The Gardens of Digby Green: The Strip Shoppe
On Tuesday morning, Digby pulled into the Roseland Garden Supply lot and got out of his pickup as his boss sent Tim off with the largest delivery truck. His boss walked over with a clipboard, took off a yellow order sheet, and said, “I see you put the magnets on your truck, Green. Good. Every bit of advertising helps. Here’s a job for you… and use your vehicle.”
He passed Digby the yellow sheet and went on talking.
“The owner of the Strip Shoppe on Dixie Way wants four gray cylinder planters, two at the street entrance, and two at the back entrance. Fill them with begonias, orange dwarf marigolds, and sweet potato vines.”
“Got it.” Digby said, and trudged toward the rows of planters. He glanced back over one shoulder before he sniggered.
“The Strip Shoppe. What a joke.”
Even with a name like that, the place wouldn’t offer anything truly interesting, not in this town. He checked the job order sheet. The guy wanted the plainest, mid-priced medium sized containers. Digby moved along the rows. Just four left. The guy was getting lucky and didn’t even know it.
Digby stacked the planters in pairs and carried two under each arm.
Good thing his truck bed was mostly empty. He shoved the stacks across the tail gate to the front of the bed. Then he hauled bags of soil sufficient to fill the planters, and heaved them in, blocking the planters from sliding. Finally, he trundled a cart-full of plant flats across the lot and wedged them into the last open space.
Another employee snagged the emptied cart, so Digby headed out to The Strip Shoppe. He drove down Dixie way, and the area grew familiar. The brick building, on a corner lot, had a deep awning. Neither marigolds nor begonias would thrive in that much shade.
Fortunately, the place sat far enough back from the blacktop approach that it had a concrete pad wide as the building which supported two thick steps to the entry. The front corners of the pad got full sun, and the planters could easily sit there. Digby parked in the side lot and got to work.
The Gardens of Digby Green is a serialized story that posts on Fridays.
Next week, part twenty, Better Together.
Find a link to purchase Heartland Treasures anthology here.
Joy Avery Melville
Heidi Kortman
Ruth
Heidi Kortman
Krystine Kercher
Heidi Kortman