In central Florida, I managed the only organically grown edible nursery in the state and a family owned 5 acre homestead. In 2020, I managed a market garden in Highland Lake, Flat Rock NC. 2021, I was caretaking a 12 acre property and intentional community in Fruitland, NC. Since 2020 I have worked at the Yoga Studies Institute, learning profound philosophy, how to work in a non-profit organization and how to teach on a global stage. Through the use of Permaculture as a design science and my experience in land stewardship, gardening and farm management I aim to help my clients and community work with the landscape in a healthy and useful way. Giving Tree Nursery is a nursery of useful, edible and nmaturally grown plants. It is the first step in our design to create a more resilience and abundant community project. Giving Tree is a looking to establish a plant nursery to supply local  landscapers, designers, farmers and home owners with edible, medicinal  and useful plants. I worked in at the only organically grown edible nursery for 6 years  in Central Florida. We had great success and I saw how it was a beacon  for local resilience. I see its potential to act as the trunk that  supports many other important projects.  I wish to recreate what I helped build there, in this region. I don't  see any nurseryman upholding the quantity, quality or variety that I  believe is need to support local resilience. Even if a nursery or my project doesn't seem like a good fit, I would  sincerely appreciate the opportunity to give time to help on the farm  and see your gardens some day soon. **1 | Overview** Business Name: Giving Tree Plant Nursery Location: Fruitland, NC Legal Business Structure: LLC Brief Description of what your business does: Giving Tree Plant Nursery provides naturally grown edible, medicinal, useful & native plants. Mission: Giving Tree Useful Plants Nursery specializes in plants that contribute to people and the landscape. Nursery stock is selected for edible & medicinal qualities, rarity, beauty & longevity in the landscape. We specialize in perennials & interesting plants. These plants are sold to **New & Long Time Gardeners, Permaculture Designers and Landscapers**. To Foresters, Native Conservationists that wish to conserve natural ecosystems. To families that wish to have security in their food & medicine. We are looking for silent investors * * * **2 | Message** **What problem does our company solve?** **Giving Tree Nursery and Eductional Center works with:\\** **plants, people & place to…** **meet ecological goals,** **enrich landscapes,** **share with neighbors,** **heal the sick,** **feed the hungry** **teach the youth.** **Plants** Giving Tree Nursery specializes in “Useful Plants” that contribute to people and the landscape. These plants are sold to Home Gardeners, Permaculture Designers & Landscapers, Ecological Restoration Projects & Organic Farms. Our nursery stock is selected for edible & medicinal qualities, rarity, beauty & longevity in the landscape. We specialize in perennials & rare plants. **People** Our staff serve our community as designers & caretakers of landscapes, yards & homesteads. They use good design with a deep understanding of nature’s patterns & principals to establish productive & resilient systems. Work at the nursery builds skills and exemplifies a way to live a meaningful and wholesome lifestyle. Our therapeutic & apprenticeship programs interact with the nursery to go deeper into Gardening as Therapy. **Place** Giving Tree Nursery isn't separate from the space it occupies. We use our plants to build soil & establish resiliency for local communities. We call this cooperation of land & people Botanical Community. Useful Plants enhance neighborhoods, land trusts, farms and non-profit organizations as botanical investments in their soil banks. These plantings help people increase the value of their useable land. Plants are harvested for medicines, propagation material & food. This integrates our nursery business into our local neighborhoods. **How is this offering different?** We provide the plants and education necessary to get your landscape to work for you, rather than you working for your landscapes. Giving Tree Nursery provides alternative and uncommon plants that are absent in modern commercial nurseries that stock mostly hybridized ornamentals, a limited variety of native plants and mainstream varieties medicinal or edible plants. Our customers will learn to utilize plants to accommodate their needs in their landscape. These are what we call Useful Plants; plants that help people to be resilient in times of crisis and uncertainty through the integration of plants into their landscapes and yards. We support our community's families and their backyard gardens. As more people return to the home and their land as a place of resilience and resource for their family's needs, we provide the nursery stock to jumpstart their gardening & planting projects. We educate & encourage holistic methods of farming & gardening by provide plants that offer critical functions in the landscape. Functions such as, food, medicine, fodder, nitrogen fixation, pollination, bioremediation and soil erosion. Most nurseries cater to gardeners seeking flowers & easy maintenance, we cater those seeking to live harmoniously in their landscape. **What result does our company create for our customers?** TO HAVE HEALTHY, HAPPY PEOPLE, IT BEGINS WITH HEALTHY, HAPPY PLANTS. We provide our customers with the education, solutions and materials necessary to turn lawns or unused land into highly productive gardens & food forests. Giving Tree helps customers integrate living systems into their landscape to accommodate their family's & community's needs. Our customers to know where their resources come from - their own backyard. **How does your company create that result?