6 hobbies that can make you money |
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Day lilies are wonderfully whimsical flowering plants. They are neither true lilies nor bulbs. You harvest them by splitting the part below ground, called a crown, into two or more new plants, called "divisions" or "fans."
Here's where it gets economically interesting: U.S.-grown, field-harvested day lilies are more expensive than their imported counterparts. However, U.S. lilies bloom in one to two years and sell better than the tissue-cultured day lily imports available at your local discount stores, which often take three times as long to bloom.
Lamb says common varieties like Stella de Oro sell from $3 to $5 a double fan, while new introductions can retail for $300 to $500 for a single fan. Some even sell at auction for up to several thousand dollars.
Because all day lilies from a new hybrid (there are
some 60,000 registered with the American
Hemerocallis Society, or AHS) start as divisions from the original
plant, their price can remain in the $100 to $150 price range for
10 years until supply catches up to demand.
The best way to break into the business is through a local day lily club; you can find a listing of these as well as valuable regional symposiums on the AHS Web site. Day lily growers like Lamb prefer to ship them bare-root, wrapped in paper or sawdust.
With a sturdy Web site and a few in-demand varieties, you can harvest cash from your day lily garden in no time. If you ship out of state, however, be sure to check with your state department of agriculture to see if a nursery license or certificate is required.
Lamb says the wholesale market is probably unrealistic for most hobbyists.
"That would require a really sizable production area," she says. "You would be selling to other nurseries and they would want quantities in the thousands. You would need to have some field space to be a wholesaler."
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| Day lilies business |
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Skills: basic gardening, some market research. |
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Market: retail to home gardeners, landscapers (locally to worldwide). |
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Opportunities for growth: develop and patent your own hybrids for optimal return on investment. |
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