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Nice Ceph from garden centre


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I picked up a really nice large trapped Cephalotus from Scotsdales Garden Centre in Cambridge. It cost me £15.99 but it is a big plant. It is in a 5" pot and covers the whole pot, so that price is not bad.

They also had some Heliamphora heterodoxa X minor plants.

In case you live in Cambridge and want to go there, it was the Gt Shelford garden centre, Scotsdales have 3 in the area.

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Guest paul y

does the back of the label say lammehave dk?? they are a Danish company that are tissue culturing cephs heliamorpha and cobras, im assuming they are tcing them as they sell at the auctions in rather large quantities.

£16 at pos means they probably paid no more than £3 a unit, it was only a matter of time before the garden centres started getting these, just wait till they get tc named location plants.

even larger variety of cps dying in garden centres,,, great just what we need

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Guest paul y

most garden centres work on a 200% mark up, I can get tc carnivorous plants through trade suppliers from just about every European nursery that are doing them, I can get trays of 12 named sarracenia for £14 all in 9cm pots, that £14 is with the supplier adding on their percentage, by the time they get pos they are £5-6 each.

in fact I cant actually think of any business that doesn't work on at least 100% mark up. a good example is my supplier springwood nurseries they sell 9cm herbaceous perennials at 68p a pot, 200 yards up the road is almondsbury garden centre who sell the exact same pots but with there labels on at £2.75 each or 4 for £10.

I supply quite a number of florists with potted plants and various stock, they 200% everything I bring them, its a minimum standard practice when you have staff to pay for and glass and wicker tat to stock.

funny thing with springwood and this says it all about the plant trade, springwood has been open to the public for sales at 68p a pot for 15 years and yet everyone still prefers to pay £2.75 from the garden centre.

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very few garden centre work on a 200% mark up maybe in your area they still can but nationwide they cant 100% mark up yes,which is what i said anyway

id be interested to know what they supply at 68p a pot.seed grown plants could possibly be supplied at that price but with very little profit margin.but then if they can grow and sell a million of them a few pence profit is all thats needed

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Guest paul y

pulsar you wrote 50% not 100%, no offence fella but are you in the horticulture trade?  as in do you have decades of experience buying and selling plants at trade level? I have for over 15 years, I have been buying from trade suppliers and passing out to garden centres, florists, landscapers, etc for years,  believe me on this from the nursery to the point of sale will see an increase of at least 200%.

most mornings I go to the flower buyers market in st Philips in Bristol,  trains from the dutch auction houses pull up stuffed with stock which then goes all over the west country some examples, trays of 12 2 stem flowering phalenopsis moth orchids, tray price (for 12 plants) around £17.50 those trays delivered to Wyevale garden centre the same day get sold at £15 a pot.  I picked up and delivered 8 10litre black bamboo to a local landscaper, I paid £12 a pot, landscaper paid £30 same plants in Wyevale are £59.99.

vanda orchids in huge glass vases on sale at a florists in the centre of Bristol (glass arcade) £150 each I can get 8 of them for that money.

springwood nurseries grow annually in excess of 750 thousand 9cm pots 50 thousand 1 litre pots 200 thousand 3lt pots, over 1000 varieties of plants they don't deliver until you spend £500 and springwood are one of the smaller nurseries I deal with.

I can get plug plants at less than 3p a unit, Thompson and morgan sell the exact same plugs for at least 50p each, and the public think they are getting a deal, take tree ferns for a class example, ive seen shitty thin weak tree ferns at garden centres for £3-400 I can get 3 8ft trunks you can barely get your arms around and need 2 men to carry for that sort of outlay

paul

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I visit this garden centre often and I too picked up a nice, very large Cephalotus and a Heliamphora heterodoxa X minor for a fair price. This was about a month ago when it seemed the stock had recently arrived.

 

I actually visited again yesterday and they didn't have any new plants in stock. What was left was the usual unknown Sarracenia hybrids, dried out S. psittacina, Dionaea struggling to flower and a few crushed Heliamphora. They didn't know when they would get any new stock in, so it makes me wonder if seeing Cephs and Helis was just a one-off. I'll keep my eye open anyway when I visit again, just in case.

 

Paul, in repsonse to your question regarding origin of the stock, both the Ceph and Heli I purchased came from Carniflora (as per the label).

 

Filix

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Guest paul y

I think carniflora are one of the big dutch nurseries that tc plants, I know they sell at the auctions though.

dave you didn't write anything you just quoted what I wrote??

