I predict a huge groundswell by nursery men and women everywhere to give you the information you need to help you buy a lot of plants for your personal garden at wholesale costs.
I'd help you myself, but today, I'm just plumb tuckered out from having to serve real, paying customers all week. My last day off was in March - my next day off will be about July 5th - as usual. But maybe I can find a little spare time to help you pay less for the product I grow and sell and try to make a living at.
You're welcome.

Wholesale purchasing is generally reserved for those in the business - landscapers, designers, retail garden centers, etc. It typically requires a business license and often a retail nursery endorsement as well. It is not intended for "discounted" sales to the general public or to hobby gardeners and one will often generate some heated feelings from those involved in wholesale growing if proposing this type of inquiry :-)

By "a lot of plants" do you mean purchases in the 1000's of dollars on a monthly or weekly basis? That's the typical customer wholesalers service. You may be able to qualify as a master gardener for a small discount at some retail nurseries as a courtesy, but it is nowhere near wholesale pricing. In my area, retail nurseries don't even offer wholesale pricing to professionals - there is a professional discount offered but again it is nowhere near wholesale. Wholesale pricing is reserved for wholesale customers with substantial buying power.

I just had a customer ask me this question in my garden centre. She wanted to know if she could get 1/2 price if she purchased "a lot" of plants, When I asked her what "a lot" is to her, she replied "oh, 12 or 15 six packs"!

Sorry, but I agree with ninamarie. This is how we make our living. Would you provide your time and wages at 1/2 price? Would you agree to having your salary cut in 1/2 by your employer? If so, please let me know what business you are in and I will come over to get that deal.

I want to apologize for stating a question like that. What I actually meant is purchasing plants with discount. I don't see it as a fair practice for retailers not to make money on their sales or loose money in order for people like myself to buy wholesale.
Sorry!

Rhizo_1,
thank you for being so kind and understanding.
I totally agree with your point, and appreciate all the hard labor that professional gardeners and landscapers put into their work and effort.
Again, everyone, please accept my apologies. I stand corrected.
~Natalie

Natalie,

Check over in the wintersowing forum - there's many folks that do mailing of plant/seeds and then those who participate in onsite plant swaps. As a personal gardener this may the way to go to save money and get some unusual plants that work in your area.

Even if you decide to go into the pro end of it buyiing wholesale means you would also have to mail the state on a monthly basis all the sales tax it is owed on items bought.

Hey, I'm going to the swap mentioned in Skokie and I work in the trade. But this is actually for fun for my own garden though - lol.

I'm a wholesaler, but am set up to service retail customers if they come in and do. My wholesale pricing isn't even posted and I don't give wholesale pricing to retail customers mainly because if I did, I'd be directly competing with my bread and butter, the legitimate wholesale customers who buy from me. If they went to such and such g'house I sold to, or a strictly retail store with a plant section, found out the plants came from me and then approached me to get it cheaper than the people I sell to, I'd lose my customers and my credibility.

I do have some customers to whom I sale plants at wholesale prices, but they order massive amounts. This would be corporations who landscape perhaps or golf courses, but I still have to tax them since they are the end user. I demand certificates of exemption too for true wholesale and if it's perennial stock, I also need to see their nursery stock certificate.

I occasionally get a small landscaper whom I suspect is buying for friends and family. I can't argue with them if they say no when I ask them if it's for private use, but I do ask so that I can tax appropriately if it is. I have to keep immaculate records of non taxable sales for audit purposes. Some wholesale g'houses will not even mess with taxable sales.

I will sometimes give discounts on retail prices to certain groups like garden clubs doing public projects, or community gardens, or educational groups. Heck, often I donate those.

Your question didn't offend me, but if you could see some of the manipulating we sometimes get from people who are not as honest and straightforward as you, you'd understand why triggers get tripped.

