Walking the tightrope

A cartoon of a man balancing along a tightrope with a pole.

Published October 22, 2024 | Updated October 23, 2024

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Growers are playing it conservatively, tightening up on expenses and expecting a dip in demand. Our survey shows growers are less confident in a strong market for 2025 than they were going into 2024. In a year of inflation where prices for goods and services increased across the board, wholesale nurseries bucked the trend. In 2023, 92% of nurseries raised prices. For 2024, that number declined to 84%. And for 2025, only 72% of nurseries say they plan to raise prices at all. With only 28% of survey respondents saying they expect increases in sales for 2025 and 50% naming “increased expenses” as one of their three biggest challenges, turning a profit without raising prices could prove quite difficult.

This year’s survey of nearly 200 nurseries includes data on sales, profits, prices and more. Read on for the data and our takeaways.

NOTE: Some charts don’t total 100% due to rounding and because not all answers are included with some questions.

PRODUCTION & CROPS

TAKEAWAYS

More growers are planning to increase production acreage for 2025 than 2024. The “no change” number dropped from 65 to 60%, and most of those people are shifting to small increases.

Crop sales breakdown: Field-grown trees is up a bit from 13% in 2023 to 16% in 2024. Container-grown shrubs are the top seller for more growers in 2024 than 2023. That category increased from 23% in 2023 to 39% in 2024.

However, fewer growers reported container-grown perennials as their top seller this year. That category dropped from 23% in 2023 to 8% in 2024.

Container shrubs were the most profitable category again this year, but by a more significant margin. Last year, 24% of growers reported that category was their most profitable category, but just behind it at 22% was container-grown perennials.

Demand has grown for field-grown trees. Last year, 22% of growers planned to produce less field-grown trees in 2024. That number decreased to 12% for 2025. Growers planning to increase field-grown tree production increased from 15% to 20%

More growers are expecting to be long on material next year and in the future. Last year, 54% of survey respondents did not expect overages. That number fell to 40% this year. Specifically for next year, 37% of growers expect crop overages, up from 26% last year.