Resource Book on Horticulture Nursery Management

8. Plant Libraries: The plant library is a concept similar to a book library where the
plants are supplied to various landscapers and event managers organizing cultural,
social and other events, gatherings and functions on a rental basis.
Similarly different office establishments require ornamental plants, potted plants and
bouquets of flowers to be displayed on desktops and used in office beautification on
rental basis. Such a system of supply of ornamental plants to various office
establishments generates employment opportunities for entrepreneurs and
horticultural nurserymen.
9. Landscape Gardeners: Landscape gardener is a master gardener who supplies and
undertakes plantation of flowering trees, ornamental plants, shrubs, bushes etc for
beautification of surroundings, terrain or landscape based on shape, slope, location,
type of soil etc. The landscape gardeners provide basic groundwork for plantation of
various ornamental trees and plants around the buildings, office establishments,
premises etc. Some gardeners also provide complete gardening establishment
expertise on turn-key basis after careful survey and assessment of site and terrain.
� Risk Analysis in Nursery Enterprise
The nursery enterprise can be run successfully provided the raw material, labour,
capital requirement, planning of expenditure and income, and knowledge of market are
carefully taken into consideration. Various factors that can lead to losses in a nursery
enterprise and factors which increase the profitability in nursery enterprise are mentioned
as follows:
Under-utilization of Capacity: The production of nursery plants below the total
production capacity leads to poor returns. This may happen despite availability of mother
plants and other raw materials.
Untimely availability and Sale of Plants: Many times the plants and grafts
produced in nursery are not according to the time of demand. Plants are ready for sale
during other parts of the year when usually the plantation season is over and the demand
of plants drop considerably. This can lead to poor sale of plants even though the plants
are made available.
Production not as per demand: Sometimes the plants produced are not as per the
demand of plants. The demand for plants may differ from actual production. This leads to
balance stock of plants over an increased period of time. For example Ratna or Alphonso
mango grafts are prepared when the demand for Keshar mango exists or Aarakta
pomegranate plants are prepared when the demand for Bhagwa variety plants is more.
This may lead to discrepancy in sale or subdued sales.
Increasing competition: Many times sale and availability of non-descript plants
from nurseries of other states and competing nurseries can lead to poor sales from ones‟
nursery. For this careful marketing strategy to overcome the competition is necessary.
Poor recovery of credit sales: In a nursery enterprise, unrealistic and higher sale of
nursery plants on credit lead to poor recovery of sales realization. It requires considerable
effort of time and money to make credit recovery. This is an important factor that needs
to be considered for selling the nursery plants on credit.
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