Wholesale Nursery Business is About Way More Than Trees
Nurseries often grow plants in a greenhouse, a building of glass or in plastic tunnels, designed to protect young plants from harsh weather (especially frost), while allowing access to light and ventilation. Modern greenhouse techniques allow for automated control of temperature, ventilation and light and semi-automated watering and feeding. Some also have fold-back roofs to allow “hardening-off” of plants without the need for manual transfer to outdoor beds.
Most nurseries remain highly labour-intensive. Although some processes have been mechanized and automated, others have not. It remains highly unlikely that all plants treated in the same way at the same time will arrive at the same condition together, so plant care requires observation, judgment and manual dexterity; selection for sale requires comparison and judgement.
A UK nurseryman has estimated (in 2003) that manpower accounts for 70% of his production costs. The largest UK nurseries have moved to minimize labour costs by the use of computer controlled warehousing methods: plants are palletised, allocated to a location and grown on there with little human intervention. Picking merely requires selection of a batch and manual quality control before dispatch.
In other cases, a high loss rate during maturation at a wholesale nursery is accepted for the reduction in detailed plant maintenance costs. Business is highly seasonal, concentrated in spring and autumn. There is no guarantee that there will be demand for the product – this will be affected by temperature, drought, cheaper foreign competition, fashion, etc.
A wholesale nursery carries these risks and fluctuations each and every growing season.
Tammy Sons is the owner of Tennessee Wholesale Nursery – a family owned and operated nursery located in Altamont, TN. For over 40 years TN Nursery has delivered specimen-quality B&B trees, seedlings & liners, perennials, ferns, ground cover, wetland plants and berry plants to retail nurseries, landscapers, designers. TN Nursery ship to every state in the U.S., and across the border to Canada from the company’s 456-acre site. For more information, visit http://tnnursery.net, email sales@tnnursery.net or call 931.692.4252.
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