Spring is the time of year to start thinking about flowers, gardening, landscaping, and backyard patio areas to gather at. Lynde Greenhouse and Nursery in Maple Grove has been owned and operated by five generations of the Lynde family. Since 1971, the business has been serving the Maple Grove community and surrounding areas with all types of flowers.
Christina Timm, with Lynde’s, said, “Last year was unique. We sold out of plant material, namely vegetables and herbs, faster than we ever had.” She added that weekends in May are usually packed and finding a parking space is a challenge. With social distancing and limiting the number of people in the store at a given time last year, Lynde’s communicated out to its customers that it needed their help, by shopping outside the typically busy hours, evenings and weekends.
Despite the call to customers, Lynde’s did experience some shortages.
“The two-week shut down set us back two weeks,” Timm said. “During that time, we had only about 15 staff members on-site doing what we could to keep things going that required a staff double that, if not more. On top of that, many people were very interested in gardening last year because plants bring people joy. We were very grateful to in the essential category and allow people to shop. Seasonal annuals, vegetables, and herbs sold faster than ever.” She added that people were coming in at the end of May looking for tomatoes and Lynde’s was sold out.
Lynde’s also offers help with outdoor landscaping projects. Timm said last year the landscaping crew was still able to get out and continue working. “We had a full schedule and flowed into this year,” she added. The pandemic did push Lynde’s into a direction the business was hoping to branch out to. There had been discussions of how to reach customers online. “The pandemic was the push we needed to set up an online shop,” Timm said.
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