LONG LAKE, Minn. — With warm weather, Minnesotans are getting excited to get back in the garden.
At Otten Bros. Garden Center & Landscaping in Long Lake, the pansies are already on display. But the heart of the garden season isn't here yet. So it's preparing and customers can hardly contain their excitement.
Chris Jordan is the garden center manager and part-owner. He says the perennials still growing in their greenhouses are just a tease because they're not for sale just yet. Instead, he hopes pansies will help hold people over until May.
He said the center is seeing a spike in customers now that the sun is out, but its still ten times less busy than it will be in about three weeks.
"I'd say it's a great time to do prep work in your garden," said Jordan. "The one thing that we can put outside is the pansy. And it gives you instant color, which is much needed after the winter months."
That's the only thing avid gardener Lori Scherer is looking at for now.
"I tend to lean toward the purples," she said happily, as she filled a box up with pansies different shades of purple. "I had a little niece that actually passed away and the color of her little hat when she was stillborn was purple. So yeah, a significance toward me. A garden can be such a good place for loss, to remember that person."
She knows warmer days are just ahead, and that it will be worth the wait.
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