What Does Nursery Mean?
In horticulture, a nursery is a place where young plants and trees are cultivated and grown.
A nursery operator may cultivate and grow species to a certain stage and then sell the plants in large quantities, as in a wholesale nursery, or they may grow them to later sell to the public directly, as in a retail nursery.
Maximum Yield Explains Nursery
There are many different types of nurseries that specialize in specific plants, including edible crops or ornamentals. For example, some nurseries specialize in greenhouse propagation or the cultivation of perennial plants. This may be through seeding, taking cuttings, or using leaf propagation.
Other nurseries concentrate on the cultivation of woody plants like trees and shrubs. Some species are grown from seeds, stem cuttings, or grafting in the controlled setting of a greenhouse.
Often these seedlings are sold to another nursery, which transplants and grows them in field conditions until they are mature enough to be sold as landscape plants.
Plants such as orchids or poinsettias require more specific, highly regulated environmental conditions of a certain humidity or temperature. Most often a nursery will concentrate solely on the cultivation of those specific plants.
A nursery operator who grows annuals plants the seeds directly into the multi-pac cells that they will later be sold by in garden centers. Much care must be taken with the seeding of annuals so that they are of exactly the right maturity by the time they are shipped to the stores.