I have been in the wholesale plant business all my life. In front of my nursery there is a huge sign that says "WHOLESALE ONLY". I find it humorous (sometimes aggravating) when home owners come in and ask "I know the sign says wholesale only, but I don't want to pay retail pricing. Could you sell to me?" It baffles me that they are serious. Although your question seems legitimate in your mind (and I know you didn't attempt to offend anyone when you asked it), it strikes a nerve with most wholesalers. The reason being is that the wholesale growers put a lot of pride in what they do, and they try to keep good moral and ethical values. Selling to retail customers would not only undercut their customers, it would also undercut their ethics. The loss of business caused by compromising those values might be enough to put some of the smaller wholesale chains out of business. It seems that your average retail customer does not appreciate all of the hard work, time, knowledge, and patience that it takes to grow a quality plant. Plants seem to be the most under-appreciated commoddity that most people take for granted. Could you immagine the world without the wholesale grower. Un-landscaped houses and businesses. City blocks of nothing but concrete and buildings. No flowers for your children to enjoy. Think about it... wouldn't it be a rather boring and unhappy world? Some people want the cheapest plants they can find, but in my opinion plants are priceless!

There is another practical reason why some retail nurseries do not offer volume discounts. It is simply that they can only get certain stock at certain times of the year. That time is generally in the spring and it usually fills every inch of space that they have available at that time. In other words - many have a one shot deal at stocking the nursery. Once it is gone, they can't replace it. This means that if they are likely to sell out, it hurts them to discount to anyone.

The thought that the buyer has is that (s)he is buying more plants IN ADDITION TO what the retailer would. The seller knows that selling to the "volume" buyer at a discount price DISPLACES the sale at full price because they can't restock it. .... especially if you would otherwise still buy from them.

If you will sell out at fullprice what you can't replace, you would be throwing away money by selling it for less.

I think your best bet is to grow from seeds.
There are a lot of places online where you can swap seeds. Take seeds from flowers you already have and swap them with others.
Also, the Arbor Day Foundation has specials they offer their members at cost. Not to mention goodies such as 10 free trees if you become a member.
I understand the need for nurseries to make money, after all, that is how they make their living. However, if offering wholesale to retail customers is taboo, why offer wholesale at all?
I knew an awesome wholesale nursery that shut down due to lack of sales/low profit margin.
They refused to offer their merchandise to the general public and ended up just going out of business. Frankly, this is poor business practice.
If you have the patience, grow them yourself. You'll be glad you did.

"However, if offering wholesale to retail customers is taboo, why offer wholesale at all?"

That's a good and legitimate question. I'll tell you how it works. When I get a wholesale order, it's usually sight unseen. Vendor X wants five hundred potted doo-dads, to be delivered all at once two months from now. Great, that removes speculation from the picture. I have a buyer for half of all the doo-dads I grew. The transaction took me five minutes.

Customer Y wanders into my business because they've seen the g'houses back there and always wondered what they were. They don't ask if I am busy irrigating.....they just assume I can stop and tend to their needs. They ask me which one of the thousand doo dads looks best to me. I explain that half of them are sold already. I pick out a nice doo-dad and say 'this one is perfect'. They pick it up, decide that the sold doo-dad is nicer and want to get into the pre-sold benches. I tell them no and they get offended, convinced I am saving the best doo-dads for somebody else. After half an hour of picking doo-dads up and putting them back, they decide to take one and I ring them up for three dollars. Then they want to know where to plant the doo-dad, what other things would look pretty with it, and can I tell them what is wrong with the plants they bought at *Mart because nobody there knew.

To a grower, time is money. I shot an hour for a three dollar sale, of which only fifty cents was profit. I find out after the fact they've taken one from the sold batch and switched it anyway because I find the empty spot on the bench.

Romancing the stone with retail customers is part of the game. You expect to give them personal service and explain culture and make them feel wanted. But, retail pricing is what pays for that attention.

I understand the need for nurseries to make money, after all, that is how they make their living. However, if offering wholesale to retail customers is taboo, why offer wholesale at all?

Just to follow up with calliope's comments -- most wholesale nurseries do not cater to retail customers. They sell to those operations that DO sell to retail customers, like retail garden centers and other public plant vendors. A great many retail nurseries do not have the facilities or staff to grow all their own plants or even a small portion. They purchase from wholesale growers who specialize in this activity and generally the volumes are large enough to justify restricting the marketing to resellers (retail nurseries/garden centers, sometimes landscapers) only. Plus all the other time and labor constraints calliope outlines.

Why this should be considered a "poor business practice" is a bit of a mystery to me -- it works this way with any product that is sold by retailers, not just plants. Someone has to manufacture (or grow) the product and generally that someone who does is not the retailer that offers it for sale to the general public. Wholesale growers or nurseries are simply plant suppliers/vendors to the retailers that offer it to the end consumer rather than shortcutting that step and selling to the end consumer directly. The volume of the sales (typically hundreds of plants at a time) is what justifies the favorable pricing, not the onesy-twosy's of the typical consumer. It is an entirely reasonable and accepted business practice and is pretty much universal :-)

Look up the definitions of retailer and wholesaler.....maybe that will make things clearer.

