From email from fellow members: “It just didn’t seem right to hold a plant sale when so many people have so much more on their minds.”
My response:
Hi Lovelies! I totally see the wisdom of not having the plant sale at <community venue> if there are going to be people trying to use that space to apply for FEMA assistance etc at that time.
That said, regarding people having things on their minds other than plants right now … Even as I type this, I hear someone running a LAWN MOWER. Yes, believe it or not. The turfgrass army does not rest even at a time like this. And you can bet that neither do the developers, who are wrecking Florida with garish waxy big-box plant “landscaping.”
The mow-and-blow industry and tree-chopping industry do not give it one minute’s rest even in times of disaster.
I understand if MEMBERS need to focus on other things right now. But we should not delude ourselves into thinking we are doing the public some sort of kindness by calling off our sale to some indefinite future month.
I’m also thinking of the members who were looking forward to getting plants out the door this weekend. Cultivating plants takes a lot of time and resources, and now members will have to keep their plants indefinitely.
I will do what I can to take plants off people’s hands right now. I’m looking into options such as renting a box truck to pick up plants from members, and take them and sell them at the Downtown Daytona Beach farmers market. Several friends and I have landscaping businesses and want/need the plants for our clients’ yards. If this turns out to be feasible I would pay the chapter upfront for the plants, and sell them at my leisure.
Question: Anyone have a rough idea of the approximate total sale value of the plants? Roughly how much revenue have we made at our past sales?
💚🌏🦋
Jenny Nazak
Postscript: As if to underscore the validity of my point, one of the big mow-and-blow contractors just now drove by in their pickup truck towing their “tree hearse.” (“Tree hearse” is what I call those monster trailer things that house the big ride-on monster mowers, blowers, edger/whackers, and that also are sometimes used to haul away precious biomass that the land needed to keep, and that always seem to be decorated with some green, leafy-looking logo and doublespeak name that belies their mission of barbering and manicuring the entire darn planet to death.)
UPDATE: Several other people from the chapter had great ideas. It looks likely we will be having a combination of virtual sale and perhaps a small trunk sale at the members’ meeting.