plants safely is very time consuming. Shipping costs and supplies have risen, and small volume shippers like us do not get the price deals that companies like Amazon command. Our accountant pointed out that our shipping fees are not covering the actual costs, and that we should raise prices to make up the difference…not something we wanted to hear.
So as we ponder our options, we want to assure you we are still committed to growing wonderful plants that are not found in every garden center, using the most effective organic methods. In 2018 we began a relationship with the online plant broker PLANT LUST, and we may continue to offer some of our plants selections via mail order through them. We’ll keep you posted.
