If you are starting your backyard nursery in August, there are a number of things you should be concentrating on. In the next 8 to 12 weeks there will be some deals on rooted cuttings and liners on the Backyard Growers Business Center Buy/Sell board. If you buy them now and just plant them in a grow bed, which is really nothing more than a garden, sometimes raised, sometimes not. If you have really poor soil it’s better to build a raised bed, which can be nothing more than good topsoil.
August is really a good time to get started, you have all fall and winter to prepare some area, plenty of time in the fall to buy plants that you can take cuttings from next spring. And over the winter many of our members sell bundles of unrooted hardwood cuttings. All you have to do is dip them in rooting compound and stick them in a flat, a pot, or right in the ground and they’ll root next spring and be ready to pot come mid summer.
Inside the Backyard Growers Business Center we have a Buy/Sell Area that is an awesome place to buy and sell plants. You can buy at wholesale prices, but buy in smaller quantities if you want.
September is one of the best months for buying rooted cuttings and liners in the members area. Many growers don’t like shipping in the hot months of the summer so they hold off on all of their sales until September. Lots and lots of awesome deals to be had.
Plant the plants that you buy in a bed, then next June, maybe even this winter, you can start taking cuttings from them. Keep them in the bed until you don’t need them for cuttings any more, then dig them up and sell them for a lot more than you paid for them. Make sure you read, “Small Plants, Big Profits from Home” it’s in the Backyard Growers University. That book is the bible of the business side of growing.
Some things grow easily as hardwood cuttings, other things not so much, so ask in the members area before you waste your cuttings.
Start stock piling hardwood bark mulch so you can mix your own potting soil. I have a few Potting Soil Secrets that I’ll share with you. You’ll need a lot more potting soil than you think.
Intermittent Mist System
If you can swing it, Get a Propagation System as soon as you can so you have it ready to go next June. Right now you could use it until cold weather sets in, but for sure, get one long before June.
In the spring and summer the parts to make these are difficult to find.
21 Plants that are Easy to Grow and Sell Like Crazy
The following 21 plants are really easy to grow and they sell like hot cakes. They always have been really good sellers and they always will be really good sellers. And this list is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to plants that you can grow and sell that people want to buy.
Now don’t get overwhelmed. Just pick one or two of these plants to start out with. And click here for propagation techniques for most landscape plants.
1. Forsythia
2. Red Weigela
3. Varigated Weigela
4. Pink Flowering Weigela
5. Red Twig Dogwood
8. Potentilla
9. Dappled Willow
10. Pussy Willow
11. Daylillies
12. Hosta
13. Heuchera
14. All kinds of Perennials
15. Armeria
16. Boxwood
17. Japanese Hollies
18. English Hollies
19. Rhododendrons
20. PJM Dwarf Rhododendron
21. Hydrangeas
22. Rose of Sharon
23. Dwarf Alberta Spruce
24. White Dogwood trees
25. Chinese Dogwoods
26. Blue Rug Juniper
28. Gold Mound Spirea
29. Ornamental Grasses of all kinds
30. Crimson Pygmy Barberry
31. Rosy Glow Barberry
Okay, that’s 31 and I could go on forever.
Here are some plants for warmer zones, 8,9, and 10
Fragrant Tea Olive,
Gardenia,
Camellia,
Azalea,
Jasmines
Palm trees
Tropical Hibiscus
Burgundy Chinese Fringe Flower
Bogainvilla
Owari & Hamlin Oranges
Satsuma
Kumquat
Azalea (out the wazoo down here)
Crepe Myrtle (ditto)
Lilies
Camelias
amaryllis
hybrids such as Blossom Peacock and Papillo
Japanese Pieris
Satsuma’s
Star gazer lilies
Crape Myrtles of all kinds
Gardenia varieties-evergreen
Azalea varieties-evergreen & deciduous(native)
Camellia varieties-evergreen
Fragrant Tea Olive-evergreen
Nandina varieties-evergreen
Loropetalum/Chinese fringe flowers
Chase Tree
Abelia -so many new exciting varieties -good for zones 6-10!
Viburnums
Daphne
Cleyera-evergreen
Burning Bush/ Euonymus varieties…
Spirea -especially Bridalwreath, Little Princess, Goldmound…
Butterfly Bushes
Jasmines (vines-Carolina, Confederate)
Confederate Rose
Lady Banks Rose
Anise (check out Florida Sunshine)
Holly-Soft Touch/Sky Pencil/Youpon/Burfordii….
Crape Myrtles
Japanese Magnolias(Saucer, Betty, Royal Star…)
Southern Magnolias
Dogwoods
Red Buds
Japanese Maples
Evergreen hedge trees/shrubs
Leyland Cypress
Murray/Arborvitae
Japanese Cedar(cryptomeria)
false cypress(Chamaecyparis…)
Junipers-Blue Rug, Sargentii, Blue Point,…
Trees:
Chinense Pistache
Fruitless Mulberry
Weeping Willow
Live oak
Red oak
Catalpa
Vitex (or Chaste Tree)
Desert Willow
Shrub:
Nellie R Stevens
Wax Myrtle
Red Tip Photinia
Korean Boxwood
Radicans Gardenia
Loropetalum
Yaupon Holly
Perennials:
Salvias
Sedums
Butterfly Bush
Reeves Spiraea
Van Houtti Spiraea
Vines:
Honeysuckle (coral)
Crossvine
Star Jasmine
Mike,
After you have prepared a bed, how long do you leave it to “Settle” before planting ? Pls
Edward
Edward,
No time at all really. As you plant more than likely you will be walking or crawling in the bed, that will pack it down enough. If you want you can prepare the bed, the water thorough to get it to settle down, but I’ve never really done that. As soon as the bed is ready I start planting. Be sure to mulch good or use a pre emergent herbicide for weed control. Actually both, the pre emergents work much better when applied over mulch.
Hi Mike,
Something is wrong with the top of my Lavender Twist Redbud… it is all branch and no leaves. Looks a little odd especially to my neighbors. I cut the seedlings off in early summer thinking this would help. I love this little tree. How can I fix my bald redbud?
Hope you can see the pictures.
Thank you,
Beth
/Users/mbfraser/Desktop/IMG_2318.jpeg
/Users/mbfraser/Desktop/IMG_2316.jpeg
/Users/mbfraser/Desktop/IMG_2317.jpeg
Beth,
Probably a bit of winter damage. As long as the tissue below the bark is healthy the tree will mend itself, all you have to do is keep trimming for shape. This is how you test to see if a plant, or a branch on a plant has died. Just scratch the bark of your plants with your finger nail. If the tissue below the bark is green and firm your plants are fine. If the tissue is brown and mushy that part of the plant is dead.
If the top part actually is dead you’ll have to remove it, then train a new branch to a stake to get that height back. Google teaching a lavender twist redbud to be a tree and you’ll find a video that I did.