We do a flower sale for Mothers day. It's not plants, or anything big so all kids can participate.
We puchase flats or flowers, top soil, and little 4 inch pots and had pot 2 flowers per pot. We used to buy them in pots already from home depot/walmart, but in early may the selection is very poor. We get a lot of really nice flowers by spending the few hours to plant them ourselves.
We sell them (pre-ordered) for $2 each. They cost us about $65 cents each when all costs are figured in.
We let the kids that order come down and pick their flower our them selves - they love this. To do all of our classes (total of 24) it takes about 4 hours. About 2/3 of the kids purchases them - we make about $750 profit as well.
My niece & nephew's school does this. They deal with one nursey that is close to the school. The school picks up the plants and can take back whatever is not sold. The nursery gives them 50% of whatever they sell.
I think they have to pay for the plants up front, but again the school can take back whatever they do not sell.
Our school does this every year right before Mother's Day. We contact several local nurseries to see if they will sell to the school at cost. We hold the sale in the gym all day the friday before Mom's day. The kids come through to see if they want to get anything or decorate a pot and put a flower in it. (That costs a $1)
Some of the nurseries will let us return what didn't sell. But we have to pick up the plants ourselves. It can be a big event. I think we made $1500 or so on it. Parents, teachers and members of the community come in as well.
I was flipping through some old Presidents' notebooks from years ago and noticed they used to do plant sales. Has anyone done this? I wonder where the plants would come from?
Thanks!
Shelly