** We grow and supply plants that create security in our own backyards. By integrating Useful Plants into our landscapes, our customers regenerate the web of life that needs desperately needs our help. Education through our Useful Plant Database, social media and free to the public monthly workshops. We also will continue hosting Hendersonville Permaculture Meetup group. **Who does your company serve?** Useful Plants accommodate a wide range of customers. There is a growing number of new backyard gardeners who are faced with scarcity in the grocery store and uncertainity of where their food will be coming from. Many people are realizing that nutrition leads to great immunity to stress & disease, not to mention the cost effectiveness offered by home gardens. Long time gardeners will be introduced to uncommon and rare plants that add to their botanical collections. For homesteaders, our wide selection provides the resilience & security so desired for those seeking sovereignty from corporate commodities. A wide range of species that adapt to our climate increase our resiliency, especially when we account for diseases and hard pest pressure that is affecting the common & overused species we once relied on. Landscapers and Permaculture designers will enjoy the wide array of plants uncommon in typical commercial nurseries that function and usefulness to their customer's landscape. For those working the fields of ecological repair or forestry planting, we have native and hardy plants that are especially useful for soil erosion, pollinator attraction or nurse plants that serve as mulching species. We hope to serve the increasing number of conventional farms converting their practices to go beyond organic. As prices for petroleum based fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides increase, as well as the demand for organic food also increases, conventional farms will be more likely to convert to more cost effective practices that helps them to receive more diverse yields. Our goal is to aid in the regeneration the soil and ecosystem that was damaged by conventional farms, by providing alternatives to synthetic practices through a more ecologically appropriate methods of growing food**.** **Why do you do what you do?** Giving Tree is born out of a need for a way forward, beyond the critical situation our society has found itself in. It is simply the natural progression of solutions to the misunderstandings of how we, as a society, need to do to provide sustenance, medicine, building materials and so on to a massive population of people. Giving Tree nursery is a solution that encourages us to team with plants to sustain our presence on this Earth and leave it better than we found it. It is our responsibility as stewards of our landscapes to design it in a way that is beneficial and helpful to all of life. We owe it to our future generations of families and communities to attend to our failed partnership with the Earth, learn from our mistakes and prove we are, in fact, intelligent life forms. Giving Tree is an expression that answers this call in a renewed partnership with the Plant Kingdom. **Why should customers choose you over your competition?** Our customers come to Giving Tree Plant Nursery to not only learn and grow rare and interesting plants, but they will shift their understanding of the Natural World. There are ways of working with plants that most gardeners and farmers have yet to explore. Customers find new ways of looking at plants and the world around them when speaking to our staff to visiting our online database of useful plants. We educate every customer, not just how to plant their new garden,  but how to shift their perspective of how the natural world. We provide methods & techniques as solutions to customers' challenges in the landscape. Our staff is trained in the ideas of Permaculture and use the insights & principals of the natural world to create a more ethical & harmonious world. All of which is lost in the commercial nursery, where profit by any means necessary is the motivating factor. **Our proprietary system:** First, we are future thinking. We look to grow plant species that provide solutions to problems we face as a society now, but will also face in our future. We must diversify our crops and plants in order to be resilient. We grow our plants using our own compost, worm castings and fertilizers made on site. This cuts on cost and eliminates waste as we close the loop to external suppliers. We take the initiative to know our supply lines and any contaminates that may affect not just our plants, but our community's & customer's home gardens. In order to cut back on waste, we are grow many species of plants in our in-ground nursery beds. Plants are dug & pruned at the time of sale, watered and bagged in recycled & compostable materials. Reducing the need for plastic pots and a landscape of plastic plastic weed mat. The biggest advantage is that this allows us to build soil in our nursery beds, reduce watering needs with mulching and adding carbon in the form of roots and composting. Plants grow faster & hardier as they have have access to greater nutrition beyond the soil provided in small plastic pots. Giving Tree integrates learning opportunities into our staffing solutions by offering apprenticeships each year. This is a way to not only learn plants, but to learn the philosophy and methodology that comes with a regenerative lifestyle. We also use our plants in our therapeutic program, Stewardship School, where a small group of young adults gather with mentors in the landscape of a local not-for-profit organization to install a food forest, learn Yoga and the way of the Steward. * * * 3 | Marketing **Target market Demographics:** Home Gardeners Homesteaders Local CSA market gardens Community Gardens Landscapers, Designers & Plant Installation Services Farms Transitioning to Organic Practices