Re: succulents/ nurseries

Hi Noreen
Hope I didn't offend with the "people with money" thing.  Wasn't
trying to.  But here we now have two private nurseries left and all of the
private nurseries are hurting unless they specialize and this in a city of
160,000 people.  It's a shame I think because you could get real help at those
nurseries which you typically can't get in the big box stores...unless you are
lucky enough to find Zem in one of them.
Funny what you said about hybridizers
because again bringing up the hibs almost all of the hib hybridizers do it for
fun rather than profit but that could be because they are a smaller "thing"
and they haven't had the opportunity to get big money like they do with roses
and other more popular plants.



----- Original Message ----
From:
"TeichFauna@aol.com" <TeichFauna@aol.com>
To: gardenchat@hort.net
Sent:
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 2:56:29 PM
Subject: Re: [CHAT] succulents/
nurseries

It is my experience that it is not necessarily the people with
money that  
purchase the so called "rare" plants either on the internet or
in  nurseries.  
Perhaps this is the case in cooler climates where many of
the  plants that are 
considered "rare" are those that require greenhouses,
heaters,  and a lot more 
equipment that can be costly to get maintain.  Here
that is  not the case, so 
what would be considered rare in cooler climates
are  not here, but often are 
landscape plants here.  From being a member of 
various different plant 
societies, I've learned that people used to have to
pay  several hundred dollars 
for a plant, because it wasn't as easy to 
obtain a plant, and so they often 
only got a couple a year or so.  Often 
they would have to wait for a world 
conference or such to obtain the plants 
that they collected. Thus started the 
hybridizing craze to create a  new rare
plant locally, and therefore more plants 
were  available. Today the options
and availability are much greater, so the  
prices are not as high as they
once were.  With so much  availability, 
hybridizing is no longer worth the
effort, or as  profitable either.....since out of 
hundreds of plants only one
or two  might prove to be a winner.  The hybridizer 
prefering to  make a
large profit, in order to make the effort worthwhile, 
would  rather sell the
hybrids to larger growers.  Seeing a potentially  top 
selling plant, the
grower will pay the higher price.

  The plant collectors that I've known were
and are not  necessarily the 
wealthy.....however, then and now, the true
plant  collector  (not just the 
typical plant addict) specializes and is
more  selective about their 
purchases.....their collections are  therefore 
smaller, but perfect.  They don't purchase 
their plants from the  Internet
for the most part, nor at nurseries.  I've found 
that a rare  plant today is
not necessarily one that is new to the market, 
but one that  is difficult to
cultivate,  and therefore hasn't saturated the  
market.  In shows, the plants
that are difficult to cultivate will also be  the 
ones that get the most
points for perfection.

I can't speak for the rest of the country, but here
at  least, the small 
nurseries are doing really well.  The box stores get 
plants in from home office 
orders which are located in cooler climates, thus
the  plants often are not 
those that will do well here.  Not only do  they
carry the wrong plants, but 
they gear their "season" to that of cooler 
climates....thus cutting out a large 
chunk of the business.  Although  the
area managers have tried to get the 
home office buyers to understand  this,
they do not seem to care, stating that 
they are not a nursery and as long  as
they carry gardening items during the 
summer, that's all that  counts. 
Therefore the bulk of the business goes to the 
local  nurseries that DO carry
the plants that do well, and that do realize 
that we  have a year growing
season.  We have plenty of local large growers 
(i.e.  Hines, Color Spot,
etc.) that are more than happy to extend thier sales 
past the  box store
"season" and sell to local nurseries for pretty much the 
same  price.  The
small nurseries here do not necessarily carry the plants that a 
true plant
collector would purchase, but they do bring in the unusual and  
new that
would definitely bring in those that are addicted to plants and are  
always
on the search for something new and exciting to add to their 
overflowing, 
but not perfectly grown collections.

Noreen
zone 9
Texas Gulf Coast


In a
message dated 8/13/2008 2:31:58 PM Central Daylight Time, 
dfranzma@pacbell.net writes:

however  the folks with money are quite
often
the collectors who are willing to pay  a premium for fine plant material
from
reputable growers.  For the  greater number of consumers who can't really
tell
the difference between a  succulent and a woody shrub they shop at where
ever
they can get the least  expensive material in the largest pot.  Since the
big
box stores use  plants as a lost leader to bring in customers the smaller
growers are  really having a hard time.  Rare plants is one way they are
trying
to  stay in the business without selling their souls to Lowes and 
Walmart.






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