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marcincon

need help selling my perennials

marcincon
11 years ago

This fall I'd like to clean out my flower gardens & sell alot of my perennials. What advice can you give to help me out without going broke. I need alot of plastic pots - where can i find them cheap or FREE - posted in freecycle.org hoping people would have them. If any perennials are left over I would have to winterize them somehow so i can sell them in the spring too. Wish I had a greenhouse. Would it be useful to build a tier plant stand to sell the plants? How much should be charged on the plants? How would you collect money - leaving a can would get stolen in my neighborhood. Any advice?

Comments (8)

  • marcincon
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    nice advice Kevin never thought of Craigslist... i was looking at having a plant sale each spring/fall. Now posting on freecycle.org for free pots but it's not acceptable according to moderator ;( i was told to check out Home Depot recycle center. Also looking online at various garden centers for lots of pots. I like the idea you mention of digging them up when people arrive & put plants into bags , that way i don't need to worry about buying pots. Looking at all options right now. Found sources online how to market your plants too.

    thanks again!

  • kimka
    11 years ago

    I sold through a stand at my local farmer's market every other and then every Saturday for about 3 years. I got my pots for free at local plant swaps and by letting my gardening neighbors know they could drop off their pots at my house. Also a notice at my farmers market stand had a lot of people dropping them off at the stand when I was there. Free pots make a real difference in your profit margin. I mostly sold 4 inch pots of first year perennials from seeds for $4-$7 and 6-8 inch pots of larger divisions for $6-$9.

    You also need to consider the cost of soil either to pot your plants or to refill the holes from where you did them up. I like the don't pot them up ipart of Kevin's Craig list method, but not the customers come to my house part.

    I also know several people who live on (or have access to yards on) well travelled roads who do monthly "yard sale" style plant sales. To maximum traffic and sales, you need the regularness of holding sales so that people can refer their friends or come back and buy more. Holding sales only irregularly means you only get those who drive by and happen upon your plant sales.

    Good id (with latin names) and information about the plant characteristics (light, water, soil, flower color and time etc.) is really important except for the most common plants.

  • diggerdee zone 6 CT
    11 years ago

    Why on earth would asking for free pots be unacceptable on freecycle???? That makes no sense to me whatsoever. It's certainly not an offensive or objectional request, and since the whole point of freecycle is to keep things out of the landfill, would the moderator prefer people to throw out the pots? Very strange...

    Kevin gave some good advice, IMO. Kimka's right - Kevin's method of digging up at point of sale would indeed save money on potting soil. Didn't think of that one!

    Dee

  • marcincon
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    @diggerdee:
    copied & pasted response from moderator on freecycle:
    Hi,

    Just a friendly reminder, you did disclose your intentions. However, Freecycle frowns upon it.

    25.) MAY I RESELL ITEMS OBTAINED FROM FREECYCLE(TM)?
    When requesting an item with a WANTED post, or when responding to another member's OFFER, please state whether you will be selling the item. In general, it is NOT all right to take an item for free just to sell it on ebay, at a flea market, or elsewhere. There are people who may truly and personally benefit from the item, and if it were going to be sold, the person offering it might have done so. When it's offered out of kindness, please do not abuse it. However, there are some circumstances in which it might be acceptable for you to resell an item (i.e. you repair broken appliances and might be able to fix it up and resell it). If your situation might be something like this, please just state it in your request or when you email about an offer. If you are found to be reselling items obtained from freecycle without appropriately disclosing your intentions, you may be banned from the list.

  • gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
    11 years ago

    I second the suggestion of Craig'slist. When I moved from my garden of 25 years, I had a long weekend plant sale that I advertised on CL. The house was going to be converted into a rental and I had a very heavy and complex garden, very little of which I could take with me.

    I advertised a week ahead of time with only email or phone # for contact and then put up address signs around the neighborhood on the sale days. Other than removing the plants I wanted prior to the sale (or posting a couple of NFS signs) I did no other preparation. They dug, they bagged or potted and I collected :-) Worked great!! Even sold a couple of decent sized trees :-) And a whole bunch (better part of a pallet) of Arizona sandstone, several copper trellises/arbors and all manner of garden tools and gear. I did have a couple of helpers to assist with 'crowd control' and to make sure folks paid properly and dug/took only what they were supposed to.

    Actually made more selling plants and garden stuff than I did selling off typical interior household goods and furniture, including antiques and collectibles! It was an amazing experience. My old neighbors still talk about it :-)

  • eclecticcottage
    11 years ago

    I posted a wanted on CL for some pots, and also scrounged a bunch in the planting season when people were throwing them out.

    For the plants I sold, which were mainly divisions of things that were taking over the place (like lily of the valley) I just potted them and put them in a wheelbarrow at the street with a pay on your honor can and a sign. Since these weren't super exciting high interest plants, I just charged $2 for bigger divisions and $1 for smaller ones. Mainly I found I'm too far into the country for "free" listings on freecycle (people replying wanted me to work around their schedule because I'm "so far"-uh, no, I'm GIVING you plants, you work around me) and I didn't want to just toss them, so it worked pretty well. I reinvested everything I made into more plants (over $100). I have maybe 20 or so left that I'm going to clear out at .50 a pot.

    Eventually I'll probably build a little stand from reclaimed wood (to save $$ and not eat into my profit margins) and sell the lesser plants on your honor. Then have a plant sale a few times a year for "higher end" stuff.

    I got a bunch of things from a neighbor who put out a huge trailer of plants. From the looks of the tags, they had them at a sale and these were the left overs. $1 each or 8 for $5. I got more echinachea, a wild clematis, sedum, sea holly...I love inexpensive roadside plant sales! I don't bother with ones that get close to what I'd pay at a garden center. I have two that sell quarts for $3 a piece and include things like the newer rudbeckia near by.

  • diggerdee zone 6 CT
    11 years ago

    Ah, marcincon, that makes a *tad* more sense, though still, IMO, stretching it a bit. I guess your problem was you said WHY you wanted the pots and what you were going to do with them, lol.

    But still, it's not like you are turning around and selling the empty pots for huge profits. And I still would bet that most people would prefer to give you the pots, knowing full well what you would be doing with them, rather than throw them away. After all, most people who participate in freecycle just want things to be put to use, not thrown away.

    Oh well, there's always craigslist, lol! Good luck!

    Dee