Selling Plants Online: How to Do It

Sample of Plants shipped
 from Shady Gardens Nursery

These days, almost everyone is looking for a way to make money online. And if you are a gardener, you might have considered selling plants online.

I've done just that for several years. Since I frequently am asked how I ship shrubs, I thought I'd reveal some of my secrets. I don't fear competition, and I enjoy helping someone who might need their own way to make money as much as I did when I started.

It takes quite awhile to receive traffic to your own website. You might consider trying to sell your plants on an established site first, like ebay. I started out by selling my plants at auction on ebay. Later I opened my own ebay store. Selling plants on ebay was surprisingly lucrative for me at first. This went on for a couple of years, until a few sellers ruined it for everyone else by selling their shrubs too cheap. Don't undervalue your merchandise. You will never make any money if you sell everything at far less than it is worth. That's why those sellers are no longer selling their plants on ebay. They put themselves out of business right after they ran everyone else off ebay with their undercut prices. Set your items at a fair price that is not only reasonable for interested buyers, but fair to you. Consider the total cost of growing the plant, the time involved in packaging the plant, and also the cost of supplies and actual shipping. Your time is worth some money too.

I sell plants on Amazon also, from time to time. But there again we must compete with the sellers who are out to undercut everyone else. Also, selling on Amazon is not quite as easy as ebay for a first-time online seller.

Although you might end up building your own website as I did, selling your plants on other established sites can give you the experience you need. Ebay will advertise, and they will help bring buyers to your listings, so you won't have to.  If you've never bought anything on ebay before, I recommend you log on and do that now. That way you'll learn how ebay and paypal both work. Before doing that though, think about a unique user name related to your new business idea. My user name is ShadyGardens, but you should make yours say something about you or more importantly what you sell. Something catchy or cute is always nice.

Don't offer a guarantee on your plants beyond delivery. You are not Walmart and you cannot replace plants because the gardener who purchased from you did not properly care for the plants. And while we're on the subject of Walmart, if the plants you want to sell can be bought at Walmart, there's no need to even start. No one can compete with Walmart on price. They sell items much cheaper than you can, because they deal with huge volume. Grow and sell plants that aren't easily found somewhere else, and you will make money.

Check back soon to learn how I package plants for safe shipping. In the mean time, check out our feedback on ebay and Shady Gardens Nursery online store.

Indoor Gardening: Houseplants Clean the Air

According to a study conducted by NASA and the Professional Landcare Network, indoor plants absorb CO2, release Oxygen, and remove polutants from the air inside homes and offices. Carpeting, paints, and cleaning products can all contain volatile organic compounds (VOC's) that can cause allergic reactions or even lead to cancer. Although paints and household cleaners without VOC's are now available, many of us do not use or have them. And if your home is older, chances are that your indoor air contains these VOC's.

To improve your indoor air quality, NASA recommends an indoor plant for every 50 feet of space.

Landscape for the Birds and Butterflies

Attracting wildlife to the garden is a goal for many gardeners. Few things are more relaxing than sitting in a quiet spot, viewing birds flitting around among the plants, locating food, bathing, and dancing around in an attempt to attract a mate.

As gardeners, we look for plants that will bring butterflies to our garden, hummingbirds to our window, and birds to our feeders.

Attracting wildlife to your garden is very simple--birds and butterflies just need a few things to make them happy! When searching for a place to live, animals look for water and food sources, shrubs and brush for safety from predators, and safe places to build nests for raising young.

To attract wildlife into your garden, you must provide what the animals need for survival:

• Food
• Water
• Shelter from predators
• Safe place to nest and raise young

Water sources are easy to provide. Birdbaths are widely available in garden centers, home improvement stores, discount stores, and even craft and hobby stores. Birdbaths are also easy to make using items found at flea markets and yard sales or purchased terracotta plant saucers. Birds prefer a shallow bowl rather than a deep one. Just remember to place it near a good spot for shelter if the bird needs it, but not too close to a tree or shrub that would provide good hiding spots for predators like cats. Remember to keep the water bowl clean and filled with fresh clean water.

Food and Nesting Sites can also be easily provided. One of the most important things you can do to bring wildlife into your garden is to plant native plants! By doing this, you will provide what birds and butterflies need most: food and shelter. Butterflies will drink nectar from any suitable flower, but each species of butterfly depends on just certain plants for host plants on which to lay their eggs. Some examples are: Milkweed, Asclepias (Commonly known as Butterfly Weed), Dill, Fennel, and Parsley. In fact, herbs attract a number of butterflies and other beneficial insects like ladybugs.

In addition to providing food and shelter for wildlife, when you plant native plants, you’ll be planting plants that will thrive in your climate, thus making gardening with native plants easier than gardening with foreign exotic species.

One other thing to consider when planting foreign species is that many of these exotic plants simply take over and crowd out native plants that are necessary for the survival of our wildlife. Think of how kudzu and privet have taken over in the southeast! One simply has to travel a little way down any highway in Georgia or Alabama to see how these plants have crowded out everything else. When crowding out native plants, they crowd out some of the wildlife species that depend on certain plants for survival.

