Hi it's Jason from Fraser Valley Rose Farm. Let me ask you something: would you take the plunge?
Would you quit your high-paying management job to roll the dice on a backyard nursery
business growing and selling plants? well that's exactly what i did i over the course of 10
years i transformed my life from something that was quite comfortable and predictable
and quite assured into something that was seasonal and a little bit hard but so rewarding and for me
it really wasn't even a consideration i mean i i thought about the steps along the way but i
had to do this i love the growing and selling of plants i love interacting with people about plants
it's just it's natural to me and it feels it felt like the right subject matter to spend my life on
but now that i think about it some more and people ask me questions about starting their own
backyard nursery and i have to put it into that logical perspective of does this business make
sense? Could you make sense of quitting your job and starting a backyard nursery? and of course my
answer to that my answer in life was yes but i also think there are some special features
of this business that make it particularly suitable and i'm going to say "competition proof"
i'm saying competition proof from the perspective of you can't be squashed by the big guys you can't
be squashed by big multinationals the hardware stores the grocery stores the mass market stores
they've dabbled in the gardening industry they've dabbled in nursery business but they get into that
business seasonally like they're selling barbecues or tupperware bins they don't give it the kind of
thought that we do and i will say one other thing about it is it is specialized and local business
people do value your input as to what to grow especially since the plant world is so large there
are specialties if you're growing bonsai if you're growing fuchsias if you're growing roses like i do
people are seeking out that kind of specialized individual attention
and also it is quite local even with the globalization of the economy and maybe
even the supply chain with this within this industry all of the growing is still happening
quite locally and that puts you at an advantage a comparative advantage compared to
regional or national growers who are trying to ship their plants all over the place it
actually puts you in a spot where your costs are lower your costs of reaching your customer and
your ability to reach your customer is a little bit easier than an easier path than it is for
them now for all the reasons i was just talking about that's why i think that this is a perfectly
suitable business for an individual to start at a small scale and actually make a good living
out of but there are some things i'm NOT going to say and if i were trying to sell you on this
opportunity like really you know hype you up about it the three things i might say is it's fast it's
easy and you'll make all sorts of money and i see your videos saying that somewhat i'm going to say
i mean they're like cheerleaders which is great but it's also a little bit deceptive
or a little bit hard to take when i know how much goes into this business fast well i guess
you can get a fast start on it but it took me the better part of 10 years to transition my life from
one move to the other i'm sure if you're a pretty motivated and clever person you could do it a bit
faster than that but fast not necessarily. Easy? No. this is going to take every bit of your planning
and strategy that that that you have at your hand it's going to take all of your business skills to
make something like this work and seasonally the days are long the work is hard so i would
not say easy again if you have good business sense maybe you can find ways to make it easier
but i wouldn't put it in the category of easy and you'll make all sorts of money and this one kind
of irks me when i see people saying well i could take you know a hundred cuttings of this and there
are a thousand thousand plants of this and they're then they're worth ten dollars each so i just
made ten thousand dollars and they're saying it verbally and so as if it's on paper it's a it's a
it's an accomplished thing it really isn't it takes a long time to do these things and it the
results are not assured so uh i would say that it is i'm not going to say slow hard and you'll make
no money it depends on your business skills just like it would for any other business but don't get
into this business certainly thinking that this is an easy road to fast cash i don't think it is
but it is as i say intensely rewarding and it does have good prospects for success
well i intend this video as a bit of an overview certainly there are specific skills that you'd
have to know in terms of running a backyard nursery things like how to propagate plants
grow things from seed trimming and pruning overwintering i mean all of the basic skills of
growing plants and selling plants and i definitely cover those in this channel and i will continue
to do so but this video is intended more as a strategic overview and there are four things
that i've learned as i've gone along here that are really important mindsets so this is a a higher
level view here the mindsets that you would need to get this going and off the ground and the
first of those is: Don't wait until you're ready and i i see this so often as i talk to people
about this and they say yeah but i'm not ready to make that step in my life and i say to myself
well you know like with so many things in your life if you waited until you're ready to have kids
maybe you never would if you waited until you're ready to get married maybe you never would this is
one of those things whatever scale you're ready to start this on start it now and start getting
the experience by the time you're really ready in terms of savings or where you are in your life
three four five years down the road that's three four five years of experience that you've
forgotten if you don't start the business right now and that's really what i did here is i thought
well i'm not ready to take a transition where i have a sure income from one thing and move to a
completely unsure income so what did i do i went i went to horticulture school i started taking that
on and learning some of the skills i got a job in the industry as opposed to working selling office
supplies and such i started working growing plants and that prepared me more for the business and i
didn't wait even to start growing and selling plants from my backyard i was growing things you
know i've told this story a number of times on a pallet in my back deck in my little suburban yard
