Plant sale - how much should I charge?

[Happiestinwellybobs]

I have "volunteered" to hold a plant sale for a local charity. Whilst I have most things organised, I am unsure as to how much to charge. The slight issue is that as it is a group effort, the plants will only arrive on the day of the sale, which doesn't really help me plan.

But as an idea, so far I have black grasses in 9" pots, and hebes, hostas, sedum in 1 litre pots, and some larger lilacs. Any ideas as to how much to charge?

I don't know either, but I recently bought a reasonable sized tomato plant for £1 and a small curly leaf lettuce plant for 50p at the garden gate (is that even a phrase? ).

Is the sale for charity?

Depends on the plant to an extent. But as a rule of thumb I would expect to pay about £3 for a plant at a local sale, obviously a bit more for shrubs / big pots and down to about £1-£1.50 for things like tomato plants which are very easy to grow from seed.

Mark down to £2 in the last half hour (or whip out some prepped 3-4-1 signs) and be open to haggling. Last thing you want is to be taking a load of plants home!

Actually I think I paid £4 each for hostas at a plant sale earlier this year! Very expensive snail food

Yes - it's for the local church (as part of an open gardens day) and I got roped in to do it :). The grasses are small cuttings so was thinking 50p - £1 and then maybe £2.50 - £3.50 for the hebes, hostas etc. Don't want to be too cheap and have nothing left before the day ends (it's on for 5 hours) but don't want to be left with lots. Mind you I'm sure I would find space in my garden

X-post. Great idea about some signs for reductions and multiple buys.

Hostas are £8 in Homebase, so I would be thrilled to pick some up for half the price!

I have just retired from running the plant stall at the school fete. My rule of thumb is to charge about half what a garden centre would, so about £4 for a hefty perennial, £5 a big shrub and obviously less for smaller, less established things. We had some beautiful hostas at the last one that we priced at £5 and our buyers were happy to pay that because they would have been double the price at our local, lovely but expensive garden centre.

As you say, you don't want to ask so much that people don't buy, but nor do you want to sell a valuable commodity for peanuts, especially as it's for charidee.

And if people buy a lot - I encourage them to fill a box or tray - I round the total price down by a few pounds.