And what could be more beautiful than a native azalea in full bloom? Nothing smells sweeter than the banana-pineapple scented blooms of our native sweetshrub. Our American native honeysuckle vine with its bright red blooms will attract whole families of hummingbirds, yet won’t take over and pop up all over the community as does the very aggressive Japanese honeysuckle.

I hope you'll visit again for more plant recommendations to attract birds and butterflies into your garden. In the meantime, drop by our Shady Gardens Nursery online store to see if we have some of the plants you need for your wildlife garden.

Winter Honeysuckle: Fragrance for the Winter Garden

Lonicera fragrantissima blooms small but fragrant

Lonicera fragrantissima is a large evergreen shrub that blooms in winter, hence the common name, Winter Honeysuckle. 

The blooms are small but very fragrant, and they simply cover the shrub in January and February, making walks in the garden on warm winter days even more special. 

We have received plenty of rain so far this winter, which could be the reason my shrubs are covered with so many flower buds. Drought-tolerant and easy to grow, this shrub should be in any garden if you have the space for it. 

Winter Honeysuckle will develop into a large shrub and is hardy in USDA Zones 5-9. Red berries form in summer, but they're so well-hidden behind the leaves that they usually go unnoticed by all but the birds who seem to know where to look. 

Although I have received one complaint that Winter Honeysuckle should not be sold due to its invasive nature, I haven't found that to be a valid complaint, since my large shrubs might produce only one or two seeds each per year, at most. However, before planting this in your garden, you might want to check the Invasive Species list for your state, which might be different from our situation here in drought-prone Georgia.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, from our Family at Shady Gardens

Christmas Trees: Is a Real Tree a Good Thing?

Fresh cut Christmas Trees are enjoyed each year by 30 million people. I have often been saddened by this practice, since taking a cut tree into the house for decorating means that a tree must die.

However, purchasing a cut Christmas Tree for your home can be a good thing for several reasons.

Many people are still out of work, and any time you purchase something grown here in the United States, you are helping provide jobs for American workers.

Most fresh cut Christmas Trees are from Christmas Tree Farms near you--farms that are owned by small business owners. Purchasing your tree from a Christmas Tree Farm near you helps to keep your neighbors in business! Local farm produce stands and locally owned garden centers often sell fresh cut trees or even potted ones you can plant to enjoy for years to come.

Christmas Trees are often grown on land that is unsuitable for other types of farming. The kinds of trees grown for Christmas trees can be grown on poor soil. By using these fields, tree farmers help to control erosion and provide year-round homes for wildlife.

One acre of Christmas trees produces enough oxygen for the daily needs of 18 people. (Trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen.)

Trees help filter dust and smog from the air.

Christmas Trees are 100% biodegradable. There are several ways your tree can be used after the Christmas season is over. The tree can be ground into mulch for the garden, it can be moved to the edge of your property as a nesting area for small wildlife, or the branches can be cut small for use as firestarters.

On Christmas Tree farms, for every Christmas Tree harvested, usually up to three seedlings are planted in its place.

Choosing your tree at the local Christmas Tree Farm can be a very fun family outing!

So if you're in the market for a Christmas Tree this year, consider helping a local business owner by choosing a real cut Christmas Tree!

For more information about real tree farming, please visit Real Trees 4 Kids.

And for even more fun and interesting information, go to the

National Christmas Tree Association website where you'll find a link to help you find a Christmas Tree farm near you.

Christmas Tree for the Birds

Decorating for Christmas is a wonderful way to spend time together as a family. Once we get the inside of our house decorated each year, we try to involve the children in providing for our wildlife friends outdoors.

Decorating an outdoor tree for the birds is a great way to spend an afternoon. We use a cedar tree that happened to plant itself close to our dining room window, but any tree can be used, as long as you and your children can reach its branches. When you put your imagination to work, you can come up with all kinds of decorations made from things birds can eat. Materials can be berries, nuts, seeds, and breads along with natural items found outside like pinecones and sweet gum balls.

Fresh cranberries can be strung on cotton twine to be hung throughout the tree.

Using regular loaf bread, we used cookie cutters to to cut out shapes and a straw to poke a hole so we could use twine for hanging them on the tree. We then toasted the bread slightly to make it stiff before spreading with chunky peanut butter. A sprinkling of seeds makes the 'cookie' appealing to the birds. We looped cotton twine through the hole in the top and hung these from the tree.

Additional decorations were made using pinecones. We applied peanut butter to the pinecones before rolling them in birdseed.

Sliced apples and oranges and pineapple can be hung using twine. 

A walk through the garden gave us more ideas. Nandina berry clusters made beautiful ornaments. Creampuff, one of our red hens, likes those.

Popcorn looks beautiful on the tree, but I'm surprised to find the birds are not eating that. The peanut butter toast was gone the next day, so we had to make more!

This is a Christmas tree that will be enjoyed by all types of wildlife, and watching to see who visits your tree is a great way for your children to learn more about nature.