Chapter 33

In the morning they ate, cleaned up, and each headed for different destinations, Wendy to the nursery. It was only eight-thirty, but the nursery now opened at nine instead of ten because of the increased patronage.

Wendy moved along the paths, something she hadn’t done in a long time. She saw things she wanted to change, especially positions of plants which outgrew their original spots, and some needed transplanting into larger containers. As always, she picked old yellow leaves off plants and placed them in a brown paper bag she held. She stopped beside the gazebo, leaned against it and looked around the nursery. ‘I love this place,’ she said out loud. ‘So, what’s buggin’ me?’She plopped down inside the gazebo. She put so much love and caring into everything in her life-the nursery, Elliott, Cindy’s friendship, and Jake. And she loved her times at Pirate’s Cove. She seemed to have it all, but she knew it wasn’t enough, something was missing. Could Scott be part of what’s bothering me? Bewildered, she stood and walked away shaking her head.

At the stream she turned and looked again at the length and breadth of her creation. Wendy needed to change the watering schedule. She needed to trim some of the shrubs and discuss the repotting of plants with Carol.

As she finished her thoughts Carol came in. “Hey,” Wendy greeted.

“How the hell are you?”

“I’m good,” Wendy answered. “I think some of the plants need transplanting. If you’ll check around and see if there is more that needs to be done, I’d appreciate it. I think we have to adjust water schedules.”

“And I need to mark prices on the new plants but before I do that I wondered if we should raise the prices on some of them.” Wendy stared at her quizzically. “What makes you say that?”

“I visited an outdoor nursery with an indoor section and their four-inch plants were a dollar more than we charge, so I thought maybe we should try it.”

Wendy looked at Carol bewildered. “So, you want to raise them to four dollars from three and what about the six-inch pots?”

“Mark them five dollars.”

Wendy didn’t hesitate for a second, “Not sure I like this idea. The word is already out we charge less than other nurseries. We will continue to get more of their customers, and the business will be better if we leave the prices as is. Besides, our regular customers know our prices. If we raise them, they may as well go elsewhere, although they won’t have the atmosphere they have here.”

“You’re right.”

“I think I’ll run an ad to remind people of our prices on the four-and six-inch plants, they’ll be able to make comparisons with other plant businesses. Hopefully, it will bring more people in.”

Carol’s eyes gleamed, “It will be interesting to see what happens.”

“I’ll go write up the ad and send it out today.”