How to Make Money at Home Growing Small Landscape Plants on 1/20 Acre or Less
by Michael J. McGroarty -
www.freeplants.com
Small
town, big town, it doesn’t matter, if you have a small area
in your backyard that you can use for planting, then you can
make money growing small plants at home. Actually you can
make pretty good money on 1/40 of one acre. That’s an area
about 30 feet by 40 feet.
You
will be amazed at how many plants you can fit in an area
that small, and at how much money you can make. Even
apartment dwellers can do this! If you live in an apartment,
just to get a feel for how fun and rewarding a tiny nursery
can be, find somebody with a little piece of ground that
they will either let you use, let you rent it, or do a joint
venture with you.
Is
there really a market for small plants? The market is huge,
something like 4 billion dollars last year alone, and the
demand is tremendous. As a small grower, you have a
tremendous advantage over the larger nurseries, their
overhead is very high. As a backyard grower yours will be
almost nothing.
You
might be asking; "I live in a small town in a rural area,
how many plants can I really sell?"
Tens
of thousands if you want to. Most people don’t realize it,
but large wholesale growers are the largest buyers of small
plants in the country. They sell so many plants that they
just can not produce them fast enough themselves, so they
buy them from where ever they can find them. Just pack them
up in a cardboard box and ship them anywhere you want.
I
routinely buy large quantities of small plants and have them
shipped thousands of miles to my house. Why do I buy plants
if I know how to grow them myself? There are a lot of
reasons, but one is because I am impatient and don’t like to
grow Japanese Maples from seed. I can buy Japanese Maple
seedlings for as little as 75¢ and all I have to do is pot
them up and watch them grow.
I
also buy large quantities of flowering shrubs that I would
like to start propagating myself. I buy them for 50¢, pot
them up, and often sell them the next year for $4.97. But in
the mean time I take cuttings from them to propagate for
next year’s crop. Then I never have to buy that variety
again. Those are the same reasons that many wholesale
nurseries are always looking for great deals on small
plants. When they find someone like you, growing in their
backyard they are delighted, because they know they can buy
what they need for less money from a small backyard grower
than they can if they buy from a large nursery.
It
only stands to reason, your overhead is almost nothing, you
don’t have to raise the price of your plants to pay for
buildings, hundreds of acres of land, trucks, tractors, and
dozens of employees.
How
much money do you need to get started?
Almost none. All you have to do is root some cuttings, and
you’re on your way! There are dozens of easy plant
propagation techniques that are so easy to learn that young
children can do them, and with great success I might add.
This propagation information is available to you free of
charge at
www.freeplants.com
The
size of the area you need to get started is really up to
you, but an area about the size of a picnic table is a
start. I’m serious. I root my cuttings in flats that are
about 12” by 15”, and can get between 100 and 150 cuttings
per flat. In an area about the size of a picnic table you
should be able to root several thousand cuttings at a time.
And
guess what?
As
soon as they are well rooted, they have a value and can be
sold immediately! Isn’t that cool?
Typically a rooted cutting is worth about 50¢. Let’s see
now, 1500 cuttings at 50¢ each, that’s $750.!!! Wow!!! The
wheels should be turning now.
But
you don't have to sell 50¢ plants, you can grow them until
they’re bigger and get more money for them. That’s what I
do, I pot them up in small pots and they sell like crazy
right from my driveway at $4.97 each. This spring we sold
over $25,000. worth of $4.97 plants right from our
driveway. One the people that bought my Backyard Nursery
E-book held a sale this spring and sold $2,800. worth of
plants her first weekend. She was ecstatic!
Of
course we also sold plants for much more than that. I used
to grow Japanese Red Maples and we sold those for $45.
each, and they sold like hot cakes!
This
is one of the most fun and rewarding home businesses you
could ever get involved in. My kids have learned work
ethics, the value of a dollar, and skills that will last
them a lifetime. Anytime they needed a little extra money
all they had to do was step out the back door and earn the
money they need.
It
costs very little to get started, and the rewards can be
quite high. It’s certainly not a get rich quick plan
(because there is no such thing!), but plenty of people have
done very well in the nursery business. All it takes is
determination and hard work. You can learn it as you go
along. It’s much easier than you think.
Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Visit
his most
interesting website,
www.freeplants.com and sign up for his excellent
gardening newsletter, and grab a FREE copy of his
E-book, "Easy Plant Propagation" |