Good discussions here. I'm looking at it from the retail perspective where I've been involved in it for about 2 decades. Most customers have little appreciation for the time and steps taken to bring this $20 shrub to them. A lot will complain that your prices are too high, while complaining if their questions don't get answered. I sometimes wonder how much people really know about running a business.

A question to the wholesalers, how much of your business now is retail compared to just a few years ago? I know a few of our local wholesalers were faced with the dilemma of whether or not to cater to retail customers. They've always dealt with retail, but didn't embrace it. In the past year to two, one of them went all out with an area dedicated to retail customers, however I'm not sure exactly how successful they are since reliable customer service was/is a problem. Another wholesaler did a few things to spruce his place up, but dealing with retail is something he never expected to do a lot of and it caught him offguard. He's willing to offer the customer service, but retail customers love access to all parts of the sales floor, and some of his material requires boots over ankle high.

I guess it'd be great to do both wholesale and retail, but one will probably be favored over the other, unless you had the space to cater to retail only and a seperate space for wholesale only.

Oh, what's your take, or do any of you, on wholesale businesses that offer landscaping services?

I've worked both the retail and wholesale end of the business and this is how it 'typically' works in my area. This part of the country has a lot of wholesale nurseries - there are very probably more wholesale nurseries in the PNW than in the rest of the country put together. No wholesalers sell retail here - business is restricted to selling in large orders to retailers and in some cases, to landscapers. But most of the wholesale operations that cater to landscapers are much smaller in scale compared to the very large growing operations and sell to the landscaping trade almost exclusively.

The wholesaler I worked for did both, but the bulk of his sales were to retail nurseries and other plant selling businesses. Landscapers were allowed on the property to select and gather plants but it was entirely self-service and they got different, less favorable pricing as well. And there were areas that were off-limits, plants designated for the retail resale trade only.

Despite a big sign hanging at the entrance that said "wholesale only", we would get all manner of walk-ins expecting to buy plants, as we were on a fairly busy road. They were very graciously turned away, usually with directions to the closest retailer that sold our plants (within a couple of miles). In addition to the place being a hive of activity with racks of orders being pulled, delivery trucks being loaded, landscapers coming and going, etc., there were some very real liability issues involved -- heavy equipment moving about the property, closed greenhouses due to spraying or simply because the plants were not ready for sale, automated potting machines, irrigation booms. It could be a very dangerous place for the general public. And it was huge - walking 30 acres is out of the question, particularly with an armload of plants, and driving was hazardous, especially with everything else going on. We even had some not-so-bright landscapers drive through the growing fields rather than logically figure that the gravel roads between the fields was where they were supposed to be. And trucks that slipped into drainage ditches or backed into the rocks or posts that indicated and were intended to protect the irrigation workings.

And there was no one available who could provide any sort of customer service to a retail customer were they allowed in the first place. Everyone was extremely busy either planting new plants, tending existing ones, pulling or processing orders or manning the front office. And 95% of the employees didn't even speak English! Only the owner, head grower and the admin and sales staff. It would have been a nightmare to allow any retail sales and an extra cost to the operation to hire the staff to accommodate them. It is simply not worth the trouble and effort for the few dollars it would generate.

Retail does definitely raise liability issues. My insurance prices are based on the percentage of wholesale vs. retail trade I do. I am not open for retail but in a small sales window because I use it as an outlet for overage from the wholesale operation....my bread and butter.

Therefore no retail sales before Mother's Day on bedding plants. I do a lot of pre-sold and custom grows, and I always have to grow a little more than I intend to sell for CYA purposes. By Mother's Day the bulk of my wholesale orders (for resale) are out the door, and the rest they anticipate to order are in a holding house with no admittance. The growing house is also no admittance. The perennial house is no admittance. The foliage house is no admittance. The only greenhouse where retail customers may venture is the largest one, we refer to as the selling house and that's where the cash register is located. I only run for about a month to clean up overage and then shut 'er down to the public until holidays and then it's by appointment.

