How to Start a Plant Nursery From Your Backyard (Under $2K)

You can start a plant nursery from your backyard for roughly $2,000 to $20,000, depending on whether you buy plants to resell or grow them yourself from cuttings. Nearly every state makes you get a nursery license before you sell a single pot, with annual fees from about $25 to $460. The margins look incredible on paper. The catch is that your time is the real cost, and most of the money comes in during a short spring window.

Here is the honest version of this business, with the numbers I could actually source.

How much does it cost to start a plant nursery at home?

Plan for $2,000 to $20,000 to start from your backyard. The low end assumes you grow plants from seeds and cuttings and sell them at a farm stand or online. The high end covers buying young stock to grow on, adding a small hoop house or shade cloth, and setting up irrigation (stepbystepbusiness.com, 2025; financialmodelexcel.com, 2025).

Those figures come from industry estimates, not government survey data, so treat them as a range, not a quote. Here is where the money goes at the small scale: initial plants, seeds, pots, and soil run $500 to $5,000. Propagation benches and hand tools add $200 to $1,500. Shade cloth or a basic hoop house, if you want one, is $300 to $3,000. Hoses and a timer are $100 to $800. Then your state license and business formation fees on top. The single biggest lever on that range is whether you buy plants or grow them. Our startup cost calculator can help you map out those line items for your own situation.

What license do you need to sell plants?

Almost every US state requires a nursery license or nursery-stock dealer registration before you sell plants, and yes, that includes selling from your own backyard. The license usually comes with an annual inspection to check your stock for pests and disease. This is not optional, and states do enforce it.

Fees are tiered, usually by your sales volume or growing area. Montana charges $25 a year if you sell $5,000 or less, rising to $400 above $250,000 in sales (Montana Department of Agriculture, 2025). Florida runs $35 to $460 for nurseries, based on inventory or acreage (FDACS, 2026). Washington ties the fee to gross plant sales and exempts anyone selling under $100 a year (WSDA). If you plan to ship plants across state lines, some species need extra federal certification through USDA APHIS. Start at your own state department of agriculture website and search “nursery license.”

Is a plant nursery actually profitable?

Here is where I want to be straight with you, because most guides are not. The gross margin on a plant you grew from a cutting can top 90%, since the cutting itself cost you almost nothing (stepbystepbusiness.com, 2025). That number is real, and it is also misleading if you stop there.

Nurseries are the most labor-heavy small farm there is. Wages and contract labor make up 42% of production expenses for greenhouse and nursery operations, compared with 12% for all farms (USDA, 2022 Census of Agriculture). At the backyard scale, that “labor” is you. You are the one potting, watering, moving trays, and standing at the farm stand. A 90% gross margin on a $6 plant is $5.40, and if it took you fifteen minutes of handling across its life, you are working for a wage. The math works when you value your own time honestly, sell higher-value plants, and grow volume. It does not work if you buy mature plants and mark them up.

What plants make the most money in a small nursery?

Skip the common annuals that big-box stores sell for $3. You cannot win on those. The backyard model works on plants that are slow, fussy, or trendy enough that Home Depot does not stock them. Rare and collectible houseplants, native and pollinator plants, succulents, herbs and vegetable starts, and specimen trees like Japanese maples all carry real markups and real demand.

Native plants are the strongest bet in most US regions right now. States and counties increasingly push native landscaping, master gardener programs recommend it, and few retailers stock a good selection. You propagate from local seed, your cost basis is near zero, and buyers will pay a premium because they cannot find the plants anywhere else. Pick two or three categories and get known for them. A nursery that does forty things adequately loses to the one that does three things better than anyone in the county.

How do you sell plants from a home nursery?

You have five realistic channels, and most backyard growers use two or three at once. A farm stand or driveway setup catches local traffic if you are on a decent road. Farmers markets put you in front of buyers already there to spend, though they cost a booth fee and a Saturday. Selling wholesale to local garden centers moves volume at lower prices. Landscapers buy in bulk if your quality is consistent. And online sales let you ship bare-root or small potted plants anywhere, which is where collectible houseplants have exploded.

Online is the biggest shift from the old days. A backyard grower with a good Instagram account and an e-commerce store can now sell rare plants nationally for prices a local stand would never get. It also means packing, shipping, and the risk of a plant arriving cooked in a hot truck. Start local to learn your plants and your costs, then add online once you know what sells.

If you are weighing this against other outdoor businesses, our guide to starting a landscaping business walks through a seasonal model with similar cash-flow timing but different economics.

How do you handle the seasonality problem?

Your revenue is going to arrive in a rush. In most US climate zones, the bulk of plant sales happen across a twelve to sixteen week window in spring, when everyone decides at once to fix their yard. The rest of the year is quiet. This is the part that surprises new owners and wrecks their cash flow.

Plan for it instead of fighting it. Spend fall and winter propagating and growing stock so you have inventory ready when demand hits. Build a product line that stretches the season, like fall mums, cool-weather vegetable starts, or houseplants that sell year round indoors. Hold back enough spring cash to carry you through the slow months. And be honest with yourself about what this does to your year: if you need steady monthly income, a nursery alone will not give it to you, at least not early. Many owners run it alongside a job or another income stream until the spring numbers get big enough to matter.

FAQ

Sources

• BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, SOC 45-2092, Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse: https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes452092.htm
• USDA Economic Research Service, Farm Labor (2022 Census of Agriculture): https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor
• Montana Department of Agriculture, Nursery Licensing: https://agr.mt.gov/Topics/N-P/Nursery-Pages/Nursery-Licensing
• Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Nursery and Stock Dealer Registration: https://www.fdacs.gov/Agriculture-Industry/Plants-and-Nurseries/Nursery-and-Stock-Dealer-Registration
• Washington State Department of Agriculture, Nursery Plant Seller-Installer Licensing: https://agr.wa.gov/departments/plant-health/nursery-plant-seller-installer-licensing