You can always grow little plants and then sell them at a yard sale, or choose specific times of year and have "plant sales". I have heard of people doing this. I don't know what would be involved in making a steady income, but it would certainly be a great way to work in my mind.
I too am a stay home mom and I love to grow plants. It could be a great little business to start. Linda

You can sell plants at farmer's markets (I think) and your county's fair, if they have one.

I made some quick cash selling off hosta divides. I was having a garage sale and divided off about 30 starts. I sold them for $3 each or 2/$5 (they were small). I sold all of them in 2 days.

I have been to many people's homes who pot up extra plants and sell them. You have to price them lower than the retail markets most of the time. I have paid more for plants that are more unusual.

For the last seven years, I have had a huge perennial plant sale at my home. The main sale is always the same date in May during which I sell a couple thousand plants in about 6 hours. I also have a cute cart at the end of my driveway that I sell plants from all summer, on the honour system.

The sale has escalated every year to the point that I am now making about $3000 and then more from the cart over the summer.

It may sound like a lot of money but it is a LOT of work over several months-often working in the greenhouse until midnight (I have a full time job as well). I start some perennials from seed but mostly the plants are dug up from my one acre, extensive garden as small divisions and grown on in the GH and coldframe until the sale.
I use 3"-1 qt size pots which have been all free, given to me by people happy to clean out their sheds and I also get a lot from area landscape companies.
The potting medium is a mixture of municipal compost (very inexpensive) and ProMix-about a 3 to 1 ratio.

For advertising, I place a sign on my lawn a few weeks before the sale, run off flyers and post them around the county and place a couple ads in newspapers the week before the sale. After so many years, a huge amount of business is from word of mouth though.
The first couple of years, I worried no one would come because I live in such a rural location. I was completely shocked though when hundreds of people showed up, the cars plugging up the sides of the road for half a mile. Now I tell my neighbours to drive their skinny tractors that day, so they can sqeeze through to go about their farming chores. :)

Like Bullthistle mentions, it's important that your gardens are in perfect condition also. I welcome people to stroll my acre garden the day of the sale and I know that the "tour" and the ambiance are part of what people enjoy and keep them coming back year after year.

{{gwi:307433}}

{{gwi:307434}}

Wow that looks like a lot of fun. How much do you charge for an average plant?

OMGoodness!! i would love to do that!! we are doing ours at garage sale time, i don't care for them, tabor (my son) wants to run it, i like to go to them but absolutely refuse to run it!! LOL so i told him we'll sell plants then, cuz we know people will want them, also, i bought some baskets from novosel and i'm planning on making different baskets like the stores do only not sell them as much as they do. ya know how we all LOVE pre made baskets!! LOL and i thought if i put i kind of smell good flower in there with a few other kinds of them it would be nice. and maybe a basket that would have just a grass thing, good smelling thing, pretty flower. ya know, mixes like that. for the smelling ones ya could use sweet peas. but i want to make it where they'll have the mulch like stuff so they won't dry out. :')) just some of my thoughts.

I've kinda done what you are thinking about. I can't sell from my house (and I don't want to either) so I've rented space at the local flea market and last year I sold from a small farmers market. I made more money from the farmers market even though it had fewer customers than the flea market.

The key is to offer very healthy looking plants. People have to see your offerings and immediately think that yours are superios to anything else on the market. You can play around with price. Cheap doesn't guarantee sales. If your plants are too cheap people will think there is something wrong with them or that they are low quality. Outrageously expensive isn't always the way to go either. Somewhere around what the major plant seller in your area sells for is the easiest way to go. I believe that the decision to buy from you is one of the first things a customer does after seeing your display - they decide to purchase before they see the price tag - they decide because you have something they want or have been looking for and your plants look better than anything they've seen elsewhere.

I don't know about your area but down here in the mid south - the plant buying season is only April/May/early June. After it gets hot, plant sales drop off. So you make almost all your money in three short months which is the same time span that every other person that wants to sell plants is also trying to grab your customers attention. Competition is fierce. Around here, every church group, youth group, civic group, fraternity/sorority, garden club etc... have a plant sale. Sometimes they grow the plants themselves but often they just buy them from the large wholesale growers that ring the city (at this time of year, even the local gas station and convenience stores offer bedding plants!). It can take a bit of work and planning to offer great plants that people haven't seen before and to grow healthier plants than what a large greenhouse operation can crank out.

