Your business is still really new. When I was working at a native plant nursery my boss used to say it would take 10 years to really build a strong nursery business. Going into seeds is a good idea, but I think its still too early to give up on selling potted plants altogether. Do you ever buy plugs or do you grow everything from seed? I know you make less profit on growing out plugs, but you can also sell them faster and be more flexible when you notice a plant is more popular than you expected. I recommend Savvy Dirt Farmer and Fraser Valley Rose Farm videos if you dont watch them already! Both of them are small scale nurseries with great business tips for someone at your scale.
Thank you so much for each of your vids. I am just starting a native plant nursery in southern MN and your tours of a working nursery are resonating with me. You often talk about your learning how to germinate this or that plant better - share HOW!! I am learning so much from you. Absolutely agree with above comment about Savvy Dirt Farmer and Frazer. Big big difference is that they are not selling natives. They have successful nurseries and i love watching them but as I am getting started there are many things that are different when selling natives. One piece of advice i got is to write down WHY i chose to open a Native nursery. It has been a good encouragement and reminder to myself on the days it feels futile (especially financially). Keep going!
Thank you for the nice comment! Ill try to do better with elaborating on certain things about my process and what ive learnt when they come up in videos :). Yes, I agree Savy dirt farmer and frazer are great channels to learn from as well, but like you point out they arent doing natives and so arent nearly as much of a niche market. I think if I wanted to start selling your typical introduced/ornamental it would be a lot easier financially tbh, but thats not why I got into this of course. I think another big difference for me comparatively is that I dont own the land that I'm working from either which limits me a lot in certain ways, but I do what I can and there are certainly improvements I can still make as well. But this video was made a while back now when I was going through a few things in life as well, but things have improved a lot now and I'm feeling good about things overall and will definitely keep going. Have lots of plans in the works for this incoming Spring as well! Thanks for watching
What you are doing is so important and meaningful. Your passion for nature really shines through. I live in Vancouver and we don't own a car, so getting out to most nurseries is very difficult and I have found it to be nearly impossible to find truly native species in the city. The best place was the VanDusen plant sale which only happens once a year (the native plant table was pretty decimated after a couple of hours, so it does feel like there's demand). I grow a lot from seed simply because I don't have a choice. There are some small boutique-style plant shops such as Figaro's garden that will carry some , maybe partnering with a place like to bring the plants to the people? I also live in an apartment, but I have a street-side garden through the Green Streets volunteer program. There are hundreds of individual gardens. We recently had a plant swap which brought many gardeners together. It would be fantastic to encourage more people to plant at least a few native plants to create habitat islands in the city. Maybe reaching out to these programs to find a new customer base? Sorry, I'm not a business person at all, so I don't know if any of this is feasible, but we all really appreciate what you're doing and we want to help out our invertebrate buddies :)
People can't get enough of native plants here in Georgia. I grow native plants and sell them, too. Just keep trying. And if you do go the seeds selling method that's awesome too. And occasion plant sales work for me.
Sweet, cow parsnip! I am trying to grow some Angelica lucida. It's not really doing much, but it's still alive at least... Omg I didn't even know there was a native dock! 🤯
Maybe you can get contracts from government organizations who might need to buy a lot of plants for habitat restoration? Edit nm sounds like you're looking into it!
There is a local nursery in Portland and they actually develop their own more garden-type cultivars of natives (they also grow non-natives too though). I know you're more into actual genetic diversity, so cultivars might not be your thing -- but retail wise, sadly nativars can have a better chance of making it into gardens bc of aesthetic reasons. But what's cool is that these guys sort of travel around the area looking for unique local ecotype versions of things. I also think it's critical to be looking for strains of our natives that can survive in cities -- if you could find a strain that germinates more easily, or a version of something that ends up performing better in a parking strip -- you may be ensuring that species' long term survival in human-constructed landscapes. Hopefully you can find a way to be compensated enough to continue your work. It's so important!
I like your videos. It's something I'm interested in doing too so it's nice to be able to see the reality through the lens of someone who's pretty straight forward about the realities and not just trying to grab youtube views. I have also noticed the municipalities providing stock for really cheap on a lot of native things. A thought I had about that is, that not everyone knows that's available but.. it doesn't help for sure. A couple friends I knew had a landscaping company centered around edible plants. Plant sales might be sluggish or not provide enough margin, but landscaping can be pretty decent money. You could do that or find a landscaper (or multiple) you could work with providing native landscaping as a service, that might provide you with a better margin. In line with your wholesale thoughts, but.. just an idea.
Your business is still really new. When I was working at a native plant nursery my boss used to say it would take 10 years to really build a strong nursery business. Going into seeds is a good idea, but I think its still too early to give up on selling potted plants altogether.
