It’s moving day at Amelia’s Smarty Plants in Lake Worth, but the business itself isn’t going anywhere.
A drop into the 30s and 40s sparked a plant migration of sorts inside the business, but not just for one or two pots.
Martin Hatmaker says thousands of plants will have to be moved indoors.
It’s not a simple task for Hatmaker and his crew.
“It’ll take all of us that are here to start putting stuff on carts and moving it into the building,” he says. “It’ll take a good 3 or 4 hours.”
The time is worth every penny, considering what the cold weather could do to his inventory.
“The cold can freeze water within the stems, especially of a lot of the tropical plans,” Hatmaker says. “The strong winds can actually dry the leaves out.”
Ultimately, he doesn’t see the weather doing too much damage to his most vulnerable plants.
“If it were going to be below freezing for like 4 hours, then there’s more concern.”
Even though he’s being cautious now, Hatmaker anticipates a return to the Florida he and his plants all know and love sooner rather than later."
“We’ll just make it through this couple of days and hopefully by the weekend we’ll be back to normal.”
