On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 06:42:13 -0400, Jenny
wrote:

This year it seems that just about every one of the local nurseries is
selling branded plants that come from maybe three big growers. This is
true of both annuals and perennials.

They don't really come from "three big growers". The three "big
growers" actually contract the growing of the plants out to the
smaller cheaper nurseries. They provide the pots, labels and
seed/bulbs, and have the plants shipped to whoever they sell them
too..

I'm also seeing a trend where instead of selling six packs of annuals
for $2 -$3 they're selling one plant (not all that better looking than
one in a healthy six pack) for $3.50 or more.

The more middlemen, and the more shipping, the more things are going
to cost.

Who are these companies who seem to have taken over the nursery
business? Where are they? What's going on here?

They are in a office in somewhere (it doesn't matter where, they move
often (it's the unpaid bills)). It's a virtual nursery and/or broker,
and they get a LARGE cut of the profits.

I'm finding it VERY hard to find locally grown plants, which bums me
out.

Most people want to shop in a big box store. It's really hard to make
a small local nursery pay enough to live on. Everybody wants to buy
the cheap annuals at Walmart.

You may not make much as a contractor, but it's more than you'll make
as an independent grower. And if you contract, it's the entire
greenhouse/nursery.

The other thing that really bothers me is the uniformity of the
offerings. Since I'm seeing the same nursery stock everywhere, I'm also
seeing the same cultivars everywhere, which is making it tougher to find
interesting things to plant.

The big box stores buy in lots of 10K for plants. Since most
nurseries can't ship 10K of single cultivars, the brokers are the only
one who can sell to the big boxes. The smaller nursery chains
purchase plants from the brokers because the "leftovers" are cheap,
and it's much easier to call a broker than to actually deal with
multiple suppliers.

The big boxes don't want too many line items, since it makes inventory
and shipping more expensive. The brokers don't want either small lots
or too many line items because it's more trouble to deal with them.
The store buyers don't want too many suppliers or too many line items
because shipping and inventory are such a hassle. The store managers
don't want too many line items because inventory and plant care costs
rise with the number of line items.

They'll sell the same $$ worth of plants, whether they have 25 or 250
cultivars. So why bother?

What's the story here?

Welcome to the big box world. You wanted cheap, you got it. You just
have to buy what THEY choose to sell.

See millions of rants about "Walmart". It works the same for plants
as for everything else.

Tuck