i was growing cuttings and i was growing seedlings and i was selling them on craigslist at first so
i didn't wait and i think it really helped me to get to to sort of dip my toes into the water
and see what the temperature was and then i could move along a little bit further like i say i took
a long time getting here but i didn't stop at any point and wait for the conditions to be right and
i think that is a key learning lesson number two that i'm taking with me as i grow my business here
is start small and don't over invest and it would be nice to start out with a big assortment of
big expensive plants and pretty pots and tags and everything else but i always took the approach of
starting cheaply first so over my right shoulder here you're gonna see something i don't show on
camera all the time which is a pile of pots i've rescued from other nurseries i would rather grow
in a used pot for now something i can get very cheaply instead of investing in buying big pallets
of expensive pots and really in the long term a lot of people grow in branded pots pots that have
marketing right on the side of them something very pretty something very fancy but it's not necessary
to get started with the business so i buy these used pots with these stickers i have to peel off
and i use them and i'm aware of their pluses and minuses it doesn't look professional but it does
keep my risk level low for the same reason i generally have started by growing a lot of
plants by seed and a lot of plants from cuttings from within my own yard instead of buying in
large volumes of very expensive plants why would i want to learn lessons when they're expensive
when i could learn the lessons as they're cheap so i keep my investments down and then grow as i go i
had four greenhouses on the nursery here i started by growing in one and then i waited until that
was over its capacity before i pushed into house number two and then house number three and now all
four greenhouses are in operation but i didn't start by laying out the tens of thousands of
dollars it would take for me to get all of those greenhouses operational and running and filling
them with plants that would be too big a bet for where my business was at the time so this is my
point here is don't over invest or throw throw a lot of expensive investment at the business before
you're sure what it can do you have to grow the distribution and the selling and the merchandising
along with the growing of the plants my third piece of advice i enthusiastically say show your
customers exactly what stage you're at don't try to hide it from them a bit i know there's that
common piece of business advice fake it till you make it but in this business there's no faking it
you have the plants you have you are presenting yourself the way that you are and at the stage
that you are and trust me your customers will be very understanding of it it's part of the charm
of our business and in fact what i'm saying about this business being a local business about local
knowledge and growers is that your customers want to have that connection with you on that basis and
in fact the the stories of the people who have done well in the nursery business are people
who started their business with a box of bulbs in a dream selling seeds from door to door or
selling on the back of a truck or a farmer's market or from a pallet on their backyard like
i did it really is not a glamorous start but your customers will see that about you
they know exactly what stage you're at and they want that connection with you and your business
i have to say about my customers and i'll throw in a quick plug for our local customers
they have been super understanding of us we showed up at first with a small assortment of plants
at the local farmers market or selling them on craigslist and you know people came and they were
complimentary and so understanding of what we were what we were and what we're trying to do certainly
we've upgraded our presentation a little bit here i mean and i've shown the youtube audience exactly
how i've made those moves from being kind of a rustic landscape and now we're trying to
tidy it up a little bit and present it a little bit better but each step along the
way the customers have been super understanding when they come here they see what we have at a
certain stage of the season they are so gracious and so understanding they will be your biggest
supporters if they come with you on a journey from being a small backyard nursery into something
that they're excited that you've achieved lesson number four focus on the selling and this is not
going to come as a surprise from me i've said in my other backyard nursery videos that the selling
comes first well actually chronologically the growing comes first but then the selling
comes and it is the most important part and in fact in terms of growing your business
it is almost the only part that matters you need to be able to get your plants out in front of your
customers and you need to be able to have them pull out their wallets and pay for those plants
anybody can learn how to propagate something or start a seed those skills are relatively easy
the fact of learning how to connect with your customers is actually a little bit hard believe it
or not i am not a natural public speaker this is awkward for me and i've taken a little bit of time
to work myself into it now of course i get out in front of the garden clubs i go on podcasts i
i spend time here on on youtube talking to you and i'm posting on facebook all the time these are
business related activities that are super important to the success and growth of my
dream and so i treat them as such i treat them as important to getting past those fears and
anxieties and putting myself out in front of an audience if you aren't good at the social media
and then you better get good at the in-person end one way or another working on that part of your
business will be the part that accelerates and advances the growth of your business
growing the plants well there are ways around that if you if you learn how to sell better
then you learn how to grow you can always buy in plants but buying implants or any other solution
won't help you if you can't sell them so that's what i'm ending the video on here today all right
that's all i had to say i appreciate you spending the time with me and if you have any questions
at any level you're at about how to start a backyard nursery or your dream to do so
drop those in the comments below i'd love to hear from you i'll see what i can do to help