I could do without retail at all, but they eat the shrink. They do not get wholesale pricing because I won't compete with the wholesale customers for their business. I have several price points, one to the trade as well because traditionally I have helped supply smaller g'houses, especially in specialty lines like potted ornamentals.

It's been years since I did any advertising for retail trade, so most of my retail customers are those I've serviced for years. I like them, they know the routine and they don't even have to when I'm open. They know to wait until later in the season.

I'm a startup tree nursery, and do both wholesale and retail. My niche is the acreage owner who suddenly realizes he's got 3 acres of grass.

My deal is this: I have a retail price list. These are quantity one. At $500 take off 10% at $1000 take off 15% at $2000 take off 20% at $4000 take off 25%

If you did $5000 worth of business last eyar with me, take off 10% if you did 10,000 worth of business with me last year take of 20%.

The two discounts both apply.

To reply to the original question, most wholesalers here have a minimum order. E.g. Jeffries is $750. Most trees are sold in minimum quantity and in whole bundles. E.g. Last spring I bought 500 3 foot swedish aspen. But they come in bundles of 20. They were $3 each.

Try going to Adams county Nursery web site. Click on price info. It is simply if you want wholesale price , buy wholesale quantities.

I believe Hazzard's Wholesale Plants will sell to anyone. I buy my seeds from them, but they also sell plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hazzard's wholesale plants

I live in a remote rural area and the far flung nurseries arent very interested in serving me when I am looking for the plants that they dont readily stock. When I go online searching for a desired plant and find it available but wholesale only, its quite frustrating. Sometimes wanting to have access to wholesale plants isnt about saving money...

Old thread but I'll bite.

I posted about this a couple of times on the Trees forum.
ItâÂÂs not about the money, per se. ItâÂÂs the selection. For those of us who have land (or, in my case, aspire to), we may need quite a few plants from a retail perspective, but it might be a very small order from a wholesalerâÂÂs viewpoint.
If IâÂÂm looking for seedgrown stuff, no big deal-thatâÂÂs easy enough to find, plus I grow plenty from seed. Tree and shrub cultivars are the tough one. The big mail-orders out there can often supply a lot of it, but you have the risk of potbound stock, poor quality, etc. Local nurseries may have it, but I end up going to 39 different places in a 3 hours radiusâ¦but a wholesaler might have EVERYTHING I want, in a nice-sized bare-root liner. THAT is why IâÂÂm interested, not to be cheap.
What IâÂÂve found is, some wholesalers (at least for woodies) will sell to a retail customer, but do so quietly and only large ($1000+ orders). Understandable, and not something they âÂÂhaveâ to do. Others will advertise they do sell retail. Another way to get the âÂÂstraight from the growerâ liners is that many of the retail nurseries (the actual growers, not garden centers) will upcharge and resell the liners they receive, if you ask, but you have to get there right when they get in. Some may also sell off the ones they didnâÂÂt plant, but those may be the runts.

Here it's much simpler. Most of the wholesalers I deal with have a minimum order size.

For PRT it's 3 boxes. That's 3 x 315 seedlings.

For Jeffries it's $950. (My order to them this year is $16000. I'm a small customer. That will be about 1/3 of a semi.

Do I give discounts? Sure. Buy 25 of a $15 item and I'll drop a couple bucks off of it. Come here and fill up your pickup, I'll take 20% off.

Thank you sherwood_botsford.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Natalie

I am new to the garden design business . Would like to know how to purchase plant stock for customers .

Check Craigslist. There are two wholesalers within an hour drive from here, who sell what the "big boys" don't take, to the general public. We have purchased many fruit trees and shrubs from them at VERY cheap prices. An Avocado in a 5 gallon pot was $10.00.

I disagree with kayehm. If you sell what people can buy at big box stores, you have to meet big box prices, and you can't do that and even make minimum wage. Try the following strategies:

1. Sell at a different size. Every BBS sells 2-3 foot high colorado spruce. Sell seedlings or 6 footers.

2. Sell combos: Everyone sells 3" pansies. Sell pre made baskets with pansies and something weeping, and something tall.

Google wholesale nursery stock. Here most wholesale companies have a minimum order. E.g. my main fruit tree supplier has a minimum of $750. Another one is $3,000

Wholesale has to be ordered a LOT earlier. I put my orders in in October for one supplier, January for another. I can add stuff up to the last minute, but at this time of year, they have only 10% left.

