What is a Nursery?

A nursery is a setting where plants are produced by a variety of methods and grown to a size where they are sold. There are two basic types of nurseries- retail stores that sell their plant products to the general public and wholesales nurseries that sell only to other recognized nurseries, privileged nurseries and to industrious landscape gardeners. Today many nurseries have established themselves online and sell their plants products by mail order.

Type of plants in a nursery

The majority of nurseries grow a wide variety of annuals, perennials, woody plants, trees, and shrubs. The plants sold at nurseries can be used to beautify the landscape, make the home garden pretty or one can even buy vegetable and agricultural plants. Nurseries can also be very focused and may be involved in only one period of plant growth. Some nurseries only propagate plants, others grow the adult plants, some only sell plants for landscaping and other sells plants for ground cover (e.g. shade trees, rock garden plants).

There are several ways to propagate plants but most nurseries use methods like budding, grafting or layering.