Some successful ventures

In Virginia, a woman apparently doomed to bed and wheelchair found her means to recovery by having a greenhouse built on a city lot and running it for profit. She scouts seedsmen in China, India, Japan, and England for rare plants. Her knowledge of greenhouse operation came the hard way, by experimentation. Today her greenhouse is stocked to the brim with virtually every kind of gesneriad. Her articles in plant publications whet readers’ appetites for the unusual things she sells over-the-counter and through the mail.

A business executive in New York set up a prefab greenhouse with no thought of operating it for profit. The house and potting shed cost approximately $3,000.00, although he saved $1,800.00 by erecting it himself and doing his own mason work. An achimenes authority, he soon found he had an over-supply which collector friends wanted. Currently he has a self-sustaining hobby which will bring in sizable dividends when he has more time for it. He has made a cross between a species sinningia and a rechsteineria, the tubers of which he sells for $20.00 each.

A young man in Oklahoma paid a substantial part of his college tuition with the proceeds of gesneriad sales from cuttings, tubers, and seeds sent through the mails. His less than 10-foot-square greenhouse is too small to accommodate specimen plants, but he can grow quantities of gesneriads in flats and hanging baskets. From these he harvests the material he sells.

One Sale Paid for My Greenhouse

At a national African violet convention a commercial dealer heard me talking about a white-flowered Episcia dianthiflora. Later he wrote, “If there is such a plant, we might be interested in buying propagation stock.” The upshot was that I sold enough of these plants to pay for my greenhouse. Formerly, I used to send out a listing of many kinds of African violets, gloxinias, and other gesneriads. Then I tried advertising, running my ads simultaneously with pertinent magazine articles. Results were good. After you have once advertised with the larger magazines, you receive monthly letters announcing future articles which usually feature photographs of the plants discussed. I found it paid to tie in ads with the issues that carried stories about the plants I was selling.

Currently I grow my gesneriads for commercial firms, selling tubers and seeds rather than plants. These are easily shipped, and I use the top cuttings of my rare gesneriads to propagate more material.

Tags: home greenhouse

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