jimsharon, hunt out any wholesalers in your area and drive by for a visit. Local wholesalers - not the megagrowers that supply retail nurseries - often depend on landscapers and designers to supply the bulk of their income. I have found them to be friendly and accommodating, happy to show you round the property initially and will supply you with regular availability lists. There may be some subtle differences in requirements but most will need to see your business license and have you fill out a resale certificate. A few in my area even require a nursery license to verify you are in the trade. Hunt out any plant brokers as well. They may not have much stock on hand but will source and bring in almost anything you want, depending on their suppliers. Prices tend to be a bit higher than wholesale but still far less than retail. Requirements to qualify for purchase will be the same

I'd also check out any local retail nurseries/garden centers as well (not box stores). Most will offer a courtesy discount to designers and landscapers but it is usually not a very big discount and nowhere near wholesale pricing. They usually have the same requirements re: licensing and the resale certificate.

And to follow up on Dorie's comments......no one is saying you can't become a wholesale grower if you want. Of course any one can follow any career path they choose. However, wholesale nurseries/growers service an entirely different market than retail garden centers (or online retailers) and it is THEIR option entirely to choose to sell to or not sell to the general public. Most don't for a wide variety of reasons outlined previously.

And I will say that approaching a wholesaler at this time of year about purchasing plants directly from them without the appropriate licensing or documentation is going to elicit a very similar response to ninamaries's. Wholesalers are literally worked off their feet at this time of year.

Arugula...I am so sorry that you misunderstood my comment to you. I missed ninamarie's most recent post and I thought I was doing you a favor by pointing out that your rancorous comments might be wasted if directed to someone long gone.

I have zero problems with someone bringing up an ancient thread. I enjoy it, as a matter of fact. I just hated to see hot air being blown into a vacuum. I was mistaken about the vacuum.

By all means, carry on, lol.

For those who wants to save money on buying plants, a good option would be Arbor Day Foundation. The only problem is that the trees are bare root and you need to be patient to wait for them to grow. The site is www.arborday.org.

Another site I came across is www.musserforests.com, and you can order online.

Forget skirting and think logistically. I like permaculture and you should check that out. Plant sales often in the heat of summer are 1/2 off many places and that can rival wholesale. Know that you'll likely need a shaded area and to water a couple of months but many things take to planting very well in the fall. Build a small greenhouse and buy things in the fall when places are clearing out 90% or so off because they need to get christmas trees out.

I had 5 acres of no landscaping. This is what I did. I visited the local wholesale nurseries and asked them if they would sell to me. They asked why and I explained I have 5 acres and need a lot of plant material. I would be spending $1000's with them. They said no warranty and you pay tax and that was that. This particular nursery has selection way beyond a retail nursery, especially woody stuff. I can go about as long as I like looking around picking plants. I don't really know how I could landscape acreage without a local large wholeseller. The time searching for plants and transporting would be a killer.

Unless you want to leave it all in the hands of a landscaper, it's tough when you have a lot of land to deal with. Nothing against (good) landscape professionals, but most of us tree nerds LIKE doing most of it ourselves...

Ha-haha, a tree nerd. I guess thats what I am now! Shhhh....don't tell the wife : )

I was searching this topic and found this thread..which is old and started off ruff..but I did have a question and a comment. I also want to be able to purchase whole sale but not for any price discounts.I pay retail every day and sometimes more than retail when plant lust kicks in and I have a love for the weird and strange. Sometimes I find things I have been hunting for years and it says wholesale only. I want to be able to purchase this whatever the price which is why I want to be able to do wholesale.. any suggestions on how to go about this? Also I wanted to say when iI do go to a wholesale/retail place I don't ask questions and I don't bother any staff. I feel I am an educated enough gardener to make my own plant choices. If you need help with a purchase you should shop retail but for a serious gardener who needs no assistance and is just after something they have been searching for why shouldn't they be able to purchase it at retail prices from a whole seller?

Depends very much on the company. Some have two price lists, one for the general public, one for people in the trade. Some, you can sweet talk if you catch them at a time they aren't busy. (You can buy dormant stock in late winter or after the spring shipping season and not bother them much.

Many companies have a combination of minimum quantities or minimum order size, or a 'fine' for smaller quantities. E.g. 20% extra for less than 5 of anything, minimum order 100 seedlings. Minimum order $750.

