...back when I got caught off guard because of the pandemic.

At this time last year, no one in the US could see the "shut down" that was coming.
By the time, I realized that life was no longer the normal as we knew it, so did a great portion of the rest of the county.

For over 20 years, I didn't grow my Summer flowers from seed. Instead, I took the easy route to go to the local garden store and get very strong, healthy plants ready to plant at home. But an emerging pandemic in 2020 changed everyone's lives. I couldn't go to the garden store last Spring. Nor would the garden stores allow curbside, contactless pickup. Instead, if I wanted flowers at my house, I had to brave the crowds (with infections and death rates rising) or order seeds on-line to start my own plants indoors at home.

A problem then arouse with everyone else taking the same actions as I was. It became difficult to find seeds available on-line; especially for what I wanted. Nevertheless, I finally did manage to place an order in April. Because the most well known seed companies were sold out by then, I bought my seeds from a seed company that I'd never used before. The end results were a weird mix of left over seeds that were both mislabeled for variety and weak for hardiness. Most of the seeds didn't even germinate. It was a very disappointing experience.

I don't know what things will be like this Spring concerning safely going into crowds to shop for Spring/Summer outdoors plants & flowers. Vaccinations are going very, very, very slowly in our state; with a prediction that most people won't be vaccinated until the end of next Summer. We also live in a state with no mask mandate nor social distancing limitations. And then, there is the additional matter of COVID mutations; which adds another unknown to the entire situation.

As a result, I'm not taking any chances. I bought my 2021 flower and herb seed purchases on-line today from a reputable company that I used to buy seeds from back in my "grow-everything-from-scratch" youth. Hopefully, this year I will end up with what I have ordered & these seeds do much better than the mess I had last year. We'll see. However, by placing my order early in February, I at least had a selection of some potentially nice plants. If the pandemic situation continues into the 2021 Summer months, I want to have nicer flowers to enjoy at home in 2021 than what I did in 2020. My order today increases those odds.