Is Growing Natives Profitable?

[Anonymous]

I am trying to learn whether it would be financially viable to convert farming acreage in northern California to a large scale native plant wholesale business. Does anyone know how I could learn how much demand there is for large quantities of native plants, perhaps used in roadway landscaping, and other outlets? Thank you.</p>

[Anonymous]

Ellen -

The demand for native plants or any garden plants is different in various regions of California.

The best thing you could do is contact someone who runs an established wholesale nursery featuring natives. The problem is that a nursery in your target area would provide the most useful information, but then you would be viewed a potential competition.

The other thing to do is figur out your target customer base: Retail nurseries? Agencies? Consultants doing mitigation projects? There is a big difference between producing showy 'color' items for the retail trade, and doing contract growing for revegetation projects.

The daughter of a friend of mine has a wholesale nursery in inland Mendocino County. She sells to retail nurseries, and says everyone wants instant color. It is hard to market natives in that context, as many of them don't do well in containers. A Cal-Native is not a Petunia, after all.

Then there's California Flora Nursery in Sonoma County, which grows Mediterranean and native plants. Whatever their market is, there seems to be a high demand for natives. Find out more about your target area. Who is already growing what? How far would someone have to drive to deliver the plants? My friend's daughter logs many miles in her truck. What is the level of plant-sophisticaion in that region? Where are your marketing outlets? Are there local public gardens with whom you could partner to showcase your plants?

Patti Kreiberg, who owns a small nursery in Monterey? County said she would not want to depend on it for her livelihood. It helped put her kids through college, but without her spouse's income, she probably would not have started the nursery.

So many questions, no simple answers!

Sincerely,

Lori Hubbart</p>

[Anonymous]

Not sure if this is applicable to building your own nursery, but Owen Dell has a book available on running your own landscaping business, and I would think the info on bookkeeping and taxes etc are applicable. He's big on natives, and is based in Santa Barbara area - he gives lots of classes, many in SB Botanic Garden.http://www.owendell.com/book.html

Trish

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