Buying Plants in Bulk for a Community Group

A garden club with a shared bed to fill, a community garden adding a hedge, a friends group planting a reserve, a school with a bare fence line: each works out that it needs two hundred plants, not twelve. The garden centre price of two hundred plants is more than the grant. The one idea that matters most is that a wholesale grower sells by the tray, the cart and the pallet to whoever orders like the trade, and that a community group can order like the trade if it plans a season ahead.

This page explains what bulk means to a grower, the three ways a group buys, how to turn a planting plan into quantities, what to put in a request for a quote and how collection day works. It draws on HortOS, a free directory of Canadian wholesale plant growers with their published availability and trade prices, on more than 2,200 growers that sell plants to the trade listed there, and on what the Canada Revenue Agency and the industry's national body publish. It is a guide to the process, not a substitute for asking the grower.

Quick facts

What bulk means	A tray of plugs holds 18 to 72 plants depending on the cell, and a grower sells the tray. Larger pots go by the cart or the pallet. An order that fills whole trays and whole carts is the one a grower prices best.
Who can buy	Each grower sets its own terms. Many sell to a group that holds a trade account or orders through one; the grower's page on HortOS shows any minimum it has set.
The price basis	Trade prices are quoted before tax and never include freight. Median trade prices are not published for Canada yet, so a group reads each grower's own published price beside its line on the plant pages and asks for a quote.
The minimum	Canadian growers rarely print a minimum on the line itself, so the grower's order minimum is the one to ask about, and plugs and liners are usually sold by the tray.
Lead time	Most of the trade's planting is done in spring and early fall, between the thaw and the freeze; a grower's spring liners were sown or struck the summer before. Order the season ahead and confirm a month out.
Where the growers are	Every grower is on its province hub: Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta.

What bulk means to a grower

A production nursery grows in batches. Seed or cuttings go into a tray of plugs, the tray is grown on as one unit, and the plants that are potted on move together into the next size. Pulling six plants out of a tray for one buyer costs more in handling than six plants earn, which is why a grower's price list reads by the tray at the small end and by the plant only from about a #2 container up.

The same logic sets the delivery floor. A grower's truck run or a freight pallet has a fixed cost, so an order below a certain value is not worth sending, and that value becomes the minimum on the grower's page. Canadian growers rarely print a minimum on the line itself, so the grower's order minimum is the one to ask about, and plugs and liners are usually sold by the tray.

For a group the practical rule is to order in the grower's units: whole trays of plugs, whole cart shelves of pots, and quantities rounded up to the grower's multiple. A plan for 190 plants becomes an order for 200, and the spare ten replace the losses of the first summer.

Three ways a group buys

• Direct, on a trade account. The group applies to the grower with its registration number, delivery address and a contact, and the grower sets terms: payment before dispatch for a new account, an invoice on terms once the group is known. Reading HortOS needs no account; ordering through it needs a trade sign-up, and every order goes to the grower to confirm. Trade prices are quoted before tax and the grower adds GST or HST at the rate for its province on the invoice; a registered organization recovers it on its return and a charity may have a rebate, so the treasurer should settle which applies before the quote.
• Through a trade buyer. A landscaper, a municipality parks team or a community nursery that already holds accounts can add the group's lines to its own order. The group pays that buyer, who may add a handling charge, and the grower sees one order rather than five.
• Through a pooled order. Several groups in one district order together once a season and collect from one point. The provincial hubs list every grower by town with the number of lines it has published, so a group can see which growers near it list the small grades a volunteer planting uses.

Which way suits a group depends on its size and its treasurer. A club ordering twenty trays a year is worth a grower's trade account. A school ordering one tray every second spring is better served through the municipality or a nearby community nursery.

Working out quantities

Most planting plans are written as areas and lengths, and a grower's list is written in plants. The conversion is spacing. A plant at 500 mm centres needs four to the square metre; at one metre centres, one to the square metre; a hedge at 600 mm spacing needs seventeen plants for ten metres. The table gives the counts a committee can check on the back of the plan.

Round every count up to the grower's tray or multiple, and add five to ten per cent for losses. Decide the size before asking for prices: a plug or liner, then #1, #2, #3 and #5 containers, then #10 and larger containers and trees graded by calliper. The smaller the plant, the cheaper the tray and the longer the wait for cover, and a volunteer planting day gets through more plugs than pots.

Asking for a quote

A grower answers a clear request quickly and a vague one slowly. Send the species list with the size against each line, the quantity, the planting date, the delivery address or the word pickup, who will hold the account, and whether the group is registered for GST or HST. Ask for a written quote before tax with a dispatch date, and ask three growers so the quotes can be compared on the same lines.

The plant pages on HortOS show which growers list each plant and in which sizes, and the price check compares the lines of a quote against the prices growers publish. Median trade prices are not published for Canada yet, so this guide quotes none; each grower's own published price sits beside its line on the plant pages. Reading a grower's price list and trade terms explains the words a quote uses, and lead times, pre-orders and contract growing explains why the dispatch date matters more than the price.

Collection day and the first week

• Pick up where you can. Trade prices never include freight, and small plants travel well in their own trays over a short distance. A trailer with a cage and a tarpaulin carries twenty trays; a station wagon carries six.
• Check the count at the gate. Count trays, not plants, against the dispatch docket, and look at a sample from each line before the trailer leaves. A short line is fixed at the nursery, not a week later.
• Shade and water. Plants that left an irrigated bench need water the day they arrive and shade until they are in the ground. A planting day more than four days after collection needs someone to water in between.
• Keep the docket. The dispatch docket and the invoice are the records the treasurer and the grant acquitter need, and the invoice shows the GST or HST line the treasurer asked about.

What to watch for

• Pricing from the list, not the quote. A published trade price is the start of the arithmetic. Add GST or HST unless the group recovers it, then freight, then stakes, guards, mulch and water. The plants are often the smaller half of the budget.
• Ordering in the planting season. Spring stock was sown the summer before. An order placed the month of the planting day buys what is left on the lists, in the sizes nobody else wanted.
• Asking for six plants. Below the minimum the group is asking a wholesale business for retail service. Pool the order or buy the six at a garden centre.
• Taking the size on trust. A pot size is a container, not a plant height. Ask for the height and the potting date, and look at a sample before the order leaves.
• Leaving the account in one person's name. A trade account held by the treasurer of the day is lost when the treasurer changes. Open it in the group's name with two contacts.

Getting it right

1. Settle the species list and the sizes, then convert the plan to quantities with the spacing table and round up to trays.
2. Shortlist growers on the province hub and the plant pages: near enough to collect from, listing the sizes the plan needs, with a list updated recently.
3. Ask the treasurer how GST or HST applies to the group, and decide whether to open a trade account or order through a trade buyer.
4. Send the same request to three growers and ask for a written quote before tax with a dispatch date.
5. Order the season ahead, with stakes, guards and mulch in the same order where the grower sells them.
6. Confirm the count and the date a week before collection, and check the trays at the gate.

A word of caution

The grower counts on this page are what the HortOS hubs printed on 24 September 2026, and the live pages change as lists arrive. Tax is the Canada Revenue Agency's to rule on and the group's treasurer or accountant should confirm how it applies. On stock, terms, minimums and dates, the grower's word is the one that counts, and HortOS never answers on a grower's behalf.

Sources

• Canadian Nursery Landscape Association: the national federation.
• Canadian Nursery Landscape Association, Canadian Nursery Stock Standard: how nursery stock is sized and described.
• Communities in Bloom: community beautification program.
• Canadian Food Inspection Agency, directive D-04-01, Canadian Nursery Certification Program: certification and plant movement.