Your local botanical garden or arboretum is a wonderful place to visit and learn. What you may not know is that these lush gardens can also be a profitable investment. If you’t have the resources or time to invest in a garden of your own, trading plants with other individuals or institutions can be an excellent way to make some money while still being able to enjoy plants as well. In this blog post, you will learn how to trade plants for fun and profit.
Trading Basics
A trade is when two parties exchange plants. A sale is when one party pays money for plants. A lot of gardeners use these terms interchangeably, but they are very different approaches to growing plants, and they have different tax implications as well. Furthermore, not all plants that are sold have to be bought. It’s important to understand the distinction between these three concepts before you try to make any trades. Remember that plants are living organisms and have many characteristics that can be used to categorize them. The easiest to understand is cultivar. It’s important to know what cultivar a plant is before you try to trade it.
Identify Your Plants and Set Your Standards
If you want to trade plants, you first have to figure out what you have and what you want. If you’re trading with nurseries, it’s helpful to know what cultivars you have, although you may also be given a number for a new cultivar if the nursery has not named it yet. If you’re trading with private gardeners, you want to know the cultivar and parentage of each plant before you try to trade. You also want to make sure you know how mature your plants are before you attempt to trade them. If your plants are not at their maximum size, you may want to wait to trade them. If they are ready now, you can still trade them, but you also have the option to sell them instead. Plants for trade
Network, Network, Network
The best way to find partners to trade with is to network. Talk to gardeners at your local nursery, your local botanical garden, your community garden, and even your local gardening clubs. If you go on a plant walk, introduce yourself to everyone you meet. Tell people what you’re looking for and what you have to offer in return. If you have a blog or a website, you can either link to a page where people can leave contact information or you can list your network contacts there. This can be an excellent way to expand your network beyond your local area.
How to Find Partners for Trades
When you find someone who has plants you want, ask them if they have anything you want in return. Keep in mind that it is important to keep all your partners informed of your progress. Plants grow at different rates, and sometimes plants die unexpectedly. If that happens, you need to let your partners know right away. Your partners will appreciate your honesty and will likely still want to trade with you in the future. You also want to make sure you are trading plants of similar value. If you are hoping to make some money with your trades, you should try to trade plants with higher value for plants of lower value. You can also trade in lots of plants for plants with a high value.
When You Should Not Trade Plants
There are times when you should not trade plants. If you plant something that is illegal to propagate, like a species of orchid, you should definitely not trade it. You should also not trade plants if you do not know the cultivar and parentage, or if you do not know how mature the plants are. Plants with unknown parentage and cultivars can have very different growth rates and health conditions, and you do not want to trade them. You also do not want to trade plants that are not ready to be traded. Plants that are not mature enough will not have much value and will really just be taking up space on your partners’ properties.
Money Making Strategies with Traded Plants
There are a few ways to make money with what you trade. You can try to sell plants at local nurseries or online. You can offer to trade plants for services like weeding or pruning. You can also sell seeds, even if you got the seeds from a plant you traded. You can also try to patent your new cultivars. If you have been working on a new cultivar for a while, you can consider patenting it. This can be very difficult, but it is a great way to earn extra money. You can also try to sell your excess plants, but be careful not to sell anything that is illegal to propagate.
Summing up
Never overlook the value of trading plants as a way to gain access to new varieties, to make new gardening friends, and to earn money from your hobby. Start networking with other gardeners now to maximize your trading opportunities. If you have the right plants and know what to look for in others’ plants, you can have a mutually beneficial trading relationship. And in the process, you can learn new plants, make new friends, and maybe even earn a little extra cash.
This article is provided by https://www.provendernurseries.co.uk/