Often these aren't written in stone. What they are trying to avoid is the person who comes in ignorant, uses an hour of a staffer's time and leaves with 1 $30 shrub.

Ways to maximize success:

1. Know exactly what you want. Refer to it the same way they do in their catalog. Do your homework.

2. Be willing to pay cash.

3. Ask them when the least inconvenient time is to pick them up.

4. Get together with your local garden club, and assemble a larger order.

If they say "no" then, if, for example, you are looking for Abies bifolia -- interior subalpine fir, then ask for the names of a couple of wholesales near X, where X is your closest large city that sell that fir. If they can't be that specific, then ask for large customers in your area. Then contact that customer, and ask for the special order department.

I agree with the above - it really does depend on the specific companies involved. Some may accommodate retail sales; some will not allow them at all.

Having been involved in the nursery industry for several decades on both the retail AND wholesale side, as well as being a landscape professional (designer with my own business), I can say that most of the wholesalers in my area do NOT entertain retail customers. Period. They sell primarily to the retailers/resellers (garden centers, nurseries) and secondarily to those in the industry. And not all will even go that far - some "landscape professionals" can be just as needy and ill-informed as the retail public :-) And the wholesaler I was associated with maintained two price lists - one for the retail nurseries and a slightly higher price list for the landscapers. This is due to the volume difference - nurseries buy a LOT; landscapers usually only onesy-twosies. And no retail sales, ever.

I still think one's best bet to purchase directly from a wholesaler is to investigate what that wholesaler requires as qualification for purchasing: usually either a nursery resale license or a business license as landscaping professional. There is some monetary investment in obtaining these licenses but not much. And is easily made up by the price advantage of buying wholesale. Obtaining the correct documentation required by the wholesaler removes any doubt or uncertainty about any direct retail sales. But some wholesalers will still expect or require a minimum order amount and that differs by company as well.

Just a note about "special orders" - retail nurseries hate them. Specially for any unusual or uncommon stock. They are a paperwork nightmare for the nursery. In season, they can roll in by the bucket-full and they make a huge amount of extra work - keeping track of the requests (my nursery refuses to call/consider them "orders", as they never know for sure if or when they can fill them), locating which, if any, of their vendors carries the requested plant and if or when they might have it in stock and then pacifying the waiting customer for the time involved in searching for the requested plant and compiling an order that includes both the requested plant(s) as well as meeting the minimum order level. And some wholesalers won't sell/ship just a single of any one plant type, so the retailer must be able to sell or have a market for the extras they must purchase as well. It is not a simple process.

I'm a small time business just getting started. I was hoping someone could direct me towards somewhere I could buy a good amount of plantmatter I could get cheaper than buying plants at retail because I'm not planting or reselling them. I'm wanting the plantmatter for use in developing essential oils for my homemade scented products.

Some small local wholesalers might let you buy from them if you have cash in hand.

Sukotto, your question is too broad. What kinds of plants do you need in order to extract essential oils?

interesting reading-- I"m a brand new wholesale grower (read--FIRST season) and thinking i should take my bedding plants to some farmers' markets and sell them at retail prices, to avoid having to trash them or donate or plant all at my place. Anybody see any downsides to that? i don't want to do retail in a store front right now, still have a full time job. but the weather's been bad for landscapers, and i'm still working on my customer base....i have no problem getting a sales tax license and all that--not trying to pull a fast one on anyone, just hate to throw out gorgeous plants!

Farmers markets are a good research tool. Watch what people look at, which tags they read. Keep a good count of what you sell.

FMs are a pain. If you rent, say, 4 tables 8' x 2.5 feet, then you can get 12 flats per table. You can have 48 flats out at a time. Bring twice that many. This will require some form of layering setup for hauling.

You can't get full retail. At an FM you have to offer one of:

* stuff you can't get elsewhere.

* much better quality than elsewhere

* much better prices than eslewhere.

When we were trying to do trees at an FM we found that no one wanted little trees. We found that all day's work sold $100-$200 worth of product. Still worth it to see th interest.

The bedding plants beside us did really well. They brought 2 SUVs rigged with plywood shelves to haul their plants. Came to two markets in our area every week, and were making a sale every few minutes, usually $20-$40.