During the spring months I can make between $85 and $150 in four hours at the farmers market. During the off season, I'm lucky to make $50 in the same amount of time with the same amount of work. Something to keep in mind.

Most people I know that do this to make a realistic income work multiple markets and sell plants other ways (like ebay).

It can be done. It is fun. But it doesn't equal what you would make working for somebody else for the same amount of time.

With a farmer's market do you have to pay for a table? Also where could I get wholesale plants and material?

Wyndyacre,

Your yard, your organization skills and your plants are fantastic! $3,000.00 for all those beautiful, healthy plants seems far too low!

Would you mind posting a picture of your cute, road side cart? It is something I've been wanting to build and to run, but have difficulty imagining anything other than a boring card table.

Non-creatively,

Rain

Hoping to be

msalex28a: I think the idea is that you grow the plants yourself.

Msalex28a-I charge $1.00 for most 3" pots of perennials, $3.00 for a qt. pot. There are some shrubs and more desirable plants that I charge more for but I don't think I have ever priced anything more than $4-5.
These days, you can buy 3" pots of many perennials at the big box stores for not much more than a dollar so I think my prices are in the right ballpark.

Keeping prices quite reasonable really draws the crowd out. I don't have the expense of driving them into town to sell at a market-they are sold at home and all on one day in about 6 hours.
Keeping the prices rounded out to a dollar amount simplifies making change.

Rain-I don't think I have a photo of just the cart but this one shows most of it. It is just a big plywood box on two bicycle wheels at the front and a caster wheel at the back. It has a push bar and a door at the end to access inside storage. The metal frame on top supports an attractive, green striped canopy that was in the process of being made when the photo was taken.
The cart started life as a drink cart at a local marina. I rescued it from the garbage and fixed it up. I stained it dark green and cedar shingled the front to match my greenhouse and studio. I added the lattice back as a windbreak for the plants. I don't call my garden "Wyndyacre" for nuthin'. :)

Most Markets have tables for rent (at the flea market they were $8 per day), some provide the tents while others provide nothing. Renting is only a good idea if you have no one to help you set up. Tables have to go into the truckbed first and come out last so you end up lifting and shifting crates of plants many times which can wear you out before the customers are even there (this is not a good thing).

You have to start small. You have to learn what will sell in your area. There is no magic way to move to the head of the line. There are plenty of people out there making good money selling plants - but they took years to get there. They usually struggled in the beginning until they found a style and technique that worked for them. Just because something works in one area of the country doesn't mean it will work where you are.

About wholesalers: Because I am such a small operation I find that it isn't worth dealing with the big wholesalers. They often have strict minimum orders - which is more plants than I need. They do all the packing and crating which ends up with me having to deal with damaged plants. I don't sell in large numbers of anything (usually less than a flat). So instead I found a large grower operation that sells retail way out in the country. There I can buy on the cheap side of retail and cherry pick the best plants they offer. I take them home and grow them for a few months until they are nice and full sized or blooming. I like to buy things at no more than a dollar per plant (the place I shop sells 4 paks of most plants for $1.94 which comes to just under 50 cents per plant). I grow them on in 5-6 inch pots and sell them for $3 up to $6 depending on the type of plant. So I make my money back and I didn't have to spend months growing them myself. I find that with seeds it can take me more than 2 years to get a $6 sized perennial - which is way to much time. I still grow a lot from seed - but only the stuff I can't find locally.

You do need to shop wholesalers to get the best quality pots and media to grow in. I just asked around until someone provided me the information. I buy stuff from a small farm supply store that sells wholesale and retail. In my state you cannot re-use plastic pots unless you can verify that they have been sterilized. The public likes the idea of pot recycling but the State Agriculture department frowns on it.

