Grower News

TIMES-SHAMROCK FILE Alex van Hoekelen loads a box Easter flowers into the back of a customer’s vehicle during a drive-thru flower sale that his family’s McAdoo greenhouses recently held at the Four Bloom Restaurant in Drums. Van Hoekelen Greenhouses was forced to shut down its retail garden center in compliance with Gov. Tom Wolf’s mandate this spring. MARK MORAN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Dominick Tafani carries hanging flower baskets Wednesday for a customer at Larry O’Malia’s Farms & Greenhouses in Plains Twp. Gov. Tom Wolf classified greenhouses as essential businesses that can continue to operate outside of his shutdown order.

The coronavirus pandemic hasn’t stopped van Hoekelen Greenhouses in McAdoo from providing plants and flowers to supermarkets nationwide but the business was forced to shut down its retail garden center this spring.

It’s one of many family-owned garden centers throughout the state that have remained closed since Gov. Tom Wolf ordered “non-life-sustaining” businesses shut down in March to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Alex van Hoekelen, who operates van Hoekelen Greenhouses with his parents and his sister, said they normally operate the garden center for short times from the Easter season through July, in the fall to sell mums and in the Christmas season to sell poinsettias.

While they have adhered to Wolf’s order to shut down their garden center, he said they don’t agree with the mandate.

Many independent garden center owners’ livelihoods revolve around their businesses being open in the spring, van Hoekelen said.

He said it’s frustrating that garden centers don’t have solid answers about when they can reopen.

“For us, our garden center is seasonal. However, it is something that definitely is a source of revenue for us in the times we have it open,” van Hoekelen said. “The spring is obviously very big. Now we can’t have it open for the local people who have supported us in the 30-plus years we have been here.”

Van Hoekelen Greenhouses has been a family-owned business since 1988 and calls itself the “largest bulb grower on the East Coast.”

Since the business couldn’t open its garden center, it held a drive-thru flower box sale for Easter and van Hoekelen said another drive-thru flower box sale will be held for Mother’s Day.

Van Hoekelen Greenhouses will team up with McAdoo Fire Company and Valley Regional Fire Rescue to hold the drive-thru Mother’s Day flower box sale Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Thursday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Locations include Four Blooms parking lot, 668 N. Hunter Highway, Drums; the old Videomania parking lot, 532 Centre St., Freeland, and McAdoo Fire Company, 34 S. Kennedy Drive, McAdoo.

“We need something positive during this time,” van Hoekelen said. “We felt that people need plants as well. We’re lucky to be in a business to produce things that make people happy.”Thousands sign petitionto reopen garden centersThroughout Pennsylvania, more than 18,000 state residents signed a petition asking Wolf to allow their local independent family-owned garden centers to open.The petition was started on […]

Source: Greenhouses thriving locally