Plant Nursery Business Plan, With a Projection

A plant nursery business plan is a plan for stock that grows, and dies, on the bench. A plant is potted up months before it sells, some don't make it, and the ones still unsold when the season ends cost money to keep or bump up. So the plan has to cost each plant after its losses, pot up for the season it expects, and carry the cash from potting to selling. In the example below, a nursery in Louisiana sells perennials, annuals and shrub roses in its sales yard and gallon perennials to landscapers, and ends a year about $40,600 ahead on $133,400 of sales, before paying the owner, with a spring that brings more than half of it. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the year month by month, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the nursery in a paragraph: what you grow, where you sell, the goals.
• Cost a plant from its potting-up batch: the plug, pot, soil and minutes, divided by the plants that make it.
• Retail leaves the most a plant; landscapers buy by the hundred at a wholesale price.
• Spring is the year, with a smaller fall; pot up for the season you expect.
• The yard help who water every day are a fixed cost, rain or not.
• TaroStack treats potting up as a batch: plugs, pots and soil in, good plants out. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Bayou Bloom Nursery, a made-up plant nursery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I use in these examples, writes:

Bayou Bloom Nursery grows perennials, annuals, shrubs and vegetable starts in a hoop greenhouse and shade house, sold in its own sales yard and in gallon pots to landscapers in the Baton Rouge area.

Part 2: what a plant costs

Each plant's cost comes from its potting-up batch: the plugs or liners, pots, soil and fertilizer, and the minutes of potting at $16 an hour, divided by the plants that are still good when they're ready to sell. In the coneflower batch, 24 of 288 plugs didn't make it, so the 264 good plants carry the cost of all 288.

The watering, the greenhouse heat and the yard help aren't in these costs; they're fixed, paid every month whatever sells. How losses turn into a cost for each good plant is the same arithmetic as in batch yield formula.

Part 3: customers and prices

A gallon perennial sold in the yard leaves twice what the same plant leaves sold to a landscaper, but a landscaper takes 500 in an order, picked up on a pallet, without anyone answering questions in the yard. In March, the yard's perennials bring about $7,300 of the month's $17,600 of contribution, the annuals about $5,600, the roses about $2,100 and the landscapers about $2,500.

Part 4: the year, month by month

Fixed costs are $5,035 a month: the land lease ($1,000), greenhouse heat and power averaged over the year ($600), water ($200), yard help for watering and customers averaged ($2,500), insurance ($200), marketing ($300), the delivery truck ($200), and software and card fees ($35). Month 1 is January; spring peaks in March and April, with a smaller fall:

The year's sales are $133,418 and the profit $40,641, before paying the owner; February to May bring 56% of the sales. The projection counts each plant's cost when it sells, but spring's plants are potted in January and February, about $15,000 of plugs, pots, soil and hours before the first one sells, so the plan keeps $16,000 of working cash. Every plant still unsold in June costs water and space, and a pot size up if it's kept, which this projection doesn't count; pot up for the sales you expect. How to plan stock around a season is in seasonal inventory.

Part 5: the startup budget

The land is leased. At $40,600 a year, the $33,000 spent before working cash is earned back in a little under a year. Plants that outgrow their pots or go past their best are stock to write down, not to carry at full cost; how is in what is an inventory write-down.

Get the template

Download the plant nursery business plan workbook. Four sheets: your plants with price, variable cost and March's volume; the year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash, and month 1 set to January; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

Two hundred plants in three sizes, in a greenhouse, a shade house and a sales yard, some ready and some weeks away, potting-up batches every week in late winter, landscaper orders for 500 gallons, and losses that change the cost of every plant left. A notebook can't say how many gallon coneflowers are ready in the yard, what a coneflower costs after this batch's losses, or which plants won't sell before summer.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack treats potting up as a batch: plugs, pots and soil in, good plants out.

Potting up as a batch. Each plant and size is a recipe of its plug, pot and soil; a potting-up batch takes them off stock and records the good plants and the losses, so each plant's cost is what its batch used, divided by the plants that made it.

Plants by size and place. Stock is counted by plant, size and where it sits, greenhouse, shade house or sales yard, on a phone between the benches, and losses later on are adjustments with their reason.

Landscaper orders. A landscaper's order is a sales order that shows whether enough gallons are on hand while you're typing it, with a picking list for the yard.

Counting, recipes, batches and sales orders are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

How profitable is a plant nursery?

It can be. In the example, a nursery selling in its own yard and to landscapers ends a year about $40,600 ahead on $133,400 of sales, before paying the owner, with more than half the sales from February to May.

How much does it cost to start a plant nursery?

In the example, $49,000 on leased land: a hoop greenhouse, benches, irrigation, a shade house, a potting bench, a sales yard and checkout, a delivery trailer, signs and a website, and $16,000 of working cash to pot up for spring.

How do you price plants for a nursery?

From the cost of each good plant after losses, against what nearby nurseries charge. In the example, a gallon perennial costs $2.20 to grow and sells for $13 retail or $7.50 to landscapers.

What sells best at a plant nursery?

In the example, gallon perennials in the sales yard bring the most money, about $10.41 each after costs, while annuals sell in the greatest numbers.