SAUGUS — At the start of this year’s gardening season, Saugus’ Allan Huberman worried his garden center was about to take a heavy hit from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Things seemed bleak as the nursery owner and wholesale plant supplier said many of his major retail customers began to pull out one by one, with some cutting their orders in half and others canceling outright.
It seemed everyone was bracing for a historically slow season.
“I had a couple big centers call and say ‘we’ve got too much stuff,’’’ Huberman said. “I had one store call me, and the (person) said, ‘they don’t want us to handle any more plants after the 30th.’”
Within weeks, however, Huberman’s own Vine Street nursery, which he sets up each year on the plot of land in front of his four large greenhouses, was filled with customers drawn to the vast and colorful array of annuals, perennials, vegetables, and herbs, all grown by Huberman himself.
“It started off slow, but it’s not slow now,” he said. “For the past four days, you couldn’t get in my driveway. There was a string (of cars) waiting to park, and everybody was leaving with their hands full.”
Thankful for the business that has helped — at least partially — make up for his canceled wholesale orders, Huberman said that statewide stay-at-home orders have meant residents stuck inside with nowhere to go have turned to gardening as a productive way to pass the time.
“Instead of going out to eat or doing this and that, they’re fixing up the back of the house,” he said, adding that even his typically less-popular perennials have been selling in groups of six and eight as residents take advantage of the time at home to spruce up their personal gardens.
“I’d rather come to a smaller business because we really should be supporting smaller businesses,” said Stephanie Alimonti of Revere, who was one of Huberman’s first customers Saturday morning. “I really wanted something that lifts my spirits and planting pretty flowers does that.”
Retail manager Andy Goldberg, who has worked with Huberman for more than two decades, said he’s never witnessed anything like the overwhelming wave of business the nursery has seen in recent weeks.
“Crazy. That’s the only word I can say,” he said. “I didn’t know how people were going to react to COVID-19. I wasn’t sure if they’d be looking for stuff to do, but I never thought that they would come back to (gardening).”
Like many garden centers, Goldberg worried that fears of coronavirus would hinder their primarily older customer base from coming out for supplies.
Instead, Goldberg said he’s started to witness an interesting phenomenon.
“Younger people with their kids have been coming and making it a family-type deal, which is really, really nice,” he said. “I find that the younger generation, this year they’re all going after herbs and they’re fascinated with the fact they can get their own fresh herbs and grind them up and put them in their food. People are starting to do little herb gardens and things like that.”
He added that he’s happy to see younger generations using the current health crisis as an opportunity to learn more about agriculture and the importance of locally-grown food.
“It seems like over the years, especially since the millennium, we’ve gotten away from planting in yards, from growing vegetables, growing herbs,” he said. “I think COVID-19 (made people) reassess that you don’t need to go out somewhere to enjoy yourself. I think gardening is a great way for families to do stuff together.”