Dreaming of Owning a Nursery? Here’s What It’s REALLY Like

Our local nurseries foster our gardening knowledge, hook us on new and interesting plants, and offer diverse, high-quality selections suited to our growing area.

To find out what goes into running a nursery, Kevin visited San Diego’s beloved City Farmers Nursery, founded over 50 years ago and today run by the next generation, son Sam Tall. Sam grew up at the nursery and now owns it, operating it with his sisters and building off of the legacy established in the community.

The joy of gardening and growing spills over into the retail setting in the best garden centers, where healthy, quality plants meet the community. So, what’s it really like to own a nursery? Let’s gather insight and explore behind the scenes of a dream job backed by an ongoing stream of hard work.

Growing and Sourcing Plants

At City Farmers, they grow their own vegetable starts. Growing plants in a retail outlet is not commonplace; it takes a lot to go into starting seedlings while running the rest of the operation. Often, wholesale growers supply the retail nurseries. There’s added value in growing the plants to sell (and added cost initially) – you know the quality, the origin, the care needs, and the value.

From herbs to perennials, growing quality and curated selections become a selling point in the business. The uniqueness of in-house growing also allows specialized seed selection, potting media, and seasonality. In-house growing ensures the timing is right for the specific growing area.

Growing vegetables or other plants in your own nursery requires making the potting soils, greenhouse space (including construction, repairs, and maintenance), potting supplies, staff to manage seedlings, daily watering/monitoring, and a constant rotation of timing the production. There’s never enough greenhouse space. And the skill set is vast, with a lot of learning as you go in owning a nursery.

Weigh growing your own and supplementing with wholesale growers (or vice versa) depending on areas of specialty. Know what you do best and what others do better. Local wholesalers who specialize offer a strong selection of seasonally appropriate plants. If you didn’t grow it, you know who did and verify the quality.

Keep Amendments Simple

With a diversity of fertilizers, amendments, and soil mixes on the market, it helps to streamline the selection of tried and true favorites. Diversifying from the selection of big brands at large retail outlets allows quality products from independent or smaller suppliers. 

Opt for companies with a long history in the industry of staple products coupled with innovations, including organic and peat-free options. Sell what you use successfully to contribute to plant and soil health in the community. Trusting and backing the products with industry knowledge makes for earnest sales. It also makes it easy for customers to hone in on what they need to get growing.

Managing a Living Collection

At City Farmers Nursery, Sam lives on the property, just as his family did growing up. This means easy access to all things garden, able to oversee any problems that pop up, or work on the next project or order. It also means work is always at the ready. When you take on a nursery, you’re focusing not only on business operations (sales, staffing, accounting, customer service, retail hours, property management) but also on keeping your inventory alive and thriving. 

It’s evident that quality plants are the foundation of a good garden center, but it’s also a labor of love. Nothing is “set it and forget it.” Plants usually cost more than at large commercial outlets due to scale and selection, and customers expect a healthy specimen and unique, high-performing varieties. Working on the “off” hours or having trusted staff is necessary to keep things growing and looking their best, especially in the summer.

Consider minimizing waste and loss when it comes to overproduction, inventory not moving, or a less-than-perfect plant. City Farmers donates viable crops to local schools and community gardens.

Irrigation is a Constant

Another behind-the-scenes component and key to infrastructure is the irrigation system. This takes planning and evolves as things move and expand. You may reconfigure parts of the site as you experience growing conditions like sun exposure and wind protection. It helps to have irrigation that can move with you through a combination of inground pipes, sprinklers, and hoses.

Try to establish where you’ll overhead water to install risers. Place hoses within easy access to potted plants, flats, and hanging baskets without long reaches (though lugging a long hose on a hot summer day seems inevitable). Consider beds and perimeter landscaping when dividing irrigation zones and timing the runs to avoid customer interference while working with the system’s demands.

Check daily for irrigation scheduling adjustments and issues – the plants are the giveaway of malfunctions – and be ready to make pop-up repairs.

Share Working Knowledge

As a grower or manager of the plant collection, you’ll deal with the same issues the customers have in their own landscapes. Pests like squirrels, mice, and insects will invade at some point. At City Farmers, they use organic methods to deter pesky invaders. A simple chicken wire frame protects young seedlings in a greenhouse from small mammals.

Organic options (in addition to the wealth of knowledge and experience) make local garden centers special over big box retailers. Share what you learn, how you repurpose materials, and what works on the site. If it’s a fit, offer classes or bring in outside experts to host workshops on what works locally from a gardening or design standpoint. Information exchange makes for successful gardening and generates interest.

Diversify the Selection

Having an array of selections is one of the most fun parts of local garden centers. From trees and shrubs to tropicals and houseplants, a diverse selection done well is a well-rounded experience for the customer. City Farmers Nursery has a tranquil in-house bonsai area. They add specialty aquatic plants to their inventory as an unexpected find for visitors. Not everyone has a pond to plant, but it inspires the opportunity to install or embellish a water feature, even in small spaces.

Super unique is that the nursery is a drop-off for the City for mosquito fish. They use them in their demonstration pools to keep them free of standing water and algae. They also bag them and give them to customers for free to improve their ponds or water features at home. Getting creative with area resources comes naturally with nursery work.

Another fun component is the worm composting bin – for $6 a cup, customers can scoop and take home worms and their castings to enrich their garden systems (and great for getting kids involved).

Lastly, City Farmers has rescue ponies, donkeys, goats, tortoises, and chickens on site. The goats are part of a milking coop in the area. This is above and beyond on the interest scale (and ready-to-go fertilizer!) and another way to engage families.

Relate to Your Customer Base

In addition to being “plant people,” we also have to be “people people” to own a nursery, working closely with customers. Just as sharing knowledge keeps us all gardening, garden centers have the special opportunity to demonstrate site solutions and landscape design. Show how plant combinations work together and what succeeds in the area (and what you’re selling). 

If the business is in an urban or highly populated area, small space solutions are helpful as customers may mostly garden in limited space. City Farmers uses espaliered trees and potted water features as small space elements.

They’ve also transitioned a hillside (once a walkable path, now eroded due to rains) into a slope planting to aid with erosion control. Residents contending with the same situations get a visual marker of what and how to plant.

Consider a Retail Shop

A non-plant retail space offers the opportunity to further tailor the experience and broaden inventory. It may be one that focuses on garden essentials like tools, seeds, seasonal bulbs, amendments, pots, and seed-starting supplies, Or a combination of nature-based items like terrariums and houseplants and garden-themed gifts.

Weigh what you’d like to source and what the community needs. Establish the concept and story the nursery is telling, and the role it plays, and continue to carry the theme throughout.