Do you ever buy plugs or do you grow everything from seed? I know you make less profit on growing out plugs, but you can also sell them faster and be more flexible when you notice a plant is more popular than you expected.
I recommend Savvy Dirt Farmer and Fraser Valley Rose Farm videos if you dont watch them already! Both of them are small scale nurseries with great business tips for someone at your scale.
This was a nice video! Thaks for making it!
Thank you so much for each of your vids. I am just starting a native plant nursery in southern MN and your tours of a working nursery are resonating with me. You often talk about your learning how to germinate this or that plant better - share HOW!! I am learning so much from you. Absolutely agree with above comment about Savvy Dirt Farmer and Frazer. Big big difference is that they are not selling natives. They have successful nurseries and i love watching them but as I am getting started there are many things that are different when selling natives. One piece of advice i got is to write down WHY i chose to open a Native nursery. It has been a good encouragement and reminder to myself on the days it feels futile (especially financially). Keep going!
Thank you for the nice comment! Ill try to do better with elaborating on certain things about my process and what ive learnt when they come up in videos :). Yes, I agree Savy dirt farmer and frazer are great channels to learn from as well, but like you point out they arent doing natives and so arent nearly as much of a niche market. I think if I wanted to start selling your typical introduced/ornamental it would be a lot easier financially tbh, but thats not why I got into this of course. I think another big difference for me comparatively is that I dont own the land that I'm working from either which limits me a lot in certain ways, but I do what I can and there are certainly improvements I can still make as well. But this video was made a while back now when I was going through a few things in life as well, but things have improved a lot now and I'm feeling good about things overall and will definitely keep going. Have lots of plans in the works for this incoming Spring as well! Thanks for watching
What you are doing is so important and meaningful. Your passion for nature really shines through. I live in Vancouver and we don't own a car, so getting out to most nurseries is very difficult and I have found it to be nearly impossible to find truly native species in the city. The best place was the VanDusen plant sale which only happens once a year (the native plant table was pretty decimated after a couple of hours, so it does feel like there's demand). I grow a lot from seed simply because I don't have a choice. There are some small boutique-style plant shops such as Figaro's garden that will carry some , maybe partnering with a place like to bring the plants to the people?
I also live in an apartment, but I have a street-side garden through the Green Streets volunteer program. There are hundreds of individual gardens. We recently had a plant swap which brought many gardeners together. It would be fantastic to encourage more people to plant at least a few native plants to create habitat islands in the city. Maybe reaching out to these programs to find a new customer base?
Sorry, I'm not a business person at all, so I don't know if any of this is feasible, but we all really appreciate what you're doing and we want to help out our invertebrate buddies :)
People can't get enough of native plants here in Georgia. I grow native plants and sell them, too. Just keep trying. And if you do go the seeds selling method that's awesome too. And occasion plant sales work for me.
Sweet, cow parsnip! I am trying to grow some Angelica lucida. It's not really doing much, but it's still alive at least... Omg I didn't even know there was a native dock! 🤯
You're nursery is awesome, hope you keep at it! I'm helping my friend do the same thing in minnesota, this will be our 1st year.
Thank you, yea, I'm keeping at it. Lots if plans for this Spring. Good luck with your nursery as well!
Can you show all the native berrys that you grow ?
Good to see another video from you Josh! Hope you are doin well!
Maybe you can get contracts from government organizations who might need to buy a lot of plants for habitat restoration? Edit nm sounds like you're looking into it!
There is a local nursery in Portland and they actually develop their own more garden-type cultivars of natives (they also grow non-natives too though). I know you're more into actual genetic diversity, so cultivars might not be your thing -- but retail wise, sadly nativars can have a better chance of making it into gardens bc of aesthetic reasons. But what's cool is that these guys sort of travel around the area looking for unique local ecotype versions of things. I also think it's critical to be looking for strains of our natives that can survive in cities -- if you could find a strain that germinates more easily, or a version of something that ends up performing better in a parking strip -- you may be ensuring that species' long term survival in human-constructed landscapes. Hopefully you can find a way to be compensated enough to continue your work. It's so important!
I like your videos. It's something I'm interested in doing too so it's nice to be able to see the reality through the lens of someone who's pretty straight forward about the realities and not just trying to grab youtube views.
I have also noticed the municipalities providing stock for really cheap on a lot of native things. A thought I had about that is, that not everyone knows that's available but.. it doesn't help for sure.
A couple friends I knew had a landscaping company centered around edible plants. Plant sales might be sluggish or not provide enough margin, but landscaping can be pretty decent money. You could do that or find a landscaper (or multiple) you could work with providing native landscaping as a service, that might provide you with a better margin. In line with your wholesale thoughts, but.. just an idea.