SCOTT TOWNSHIP, Pa. — It's Easter week, and spring-like temperatures have arrived just in time. But growers at Corky's Garden Path in Scott Township start preparing for Easter a lot sooner.
"Well, all of our Easter crops start in the fall. We plant them all at our growing area which is just down the street. They get planted into their pots, watered in, and then they go into cold storage for the entire winter," said Cory Kashuba, Corky's Garden Path.
And when they come out is entirely dependent on when Easter falls. There is a science to it, and timing is everything.
"Things like tulips come out about 6 weeks before Easter. Everything is timed to bloom for Easter, which is significantly different from a holiday like Christmas where the poinsettias are ready a month and a half in advance, and they hold up right through," Kashuba said.
That is not the case for Easter flowers. So the temperature in the greenhouse at Corky's has to be just right so that the flowers are bloomed and colorful just in time for this weekend. It was about 50 degrees in there a few weeks ago, this week it is about 60. If it's too warm in the greenhouse, everything will bloom too quickly and lose its color before this Sunday.
"Easter flowers have a significantly shorter shelf life, but the nice thing something like tulips or hyacinths or daffodils, when you're done enjoying them in the house, you can plant them in the yard and they'll come up every year. You're certainly not getting that with a poinsettia," Kashuba said.
Because Easter is so early this year, the focus can be on just Easter, as opposed to Mother's Day favorites like hanging baskets.
"You're not getting those early other spring sales that we would get if Easter was in the middle of April where they're coming for their mulch and their soils and all of that in addition to Easter. With a super early Easter, they're coming in specifically looking for Easter flowers," said Kashuba.
Growers say Mother's Day is their busiest time of the entire year, so with more than a month between the two holidays this year, they say they can really focus on each.