COVID and social distancing continues to challenge Garden Centers to adjust their operations and activities during the Holiday season. GCC Board members Michael Morris with The Flower Bin, Diana Mundinger with Eagle Crest and Trela Phelps with City Floral share some of the changes they are making to ensure their customers have a positive holiday shopping experience. 

Please share how you are dealing with COVID during the Winter and Holiday season by emailing Cheryl DeBaise via cheryldebaise@gardencentersofcolorado.org. We want to hear from all members and will post to this ongoing list as new updates are emailed to GCC. 

We encourage people to continue to grow food indoors by stocking:

• Fresh cooking herbs
• Herb Gardens
• Vegetable Seeds
• A wide variety of sprouting seeds
• Seasonal vegetables
• Grow Lights (to grow vegetables indoors)

The biggest change has to do with the events that we normally have in this season. It is especially hard because many of them had become part of the area’s family traditions. We are advertising Holiday traditions with a twist this year.

Ladies’ night has now become Ladies all day event offering discounts and featuring new products as usual but expanding hours to spread people out. We are not pouring wine or having any food tables.

Open House weekend will expand to 10 days and offer prize drawings, and photo op settings. No Santa but will have a life size stuffed Santa within a photo setting. No food table or hot cider giveaway. Still offering wagon rides- just 1 family per ride.

Tree selection happens outside- rows will be a little more spaced out to allow for distancing

The indoor Christmas shop is also spaced out in the store to allow for distancing. Ornaments etc. that are normally displayed on trees are also on pegs alongside the trees to make it easier to see choices and reduce lingering in the store

We will monitor the amount of people in the store and may have to delay entry if customers cannot be safely apart

We will continue sanitizing surfaces regularly

We will continue the safety practices with the staff that we have practiced this summer- Plexiglas partitions, symptom monitoring etc.

We will stock gardening items, especially seeds and seed starting supplies, prominently in the store to continue the gardening trend and encourage gifts of these items. Also, reminding customers of the essential nature of our core business- growing - including edible plants.

With luck, we will be able to do all this barring any shutdown which would be a blow to all of us selling the perishable goods of Christmas trees, greens, poinsettias.

Increased space for Christmas trees shopping- utilizing a greenhouse in the back of the building added lights and framework to allow trees to lean untied.

Increased cutting stations for trees and separated by customers needing stands put on or just a clean cut.

Holiday Masks for the tree lot employees, to keep the experience joyful _ they wear Christmas themed uniforms at this anyway – so just an add on.

Updating website with wreathes and Christmas tree sizing and price, to ease curbside purchasing.

Canceled our Holiday open house, created Holiday Greenbacks to give out on those 3 days to be used through the holidays. Extended coupons and weekly specials.

We have identified top spending customers from previous Open Houses, created a pop up on the POS system to notify employees of these customers so they can extend the regular Open House discount to them as a courtesy.

Personally, called customers that received Christmas tree delivery last year to ask how they like to procced during COVID. 

Created a second decorating area to space out employees and customers. 

Started ZOOM classes with garden clubs -Topics on Holiday décor. 

GCC supports the IGC community in Colorado as essential business and encourages all members to develop the appropriate safety measures that work best with your location. Safety of employees and customers should be your top priority by following CDC guidelines and complying with executive orders. 

The Board of Directors of GCC has compiled this running list of suggestions and ideas to consider as we deal with our changing business operations. 

• Sanitize carts, baskets, register stations and common public areas on a regular basis. 
• Ask customers to wear masks and gloves when entering your store or encountering your employees. 
• Always require employees to wear mask and gloves and encourage regular hand washing. 
• Provide sanitizing stations throughout your store. 
• Practice social distancing (6’ apart) with proper signage. Consider assigning a staff member to monitor customers in aisles and at checkout points. 
• Get your website store launched as soon as possible. 
• Based on your square footage, limit the number of customers in your store to encourage safe, social distancing. 
• Establish ‘call-in’ or ‘online’ ordering services so your customers are not required to shop in the store. Reassign staff to answer calls, pull orders and oversee curbside delivery. 
• Clearly mark curbside delivery locations and signage for customers to remain in their car or truck to limit interaction with employees. 
• Establish a clear policy on credit card and mobile payments to limit cash exchanges. 
• Consider offering special benefits for your repeat or loyal customers such as ‘make a reservation’ to shop in the store. 
• Mark your aisles as ‘one-way’ to encourage customer flow through your store. 
• Post signage in the store asking customers to not gather too long in certain areas and to only the enter the store if they have a purchase to make. 
• On your website, social media, blog postings, and advertisements, promote the healthy benefits of gardening and encourage customers to visit your safe and compliant store. 
• Consider apply for a loan through the SBA to relieve debt, retain employees and assist offset finances for the coming months. 
• Think about your inventory now and for the next couple of months knowing the ‘buying season’ may be delayed. Connect with other garden centers to share in order purchasing and product delivery. 
• Consider offering senior hours just like the grocery stores and/or special programs for seniors for curbside pickup or delivery. 
• Continue offering your classes through videos and post to your website or Facebook page. 
• Even though it may be too early to plant, ‘color’ is a great motivator for customers. Promote color on your website. 
• Now is the time to post any current or future job openings. Consider how best to train new employees under these conditions before their first day of work. 
• Create a pleasant and safe buying experience for your customers. Make it easy for customers to understand your rules and guidelines for instore shopping. 
• Have regular team meetings via conference or video call to review safety measures on a regular basis. 
• Train your employees to respond to customer questions about safety and health situations. Consider written rules for each employee to carry with them. 
• Don’t forget to regularly sanitize your kitchen areas, lockers, bathrooms, breakrooms, water fountains, refrigerator, and storage rooms. Don’t forget to sanitize commonly shared registers, computers, telephones, doorknobs-basically a good bleach scrubbing of all surfaces. 
• If unclear to employees, determine the proper management point of contact so employees feel comfortable reporting unsafe situations. 
• Promote seeds, starters and vegetable gardens to customers. This is very popular right now and top sellers for beginner gardeners as well. 
• Don’t forget to promote houseplants in case customers don’t have outdoor space for gardens. 
• Make sure employees know not to come to work if they are feeling sick or have been in contact with someone who has the virus. 

This list will be updated, so check back often.  GCC members should email our Association Director with any updates to your operations so we can add to this list: cheryldebaise@gardencentersofcolorado.org.