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 uh 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 uh hard to
take when i know how much goes into this
business fast well i 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 uh
but it is as i say intensely rewarding
uh 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 uh mindsets so
this is a a higher level view here uh
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