Competing with the big box stores is tough. They are buying by the semi-load from outfits that are producing in multi-acre greenhouses. So try as much as possible not to go head to head. If you sell tomato plants, sell heirloom varieties, or siberian varieties that do well in the cold. Sell lilies that you forced 6 weeks early, or potfulls of daffodils of weird colours.

Where you have to sell things that aren't in bloom yet, try to have a few that you started early enough to be in bloom duirng the bedding plant planting season. Tag them not for sale until last day at the market, but put them where people can see what the younger ones will look like in a few weeks. Doing this for a full set is nice but you may have to start them when it is too expensive to heat your greenhouse.

FMs are also an opportunity to let people know about your nursery.

One of our long term best local nurseries is both a wholesale and a retail operation. This is a win, as it means they can move people from retail during slack times of the day. Allows them to give decent shifts to people, and long term work for about half of them. (Spring thorugh fall.) They don't go head to head with the box stores, but instead sell to other small nurseries with an outstanding selection.

Don't trash your leftovers. Instead use them to make baskets.

Labour is the big problem with the hort trade in general. Pay 10-20% over minimum wage so you are a sought after employer. Change it up a lot so people aren't spending two weeks at 40 hours a week transplanting pansies. The more they know, the more useful they are in a crunch. They will also take pride in what they know.

Spend half your day working with your people. Tell them when they do a good job. Take them aside to tell them when they screw up. Corrections should be of the form "This is a problem. This is why it's a problem. This is how it should be done. Ok?" Criticism should be directed at the task, not the person. If it's the start of something new, I will often use a line like, "I screwed up. I didn't make myself clear." Young people especially do well form example.

I like hiring young people. I can hire a bunch that work afternoons only, or mornings only, and have the other part of the day for tasks I can't easily delegate. Often it will take me a couple hours to get everything ready to have 4 people work all afternoon.

I fire people for only a few reasons:

A: chronically not showing up when they said they would. (I hire a lot of high school kids after school, so I have to be flexible about basketball, homework, prom prep.)

B: chronically failing to follow directions.

C: lying to me, trying to hide what they did.

You'll need to apply for a dept pf Ag license to prove that you are a legitimate retail establishment. They usually come out to check you growing practices about once a year.

Must vary by jurisdiction. I am in Leduc County, Alberta, Canada. Here I have never even been asked to get a business license (rural property.) A farm, tree or otherwise, is someone who says they are a farm.

Wholesalers here will sell to anyone. Many of them have a yearly minimum purchase -- between 750 and $3500 for my present larger suppliers, but as low as $100 for one, and no minimum for one.

Sounds like Bezos needs to disrupt this industry!

I think this person has been given bad information. If the way they write responses (such as real paying customers) then your clients need to find a real professional. You cant think as each plant and its profit you have to look at the overall big picture. For example if you are making a 50% markup on your product generally in an yearly cycle then why for goodness sake would you refuse to co-op with your competitor. First of all if you sell wholesale that increases the amount of product you sell in a year. You do very little work and make 10% or so markup on the wholesale product. so which one makes you the most money? the 10% acceptance of wholesale of course. They are providing the labor and getting a good price and a good network to work within. so by bringing in plants sitting them out and letting a wholesaler buy from you then your now part of his job which means your more involved in the career you chose. if you supply them then you buy more which could and most likely would take you to a higher tier discount on your own supply you retail or install. Now your making a 60% markup without raising your prices to your customers. The more options you use to raise the tier level on what you pay for your own personal greenhouse the more markup of profit you will get doing the same work you did the year before yet just have more money in your pocket. Most people who are repeat customers aren't buying the product as much as buying what you have to sell. you courteous, polite and respectful to others will make you the most money of all. In my area if you were in competition to me and knew you to be the one that wrote the post about all the hard work you do you'd be bankrupt in a year. I suspect you have few if any repeat customers and if you do its because you have deemed them worthy of your time. I have spent 6 hours before looking in my inventory for 20 sets of 1 5/8" by 1 5/8" boulevards for a customer who bought very little at all. about 3 months later he walks in and asks me how long would it take for me to pull together the materials for the biggest job in the state that year. Word of mouth in any business is what makes or breaks you. Now I only wrote down a material list and direct shipped tractor trailers to the job site from the manufacturers. but the profit tier on my own jobs went to 110% on all jobs the rest of the season. Working together makes everyone get more profit and have more satisified customers.