Advice on selling trees

I set up an estate tree nursery a couple of years ago and now have around 550 trees, 18 species, ranging from 2m London Plane trees, Wild/ Bird Cherry, Wild Pear, Sweet/ Horse Chestnut, to smaller Silver Birch, English/Pin/Holm Oak, Walnut and Copper Beech. These are all pot grown and easy to transport.

My goal was to sell these to local garden centres and nurseries but there doesn't seem to be much interest. Any advice on where I could sell these, ideally in bulk at wholesale prices, would be really appreciated. Based in Sussex and wondering if I should be considering landscape gardening firms or housing developers?

 

Most of those dont appear to be modern garden sized trees, so I can see that lots of garden centres may not be interested.

Housing developers might be interested in some but size is the problem these days in urban areas, they often go for smaller varieties of these types of tree.

They mostly seem to be the kind of trees that you see in local parks, could councils be interested I wonder.

 

Thanks - councils is a good suggestion. Do you think Garden Centres want something more established? Or perhaps as you say my selection is much more suited to parks and woodland creation.

 

Well I think most garden centres tend to stock, varieties of forest trees, ones that grow fastigiate or are smaller cousins of the plant they originate from, a single horse chestnut for example would totally cover about two modern gardens when fully grown.
So I can understand them not wanting what are species trees, you rarely see them in gardencentres.

 

Woodland trust comes to mind but being a charity they probably wouldn't want to buy them, but you never know.

 

Garden Centres over a period of time will know what type of tree's plant's etc etc are ideal for growing in there area and which are popular sellers. It's impossible to stock everything, so its common for a small independent G/C to source to order.

Many Garden Centres will have already placed orders sometime ago with nurseryman, many, like myself only buy bare rooted ornamentals, with most being potted for sale by our own staff, keeps them occupied during the quiet period and works out cheaper. A Garden Centre will have also taken orders from the general public, buying bare rooted is considerably cheaper than potted, so that saving can be passed on to the general public who are prepared to wait till the back end.

I have been using reputable nurserymen for years, good quality and at a decent price. What you are asking in price compared to what a Garden Centre has been paying previously will also be a factor. Many nuresymen grow to order, they will grow surplus but they will already have a good clientele of trade customers.

 

Thats a good shout - thanks.

 

Hi gks - thanks for the advice and that makes a lot of sense. My intention was to move towards grow to order but needed to build a customer base first. I also went down the pot grown route given the ease with transport.

Do you think a garden centre would be interested as long as the price was right, i.e. happy to sell on pot grown trees but not pay the usual higher prices associated. I'd be very grateful for any guidance on price that would make my trees attractive.

 

You could approach local land owners who might be interested, especially as rewilding is a coming thing. Although most will only want to pay bare root prices. Bare root trees are easier to deal with than pot grown.
Personally I think that bare root trees would be easier to transport as in dig up, bundle, drop in sack and ready to go.

 

I wouldn't know what the going trade rate is for containerised tree's, especially the variety your looking to sell. But to give you an idea, most ornamentals I get cost me under £10 and will be about 2m tall, bare rooted. As already pointed out, transport of bare rooted ornamentals including fruit trees and bushes, roses etc etc is easier for transporting which works out cheaper. When I go down to collect my order later in the year, I will have no issue's getting all my order on our 8 wheeler curtainsider, if they were potted, no chance, it would take multiple trips.

Have you a rough idea what your hoping to get, no need to tell me. But if you do have an idea what your hoping to get, then you need to test the water at a local G/C. Ask for a bit more than you ideally want, then you have some leeway should they want to negotiate a cheaper price. If going down the G/C route, then look for small independent one's, don't go for the big chains, they will pay less and tend to be on 90 days payment. Our order went in a couple of months ago for all our bareroots which we have added more since, I think most G/C's will have too.

 

Thanks gks - really helpful and i totally get your point re transport. I have a flat bed trailer and have worked off being able to move 20-25 potted trees at a time but haven't really needed to do anything bigger as those are the rough order sizes i have had over the last 12 months. Those were mostly local landowners and i was always aware that market was limited.

I'll keep pushing the garden centre route, most of the ones i spoke to earlier in the year weren't prepared to commit to anything until Autumn but perhaps that was a nice way of saying no. My setup also has very low overheads so price wise i don't think i am much more than bare rooted and certainly a lot less than what i see potted trees being sold for online.