Searching for a local Wholesale plant supplier

hi Guys,

I have been up and running with my garden maintenance business since May and have been pretty busy. As the planting season is approaching I am struggling to find a local trade nursery with a good range of plants at trade prices. Our loacal Coblands cash and carry closed down a couple of years ago. I get a lot of jobs which only need a few dozen plants at a time so I need somewhere I can pick up a van load and get to the job within an hour or so.

I have been gardening professionally for the last 25 years and have a good plant knowledge which is my unique selling point when it comes to persuading new customers to use my service. My problem is that the only option available to me is to use local retail garden centres, not all of them offer trade discounts and their range is quite limited and the ability to to make some profit on the supply of the plants is limited. All of my work is charged on an hourly rate for labour plus materials so it is important that I can charge a mark up on the plants and still look like I am charging the customer a sensible price.

Does anyone out there now of any good suppliers in the Marlow, High Wycombe, Maidenhead area and how do you guys source small quantities of plants on 'as-needed' basis.

I would be grateful for any comments.

Thanks

Steve ( The Marlow gardener)

Replies

John Baker August 25, 2012 at 8:57pm

http://www.yell.com/s/nurseries+horticultural+wholesale-berkshire.html

Forget how I linked up with wholesale nurseries 18 odd years ago, but did a local (to me ) search and found most of those I use came up. This is the same search result for you.
Steve Coone August 25, 2012 at 9:07pm

Really helpful thanks John

John Baker said:

http://www.yell.com/s/nurseries+horticultural+wholesale-berkshire.html

Forget how I linked up with wholesale nurseries 18 odd years ago, but did a local (to me ) search and found most of those I use came up. This is the same search result for you.
Jenny Bloom August 25, 2012 at 9:16pm

For good trade nurseries, I mostly use Palmstead nurseries (in Kent) who offer fantastic service, great range and quality of stock and will deliver - you can check stock online through their website before ordering www.palmstead.co.uk. More local to you though is Farnham Common Nurseries - I visited a couple of years ago and they had well kept stock at good prices - maybe worth visiting and exploring a relationship here?
Good luck

www.jennybloom.co.uk