I would do an online search for your area - google words like Wholesale Grower Supplies or Greenhouse Supplies. If there is any form of agriculture in your area there has to be someone supplying them the same stuff you need - no need to ship stuff in. Most will expect you to have a business license and tax number in order to get wholesale prices. The store I shop at sells both wholesale and retail - the difference is that you pay sales tax when you buy retail. So my advice is to just buy stuff retail at stores like that until you build up your business enough to warrant investing the time it takes to be a "real" business.

Wonderful information here. Thank you for the posting, msalex!

Wyndyacre, thank you for the additional scoop on the cart. I'd love to see close-ups and details, especially with your smart new canopy!

As to what trianglejohn said vis a vis wholesale: Most wholesalers tell you they want to see your "resale certificate." Here in WA state, it is really very easy to get it. All you do is file the master business license application. It can be done online, costs about $15.00 and takes roughly two to four weeks, depending on the work load at the Department of Licensing. Most states have similar license application processes.

"I can get it for you, wholesale, Darling,"

Rain

I'm trying to find 3 or 4 in plastic pots really cheap but the shipping ends up being double than what the cost of the pots are. Any suggestions?

How much do you want to pay? The ones I have I got for $0.42 ea., but I now know that the place I got them (a hydroponics/organic gardening store) charges too much for many things -- e.g. #1 blown plastic pots for $0.91 ea. -- ouch! In my case, it's not so bad, because I'll be reusing the 4-inch square pots. The plants I'm propagating (Calif. native salvias) move pretty quickly into #1 pots. I bought the #1 pots off eBay, and even with UPS shipping, they were still way cheaper ($0.24 ea + about $16 shipping = about $40 ea.) than I could get them locally.

I have been having plant sales for almost four years. It started out by having a few at a garage sale that sold immediately. So now I grow my own from seed or take cuttings or divisions from my own and sell them for about four weekends between mid May and June.

Every year I have more customers and lots of repeat customers. I painted a cute sign to put our by the road and have had a lot of people tell me that they look forward to seeing me put it out. I advertise in the paper for the first big sale and then just post notices around.

If you want cheap pots, buy some packs of disposable cups. You can even reuse most of these. I just mark them with a permanent marker. I have also had people drop off empty pots and of course save all of mine.

I make sure sure yard is looking good too. I have a lot of people that want to walk around and look at my flowers, which is a huge compliment. It is also nice to be able to point out something blooming in the yard and say that I have it for sale. If I find a lot of people like the same plant, I make sure I grow it the following year. I have a lot of requests for plants that will flower in the shade and long bloomers. Lots of times, my seed started perennials are not blooming yet at the sale. So I make up a trifold board every year with the names and prices of the plants and a picture of one in bloom. I let people go through the list and help them find the ones that they like. It really helps to know what they look like in bloom because so many people aren't familiar with the names and just know what they like when they see it.

This year, we are going to try to find time to make and paint decorative birdhouses and I would like to put together some mixed pots of annuals.

If you haven't tried it, it's a lot of fun,but also a lot of work. Plan to spend lots of time potting up plants. It's a really nice way to meet people and they like to buy from someone who has some knowledge and will answer their questions. Good Luck!

Birdhouses: if you intend for them to be actually used by birds, do some research first. The hole size matters, as do the dimensions of the box. Different species have different requirements. Birdhouses don't need perches. Those species that use them (most don't) fly directly into the hole. I say all this because we have relatives who have given us homemade birdhouses as gifts, knowing we are birders. But the houses, though beautifully made, are useless for real birds.

Thanks! I think that I will make it known that these are for decorative use only. I may even make them so trailing flowers can be planted in them.

Before trying to sell plants from your home or at the flea market, it behooves you to check with your state's agriculture department regarding regulations of this practice.

In California, a state nursery license is required to sell all plant material, and your growing grounds (your own garden) are subject to inspection for sanitation, pests, weeds, etc. The farmers markets I have checked with all require a CA nursery license before plants can be sold.

I think that's the way it works in most any state. You can get away with it in this state if you are only selling annuals, but if it's a perennial, it's nursery stock and therefore the sale of it is subject to inspection and regulation by the state department of agriculture. There can be fines involved for selling uninspected stock.

Also, plants should not be patented.