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pulsar you wrote 50% not 100%, no offence fella but are you in the horticulture trade?  as in do you have decades of experience buying and selling plants at trade level? I have for over 15 years, I have been buying from trade suppliers and passing out to garden centres, florists, landscapers, etc for years,  believe me on this from the nursery to the point of sale will see an increase of at least 200%.

most mornings I go to the flower buyers market in st Philips in Bristol,  trains from the dutch auction houses pull up stuffed with stock which then goes all over the west country some examples, trays of 12 2 stem flowering phalenopsis moth orchids, tray price (for 12 plants) around £17.50 those trays delivered to Wyevale garden centre the same day get sold at £15 a pot.  I picked up and delivered 8 10litre black bamboo to a local landscaper, I paid £12 a pot, landscaper paid £30 same plants in Wyevale are £59.99.

vanda orchids in huge glass vases on sale at a florists in the centre of Bristol (glass arcade) £150 each I can get 8 of them for that money.

springwood nurseries grow annually in excess of 750 thousand 9cm pots 50 thousand 1 litre pots 200 thousand 3lt pots, over 1000 varieties of plants they don't deliver until you spend £500 and springwood are one of the smaller nurseries I deal with.

I can get plug plants at less than 3p a unit, Thompson and morgan sell the exact same plugs for at least 50p each, and the public think they are getting a deal, take tree ferns for a class example, ive seen shitty thin weak tree ferns at garden centres for £3-400 I can get 3 8ft trunks you can barely get your arms around and need 2 men to carry for that sort of outlay

paul

sorry i made an error on my phone or my phone decided what i should be typing instead of what i wanted to type

 

as for being in the trade ive been in commercial horticlulture for over 25 years and personally know a few managers of garden centres one of which has won garden centre of the year 3 years in a row.and as i said down your way maybe the down bristol they add 200% mark up.there is too much competition elsewhere to add that mark up

where i work now we try to grow most of are own but still have to buy in some herbaceous in 9cm pots and we pay more than 68p

and as you mentioned there are overheads heating insurance wages ect

is this your own business?how many people do you employ

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Guest paul y

I wish springfield was my business, you should see the house of the owner, in fact google map it and have a look,  its HUGE.  to be fair your most likely right about location being the difference in mark ups, I would very much like to buy a house for the prices you guys pay up north, id imagine the disparity filters into everything else as well.

im a one man band (not counting my granddad who is a master horticulturist but increasingly senile, its why I currently have 40 unlabelled dahlias and 150 penstemon missing!!)  love the bloke to bits but sometimes just sometimes,  I have lots of trade contracts and supply contacts and I basically buy in or grow ourselves and pass out to the public at about a 3rd of local garden centre prices, I also pass a lot of stock onto the flower markets in Bristol, run collections and deliveries for landscapers, source unusual plants yada yada. it keeps bills paid and the tax man happy,

I do it for the love of it mainly, its my reward for working at direct line for three years, serving her majesty for 2 years (ta not prison) and spending about a million hours on the wrong side of a bar helping the whole of Bristol get pissed.

I love plants plants love me lets get together make money

paul

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I think carniflora are one of the big dutch nurseries that tc plants, I know they sell at the auctions though.

 

Yes they are. Many years ago Cephalotus were quite common in garden centres, in fact my very first one came from a garden centre in Warwickshire. I believe that they were all supplied by Carniflora at the time.

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I wish springfield was my business, you should see the house of the owner, in fact google map it and have a look,  its HUGE.  to be fair your most likely right about location being the difference in mark ups, I would very much like to buy a house for the prices you guys pay up north, id imagine the disparity filters into everything else as well.

im a one man band (not counting my granddad who is a master horticulturist but increasingly senile, its why I currently have 40 unlabelled dahlias and 150 penstemon missing!!)  love the bloke to bits but sometimes just sometimes,  I have lots of trade contracts and supply contacts and I basically buy in or grow ourselves and pass out to the public at about a 3rd of local garden centre prices, I also pass a lot of stock onto the flower markets in Bristol, run collections and deliveries for landscapers, source unusual plants yada yada. it keeps bills paid and the tax man happy,

I do it for the love of it mainly, its my reward for working at direct line for three years, serving her majesty for 2 years (ta not prison) and spending about a million hours on the wrong side of a bar helping the whole of Bristol get pissed.

I love plants plants love me lets get together make money

paul

 

 

the place i work at now has 12 full time staff and 3 part time between the two nurseries had to increase the price of some things this year but within 20 miles of the nursery there are over 20 garden centres,nurseries and supermarkets ect all selling plants so highly competitive market

not all houses up north are cheap my parents house cost over £350,000 and not too far from it there are loads at up to and well over a million to buy

nothing wrong with buying in and growing on.most do the same nowdays it isnt really cost effective to grow from seed any more or even to take cuttings with some plants

if you fancy getting a few dahlias with names give me a shout ill see what i can sort out some

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