“Cold takes its toll - The News-Press” |
| Cold takes its toll - The News-Press Posted: 24 Jan 2010 10:12 PM PST 1:10 A.M. — Backyard gardeners who are disheartened by their brown, cold-damaged landscaping may have to wait a few weeks before they can add some bright splashes of color from popular annual flowers. Local nursery operators say many popular varieties of annual plants are hard to find. Growers, who lost some plants to the cold and quickly sold much of the rest to major customers like gated communities and even theme parks. Bobby Burns, plant buyer for the Driftwood Garden Center in Estero, said his stock of annuals was down by 80 percent early last week before trucks started to bring in a few replacements. Impatiens, annual plants popular for vivid flowers but notoriously sensitive to cold, are especially in demand and hard to find, Burns said. Seeing the losses from the January cold hasnt dampened the taste for cold-sensitive tropical plants, he said. I thought it might and I expected questions about more cold-tolerant plants, but people like what they like and that is what they are looking to plant, Burns said. Joe Scott, co-owner of the Bayshore Garden Center in North Fort Myers, said customers asked about cold-tolerant plants for about three days after the cold snap, but not since. But people who have a yard in Florida want tropicals and you cant move cold-hardy plants for anything, Scott said. Up north, all they have is green shrubs so they want something with some color down here. Scott said he has managed to survive the hiccup in the supply chain by reaching out to more growers for annual plants. He said the next few weeks are critical for anyone in the nursery business. This is the start of the season when people really start putting stuff in, Scott said. As soon as the weather breaks, they want to be out tinkering in their gardens. Helen Foster, a winter resident of Lehigh Acres, said she is hoping to get some work done in her yard, so she paid a visit to the garden section of a home improvement store for ideas. Im not much of a gardener but everything is just so brown that I wanted to do something, Foster said. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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