Hope, they say, springs eternal.
So here’s hoping spring doesn’t take an eternity to arrive.
Despite a chilly combination of snow, rain and wind throughout the day, there were actually a couple of signs of spring in Ottawa.
One was on the calendar. Today marked the spring equinox.
The other was at the Ernst and Young Centre where the Ottawa Home and Garden Show opened its doors. Hundreds of exhibitors offered everything from outdoor landscaping to decks and barbecues. And even though today’s weather was hardly conducive to any of those things there was still a line-up.
“Yeah, I’m an optimistic person” says Gail Fraser Tessier. “And it’s always fun to come here and check out what’s available and get the planning started and get the ideas going.”
And it’s not just the audience displaying a healthy dose of optimism. The vendors need it too because, for many, a delayed spring means delayed business. “Normally we’re cracking by the first week of April,” says Keith Sears of Newfoundland Landscape Design and Construction. “And with the cold winter we’ve had, there’s a lot of frost in the ground. So it probably won’t be until the end of April or maybe even the beginning of May.”
Preston Hardware’s Roberto Giannetti agrees. He recalls a couple of years ago when a warm spring meant they had already sold a couple of hundred barbecues by this time. “And now we’re lucky if we’ve sold ten,” he says.
But most dealers are confident the business will come when the weather turns. And some are even benefitting from the harsh winter. Dave McNaughton of Mermaid Pools says their pre-sales are actually up this year. “I think people are sort of fed up with the length of the winter and the rain from last year and so they’re optimistic about this upcoming season,” he says.
It seem hope does spring eternal after all.
