Of course for a faster start, if you don't have the time and the means to root the cuttings yourself, or you don't have the stock to harvest your cuttings from, you can purchase rooted cuttings readily available from Wholesale Nurseries locally or on the internet.
That would be a faster process to achieve a finish product for sale to the public. The rooted cuttings usually are grown in cell trays of 36, 50, 72, or other sizes, that are also called plugs.
The prices per tray or per plug varies as there are so many sources available where you have a chance to shop around and compare prices.
This alternative is preferable if you want to save time, because the rooting process could take 6 to 8 weeks or even longer for some varieties of plants.
Another alternative for plant propagation is by seeds, and the little plants obtained by sowing seeds are called seedlings.
If you love blooming bedding plants, you might want to wait until late winter, very close to the spring season, to start them by seeds and have them readily available as a finished product for sale just in time for planting season.
Since a lot of gardeners and nature loving people have been cooped up indoors in a long winter, they are itching to get out in the garden and plant those vibrant color spring bedding plants. Therefore, the bedding plants operations are very profitable and fun.
I will tell you about it in a separate article about how to grow and sell bedding plants. It is going to be awesome!
In any situation you've got to have the right environment to achieve the starter plants in order to have a reasonable number of plants to make any income. But no mater what you choose to do, to start the plant plugs or seedlings, you'll need a greenhouse.
Nevertheless, if you are living in a warm climate, you probably don't even need a greenhouse, and you can start your rooting and sowing process in a shady location under some trees, as long as you have the water source close by.
In other situations where the region you are living in has cold weather and freezing temperatures, the plants will need protection. You will need a good greenhouse to grow them and protect the young plants from the elements.
But the rooting and sowing process should be started in the spring and early summer. You can root the cuttings even in the winter if you heat the greenhouse and create the proper temperature for the plants to catch roots.
That is for the larger professional operations that can afford it and are aiming for large production of plant material. You can achieve that too, if you'll stick with this business long enough and grow as you go.
Once you start it, you will expand, if you want to or not. If you want to increase your income you will have to expand.
I've started with a small humble 10x30 greenhouse, and in about 3 years I've ended up with a 10 Acres vibrant Nursery operation with lots of greenhouses, irrigation systems, two deep commercial submersible pumps, plenty ground covers for the finished plant material, and then after another 3 years I expanded with a nice profitable Landscaping Division.
With hard work and dedication you can become successful in this plant growing business in a relatively short period of time.
As I will continue to write these articles relevant to the plants growing and selling for profit business, I will suggest different methods of selling your finished plant material both, wholesale to Garden Centers, Landscapers, and retail to the general public.
In a special article I will try to tell you my story, how I started, what kind of resources I've used, the obstacles I've encountered and how can you avoid them by learning from my mistakes.
But for now lets talk about the subject of how to start with the rooted cuttings: to grow them yourself or to buy them from other sources.
This depends on your possibilities and the time that you have available or if you want to wait until the little cuttings will grow roots.
Once you have build your little greenhouse, and purchased a few cell trays, fine potting soil to fill the cell trays with, then you are ready to harvest some cuttings to start propagating by roots.
For a greater success and a faster rooting process you will need some root hormone to deep the cuttings in, before you stick them in the cell trays. However, you can root the cuttings without the root hormones, so it's not really strictly necessary. Who knows, you might already have a "green thumb".
We joke around here when we talk about my wife that if she sticks a dry stick in the ground it will catch roots. I tell you, does she have a "green thumb" or what!
Before you do that you have to decide what kind of plants you want to propagate and sell. As I've suggested in the previous article, it would be a good idea to start with the woody evergreen shrubs that don't need heating in the winter.
Just have everything ready and in the next article I'll talk about how and where to collect the cuttings from, and how to cut and make them ready to stick them in the rooting cells.
In the meantime just make sure you are working on building your first greenhouse and have it ready. If you do it right, this thing will grow wings and there's no telling where and how far can it take you!
Just stick with me and get your hands dirty for a profit, and a good one, too!
Until the next article,
Mike Borlovan
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