Are you sure you even want to "go there"? Our state implemented a sales tax on garden installations, requiring you get an additional license to the real goods sales license....and then of course your stock dealer permit, then when you go digging on somebody else's soil you'll want to cover yourself with liability insurance.

Honestly, I would think very carefully about adding on an installation compoenent to a retail nursery biz.

It's not just the gas, driving, and labor, but also the worker's comp, which is probably much higher for the installation category. (mine is now running almost 25% in CA, yeah, I'm looking for an alternative....). Add to that the additional liability ins., since you'll be going onto people's property, etc., etc.

My advice is to ally yourself closely with an *insured*, *bonded* contractor, and use that contractor, or several, to do the installations for you. You could even go out and place the plants, but unless you have employees minding the store for you full time, you may not even want to get into that.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but installation schedules wreak havoc with a retail nursery biz.

Local garden designers and horticulturists around here who are serious about the biz get contractor's licences if they plan to do any planting at all. Even if they never do hardscape, just plants.

I am also going to chime in about the inadvisability of doing installation as well as operating a nursery. First, unless you have a great staff that can work unsupervised,. you are going to be neglecting your primary source of income when it needs you the most - in peak planting season. This is when it is imperative for you to be on site ordering, stocking, schmoozing with customers and vendors and handling all the zillions of day-to-day crises that occur in a retail nursery.

Second, while laws differ from state to state, any installation here in WA requires a contractor's license and insurance and bonding. This is a big annual expense and may not be recaptured by your small operation. Lots of smaller outfits ignore this requirement but they do so at peril, as liability issues can be huge any time you step on someone's property to do any sort of work.

Finally, none of the nurseries I have been associated with offer an installation service - it is just not cost effective. Heck, we lose our shirts even delivering plants for a fee but it is a service we need to provide, specially when selling any large items.

In AZ, as soon as I pick up a trowel to plant a petunia I have gone from a no-license required "designer" to a "contractor" and need to be licen$ed, take tests, etc.

Find some contractors who want planting and maintenance work and let them post flyers or hand out cards at the checkout counter.

Thank you all for the information!

Lazygardens,
Do professional gardeners have to be licensed as "contractors," too? Seems odd that planting and maintaining plants (not hardscape) would make one a contractor.

Cady,

In California, anyone offering services for over $500 is required to have a license.

This means that even maintenance gardeners are required to have a license.

Many garden professionally without, but if they get to the point where they are competing with, and underbidding licensed contractors, they are likely to get caught.

Interesting. I am surprised at how open the system is here in Massachusetts. We don't need to be licensed to be a maintenance gardener, landscaper or garden installer. Licensed contractors come in when there is electrical wiring or architectural hardscape (walls, etc.) to be done, but for plant material, soil ammendment, simple grading (i.e. surface leveling), drainiage and irrigation, licensing isn't required. Yet.