Running a Community Plant Sale or Tree Giveaway

A plant sale pays for the year's projects and a tree giveaway puts canopy into streets nobody else will plant, and both fail the same way: the plants arrive late, in the wrong size, or in a condition the committee would not sell to a friend. The one idea that matters most is that a sale or a giveaway is a wholesale order with a date on it, and the grower is the partner who makes the date.

This page sets out how a club, a school, a friends group or a municipality plans the stock side of a plant sale or a giveaway. It covers what to order and when, how growers price it, how to receive and hold it, and what the rules say about selling plants. It draws on HortOS, a free directory of Canadian wholesale plant growers with their published availability and trade prices, and on what the Canada Revenue Agency, the industry body and the community greening bodies publish. It does not cover the permits for a public event, which are the venue's and the municipality's to set.

Quick facts

The stock	Sales turn over small grades fastest: plugs and #1 containers, flowering perennials in bud, a few larger feature plants. A giveaway is usually one size of a short list of local species.
When to order	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 sale stock a season ahead; a giveaway grown to order needs a year.
The price basis	Trade prices are before tax, one price per grower, freight on top; a sale sets its own price above that and a giveaway pays the trade price in full.
Where the plants come from	Every grower on HortOS is on its province hub by town: Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta.
Selling plants	A club that sells plants may need to charge GST or HST depending on its size and status; the treasurer settles that before the sale is advertised.
Moving plants	Plants that move between provinces or to the United States move under the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's rules; its Canadian Nursery Certification Program certifies the nurseries that ship that way.

What a sale sells and what a giveaway gives

A plant sale lives on turnover. Small, cheap, flowering and labelled sells; large, slow and unlabelled comes home. The stock that moves is plugs and #1 containers of plants a visitor recognizes, herbs and vegetables in season, flowering perennials in bud rather than in full flower, and a dozen larger plants as the table's anchors. A club that grows some of its own stock buys the rest from a grower in the same sizes, so the tables read as one range.

A giveaway is the opposite problem. The municipality or the group wants every household to leave with the same thing, planted by the same weekend, so the order is one or two sizes of a short list of species suited to the district. Many municipalities run a tree or shrub giveaway each spring, and Communities in Bloom and Evergreen both work with municipalities and community groups on greening projects. A giveaway's budget is the trade price times the count plus guards, stakes and the day itself, and nothing comes back.

Ordering for a date

• Set the date first. The grower needs the dispatch date before anything else. A spring sale is ordered in fall, when the grower is deciding what to pot on; a giveaway of plants grown to order is booked a year out.
• Order the grower's units. Trays of plugs and #1 containers, whole cart shelves of pots. A sale of 600 plants is twelve to fifteen trays plus a cart of larger pots, which is a morning's work for a grower and a trailer load for the club.
• Ask for the quote in writing. Species, size, quantity, price before tax, dispatch date and the freight or pickup arrangement. Buying plants in bulk for a community group explains the ways a group holds an account and reading a grower's price list and trade terms explains the words a quote uses.
• Agree what happens to the surplus. A sale rarely sells everything. Ask whether the grower takes unsold pots back at a credit, whether the club holds them for the next sale, or whether a school or a reserve takes them. Decide before the sale, not on the night.

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. The price check compares the lines of a quote against the prices growers publish, which tells a treasurer what the sale price leaves the club after costs.

Receiving and holding the stock

Plants that leave an irrigated nursery bench want water the day they arrive and every day until they are sold or planted. A sale that receives its stock on a Wednesday for a Saturday needs a holding area in part shade, a hose, and someone on the roster for Thursday and Friday. Stand the trays on the ground or on a tarpaulin, never on hot paving, and keep the labels with the plants.

For a giveaway the holding problem is larger because the count is larger. A municipality giving away 2,000 plugs holds forty to fifty trays for a week, which is a shade house or a covered loading dock, not a parking lot. Many municipalities ask the grower to hold the plants until the morning and deliver to the site, and pay the freight for the certainty.

The rules a sale meets

• Tax. A club that sells plants may need to charge GST or HST depending on its size and status; the treasurer settles that before the sale is advertised.
• Plant health. Plants that move between provinces or to the United States move under the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's rules; its Canadian Nursery Certification Program certifies the nurseries that ship that way. A sale that buys from a local grower and sells to local gardens meets no border.
• Labels. A plant sold with a name, a size and a price moves; one with a cultivar name protected by a breeder's right is sold under the name the grower supplied it with. Keep the grower's tags where they came with the plants.
• Weeds. Plants that a municipality or a state agency lists as invasive or as a pest should not be on a community table, whatever the garden book says. Check the species list against the local listing before the order goes in.

What to watch for

• Ordering by the sale date, not the grower's season. A grower cannot bring a tray forward by six weeks. Ask what will be ready on the date, and build the range from that.
• One size of everything. Visitors buy at two or three price points. A table of identical pots sells its first row and stops.
• No shade, no water, no roster. A tray left on hot paving for two days arrives at the table wilted, and a wilted plant does not sell at any price.
• Pricing from the trade price alone. Add GST or HST where it applies, the freight, the labels, the hire of the tables and the plants that will not sell. A sale price that is twice the trade price is often the break-even, not the profit.
• A giveaway with no planting advice. A tube handed over with no word on where to plant it is a tube that dies in its pot. One printed line on spacing, water and the first summer doubles the survivors.

Getting it right

1. Fix the date and the venue, then work backwards to an order date a season earlier.
2. Choose the range at two or three price points, mostly plugs and #1 containers, and check every species against the local weed listing.
3. Shortlist growers on the province hub that list the sizes you want, ask three for a written quote before tax with the dispatch date, and settle the surplus question in the same email.
4. Ask the treasurer how GST or HST applies to the sale and set the prices with the full cost in front of you.
5. Arrange a shaded, watered holding area and a watering roster from delivery to the day.
6. Count trays at delivery, keep the grower's tags with the plants, and hand every giveaway plant over with a line of planting advice.

A word of caution

The grower counts and prices on this page are what HortOS printed on 24 September 2026, and the live pages change as lists arrive. Whether a sale owes tax is the Canada Revenue Agency's to rule on; whether a species may be sold or planted in a district is the municipality's or the state agency's. The grower's word on stock, dates and terms is the one that counts, and HortOS never answers on a grower's behalf.

Sources

• Communities in Bloom: community beautification program.
• Evergreen: community greening and school grounds.
• Canadian Food Inspection Agency, directive D-04-01, Canadian Nursery Certification Program: certification and plant movement.
• EcoSchools Canada: school environmental certification.