Early Bird Gets the Pre-Order

• Posted on 18 February 2022
• By Hannah Cashman
• Posted in annuals, hanging baskets, pre-orders, spring
• 4

Inspiration flows, but the words run dry. The sentences and half-formed thoughts in my head can not quite find themselves strung together on the page. How I yearn for a rubric, a prompt, or a viewpoint to argue. The struggle of creativity, what could possibly be important enough to share with others? There have been many new memories, house adventures, and beautiful customer interactions that I could talk about, yet none of them quite seem to fit.

 These days, it feels like I wake up every morning with more things to do and less time to do them. It is somewhat organized chaos. Everything is in motion, full steam ahead on a half battery. Sometimes it feels like there is not a day where nothing goes wrong and everything gets completed. Yet, there is a whisper of a blooming sensation around me, a grand awakening of sorts. It is a call that I know many of you are beginning to hear yourselves. The emotions that are borderline overwhelming all building to a secret that has been bursting around us, spring is almost here- and for some of us, it has already started. 

While my calendar says that spring will not arrive until Sunday, March 20, 2022, the feelings and day-to-day activities lead me to believe something quite different. Maybe it is the weather, suspiciously sunny days… frosty mornings that warm-up and develop into crisp afternoons before settling into a quiet evening that just breathes lighter. Or, it could be the steading trickle of people coming into the store, looking for something fresh, something colorful. A powerful combination of scenarios that build to a silent shout, I need to get planting, because if spring is coming then summer will not be far behind.

I can feel the anxiety and confusion that spring brings battle with the joy and relief that winter is ending. Then again, it could be that the washer is re-washing the same load again because I wear the same three outfits for medium cold in the shade yet warm in the sunny weather. It is a feeling of exhaustion that I can not quite explain. Spring for me is a transition season, a time spent out in the greenhouse prepping for summer annuals. Yes, the planting process starts the first week of February. Hours spent last summer selecting and ordering plants that have arrived as little seedlings ready to be planted into our passion baskets. 

These days, I use most of my time in the greenhouse spending hours with racks and racks of fresh plants (and my mom too of course). A sea of green that requires a strong memory and name association as we select plants that will grow to complement one another. Is blue blue, or is it more purple? While purple is magenta and burgundy is none of the above. Do not mix pink with red, and white is never really white but all white is the best combination. The repeated rules and names shouted across aisles would sound like gibberish to anyone who stumbled upon our process. This whole experience for the first number of weeks is a titch stressful, and this is my first full season working full-time. 

As an attempt to both soothe the chaos as well as please the masses, The Garden Corner has implemented a genius online pre-order system. It allows our customers to go online and select the colors of their choice. As the orders come in, we magically process that information and create a basket that is specific to our customers.  There are both seasonal favorite combinations as well as custom options, ensuring that there is a basket color combination of their choosing. These baskets are all individually processed and plants selected by yours truly along with my mother who has been planting baskets for years. The two of us work together to plant all of the baskets for city accounts as well as the baskets we carry in the store. The main restraint on getting baskets ready for summer is time. To have these plantings out at the first of the season come May, they need to be made soon.  Make one thing in my life, and yours, easier by getting your pre-order early! 

While the spring continues to approach, I hope that everyone enjoys this wonderful weather and takes a break to go outside and breathe the fresh air. Find some color, change your view, relax in the moment of spring knowing that working hard behind the scenes is summer. The next step is always coming, so enjoy the moments of peace while they are here and use that time to make one less thing for yourself come the surprise of summer. As for myself, I will be chugging along working hard on creating that summer surprise that will be here sooner than you know! 

Hannah Cashman 

Anxious Spring Planter