What plant would your choose to sell

[kg5]

Have all the ingredients to propagate "the" plant material and to grow them on in trays. Need 4,000 "plants" to start with.

So what to choose to propagate while I wait for my staghorn fern (P. superbum) spore gets to plant size for trays.
So maybe spore is the direction I need to stay in?

Have more room for plants that like lower light and is also a wet area. This area is to harden off the plant trays.

Propagation & tray establishment area, is climate controlled.

This is a commercial project.

To be sold in trays would be an advantage?

Spore that is on the list is P. compacta (elkhorn) & maidenhair fern? Very much a maybe.

To propagate from cuttings from an Australia native plant where I live area is an option?

To propagate from seed?

Need a plant to propagate that will sell plus we need to be able to source whatever plant material is needed.

Trying to float a plant nursery. Here goes.....

[estación seca]

International? Within Australia? Are there regulations about shipping plants to different Australian States? Are there regulations about growing or selling native plants? Hybrid plants are far easier to ship internationally than are species covered by CITES, like orchids. In the US, native species covered by our Endangered Species Act are illegal to transport across State lines.

Mail order? In-person retail nursery sales? Wholesale to other stores? Wholesale to landscape installers? How to sell to each of those is different.

To whom do you plan to sell? You would need to know your existing market, or you would need to be good at introducing plants to new markets. Orchid hobbyists? Tropical plant hobbyists? Niche markets? Would you need to sell easy to grow plants, or could you sell ones that are more difficult? How many possible customers are there? In California Adeniums are greatly appreciated by the Thai community, and Cymbidiums by the Chinese.

I heard a talk here by one of your countrymen, who is now wholesaling Sarcochilus hybrids to big box hardware stores for sale as flowering house plants. But it didn't happen overnight.

What are the current fad plants in Australia? Or, do you know social media influencers who could promote a new fad? Here in the US variegated leaf Monstera deliciosa plantlets are selling for amazing amounts of money on online auction sites.

[ArronOB]

My suggestion, which is bereft of any inside knowledge or scientific approach, is to investigate

Grass trees
Gymea lilies
Prostrate grevillias
Standard grevillias - ie a ball on a stick thing, usually weeping
Finger limes
Any other bush tucker that has some culinary credibility.

I base this solely on what I’ve heard people show an interest in lately

Incidentally, I had a boss who wanted to quit the IT rat race and open a wholesale nursery. He tried a few things including orchids (disaster) before settling on tree ferns. Easy money, he said.

[kg5]

Have been selling Tillandsia & Platycerium on eBay plus web store with reasonable results. So we have a market place already up and running with near 900 positive feedbacks.

Interesting that you have opened it up thank you estación seca.

This is what it is all about. This project is going to lead me into getting a protected plant growers lic #. Then I can go and get my plant material from protected forests in Australia as a general rule.

Most seeds & spores can be imported to Australia but not "live plant material". There is enough privately owned land here on my island with a great selection of natives 9' or 3m domed in shape around the wetlands forests. Very striking flowers. They maybe small but there is heaps of them in so many colours per variety. Could get around 8 different native plants that are different types of shrubs with varying heights.

[Orchidtinkerer]

try looking into microgreens.
For the time it takes to grow them (10 days) and the space they take up I think they are the most profitable plant you can easily grow yourself.
But you will need some local restaurants that would be interested.
If you can find a market some popular microgreens are wheatgrass,sunflower and pea shoots. Restaurants are generally looking for a reliable local source of greens.

[kg5]

Hi ArronOB

Always good to meet another aussie. -

Yes grevillias are a very good, all rounder as a plant type in Australia gardens. Growing standards with grevillias could take a place for us here and is noted thank you. Never thought of it.

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Hi Orchidtinkerer

But you will need some local restaurants that would be interested.
If you can find a market some popular microgreens are wheatgrass, sunflower and pea shoots. Restaurants are generally looking for a reliable local source of greens.

Now that is coming from a totally different angle here. Not even close to thinking about that.

Will have to do a lot of searches concerning this.

examples: Do I need a reg kitchen to do this?

What issues do I need to sort out by selling food?

What sort packaging do I need for microgreens? etc

There is a microgreens factory that is very new on the mainland and it is very noticeable that it is growing very fast by the looks of it.

We live near many restaurants with all of them using microgreens. Amazing I had not thought about it and the issue is in front of my face. Interesting!

---------- Post added at 07:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:55 PM ----------

Another reason to search:

Need to find out if there are any diseases that come with growing microgreens, to being packed stage?

Plus what sort of insurance would I need to hold as a grower & seller of microgreens?

[Diane56Victor]

Ive seen several microgreen growers on YouTube, might be worth a look.

[kg5]

Wonder if microgreens in a controlled environment can be called a product as from a small crops farmer?

There could be a market here on my islands for microgreens. Counted 12+ places to contact. It is getting interesting. As local is best here because we know about having to transport items to the islands. Even a stall outside our home.

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Good to hear from you Diane.

Three aussies on the same thread. It just gets better!

Thank you for the you tube info as still, do not always think computer.

---------- Post added at 01:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:02 AM ----------

Sadly it looks like the microgreen angle is in an over supplied situation for us here. That also includes suppling the growers as well. Microgreen's industry is even trying to sell the "how to do info" of growing. To get this to work needs a lot of room to grow tons of microgreens per year. Your microgreens business needs to be at a point that you can out price the small growers with ease or it looks like it will not happen. Good to do the searches and get an answer.

[Orchidtinkerer]

Hey Kg,
it will be tough to find a market, I face that problem all the time. What is still profitable... Chickens get mass farmed, furniture gets mass produced, cars are made on production lines and it is hard to compete on a smaller scale with the same costs but less profit.
With more and more automation and soon self driving cars what will the millions of workers do instead. It's a flaw of capitalism and it affects every developed nation except for a few who realize an equal society is the happiest society. Some countries try to promote equality and as a result crime decreases and health gets better in the population.
But those countries just focussing on profit end up with an ageing population with lots of health problems, lots of crime and lots of unhappyness. Ok going a bit off topic, although it is the reason why it is tough to enter a new market and compete profitably long term.
Even Netflix has yet to make any profit at all. Not sure Uber is profitable yet yet they are becoming the market leaders by undercutting everyone else. It doesn't provide for a fair equal system imo and any job producing something will have a disadvantage becuase the competition is greater than on a service job.
Hope you find something that works for you. Orchids are in theory the last not mass-produced plant but that is starting to change with the recently very cheap phalaenopsis one can find at supermarkets.

[kg5]

Hi Orchidtinkerer

it will be tough to find a market, I face that problem all the time. What is still profitable... Chickens get mass farmed, furniture gets mass produced, cars are made on production lines and it is hard to compete on a smaller scale with the same costs but less profit.

15+ years ago had the same motivational issue as you mentioned that it is hard to find a popular product to be able to sell, to get a profit. Best thing I did was to learn how to use eBay, which flows into a webstore.

But what is great is to develop a strong search approach to any product that might look interesting. So we can get a non biased approach to discerning if it is a good product to sell or not. This helped me to get 2 eBay stores that are still growing but have had reasonable results so far. And yes this is a big issue.