Forestry Service Forest Farmers Nature Conservatives Bioremediation Projects **Target market psychographics:** Those looking for mental and physical health Those looking for sustainable & regenerative practices for gardens & farms **Estimated size of target market:** We suggest that local families should allocate a minimum of $200-$500/year in their annual budget for plants. Our hope to is to provide plants to over 500 families each year. This is a net profit of $100,000 We hope to help new customers each year start their new garden & food forests. As customers utilize our services, they are ena to propagate their own plants from cutting, seeds and division, and thus require our services less. Thus a 25% loss each year. We expect new customers via referrals from word of mouth and in-yard advertising. Through online sales, we can estimate 300 online customers with $50 per average sale through the sale of cuttings, seeds, plants, books and other merch. * * * 4 | Products Our nursery stock is sold in a variety of container sizes and bareroot sizes. Prices are determined by rarity and age of plant. Prices are competitive on the higher end of the price spectrum to accommodate for quality and rarity of organically grown plants. Container Sizes: * Cells - $4 for 4 pack * 4" pots - $6 * 6" pots - $10 * 1 gal - $10-$22 * 3 gal - $29-$49 * 7 gal - $69-$89 * 15 gal - $99+ * 30 gal - $129+ In-ground, Bareroot Sizes: * Medicinal - $4-6 * Herbaceous Small - $8-12 * Herbaceous Large - $14-18 * Bushes Small - $16-24 * Bushes Large - $26-32 * Trees 1 Year old - $10-14 * Trees grafted - $18-24 Example Bareroot Veggie Layer Stock: * Mints * Lemon Balm Example Bareroot Herbaceous Layer Stock: * Comfrey * Elecampane Example Bush Layer Stock: * Elderberry Installation Services * Food Forest Install * Land Survey * Garden Installation Seeds * Landrace Seed (Grex) * seeds are harvested from locally grown plants from our own gardens and from other farms and gardens in the bioregion * packets may run $1.99-$4.95 Useful Plants Database * The goal is to describe the plant's usefulness for the customer's garden or landscape, as well as, plant details that give insight to how the plant grows. This helps the customer in performing an educated planting. * Customers can also then search for plants to meet the needs of open spaces in their garden, for instance. * The Useful Plants Database is available as an online excel document for all local growers to use in planning and designing their gardens or farms. * The database is used to create our availability list, which is posted online for customers to view. * The database also is used to create laminated ID cards near each plant on-site Listing Template for a Useful Plant: **Plant Spotlight:** **Layer:** **Why use this plant:** **Usefulness in the landscape:** **Full Size:** **Life Span:** **USDA Hardiness Range:** **Chill Hours:** **Light Preferences:** **Soil & Water Preferences:** **Links:** Example listings **Plant Spotlight: Baptisia Alba - Wild Indigo** **Why use this plant:** Tolerating poor soil & drought, this plant is a stunning collection to the home garden, while also providing utility as a nitrogen fixing species. This means Useful Plant Designers can chop n' drop this perennial species **Usefulness in the landscape:** * Herbaceous Layer * Nitrogen Fixation * Pollinator Attraction * Specimen Plant * Resistant plant (to pest, deer, disease) **Full Size:** **Life Span:** Perennial **USDA Hardiness Range:** **Light Preferences:** Full Sun to Partial Shade. It is a meadow plant. **Soil & Water Preferences:** Degraded soil and drought tolerant **Plant Spotlight:** Persimmon **Why use this plant**: Persimmon is a hardy and native fruit tree that bears "date plum" fruit. THe tree is resistent to many diseases and is less cultivated than most fruit crops, making it a great tree for diverse income streams. Asian varieties are grafted, have larger or more flavorful fruit than North American natives and fruit within 1-2 years from planting. **Usefulness in the landscape:** * Sub-canopy Layer * Edible, Fruit Bearing * Easily Managed * Wildlife (deer) * Fodder (pig, chicken, goat) **Plant Spotlight:** Comfrey **Why use this plant:** Comfrey is the all star Permaculture support plant in temperate climates. It is known for its deep tap root harvesting minerals in sub soils, bringing it to the topsoil in its leaves. As a Chop 'n Drop species rich in nitrogen, it is used in DIY fertilizers for home gardens. Also known as Bone Set or Knit Bone, a common name derived from its properties used to heal and relieve pain in joints and bones. **Usefulness in the landscape:** * Medicinal (externally as compress/poultice) * Chop 'n Drop (see our recipe for Comfrey Plant Tea) **Plant Spotlight:** Nanking Cherry **Why use this plant:** **Usefulness in the landscape:** Example: Maximilian Sunflower.This plant establishes a quick hedgerow for privacy and wind breaking, and also provide fodder to livestock with roots and shoots that are also edible for humans. **5 | Timelines** **A. Tier 3 Timeline, Bootstrap with Minimal Investment** This strategy is developed for an investment in the range of ~$10,000 to cover: - where we will lease land for a short period of time - installation of 1 smaller green house - unprotected nursery areas - air-pruned bare root beds - irrigation + fertilizer. - seeds - labor to help build, maintain and harvest First steps: - setup water, access and structures - growing bare root trees for direct sale and potting up - growing plants for seeds, cuttings and division in in-ground garden beds. **B. Tier 2 Timeline, Moderate Investment** This strategy involves up to a 5 year lease, insuring all structures and supplies are portable and able to transfer to our long term property/land lease. This plan puts us on track to earn the financial capital and credit necessary to buy and develop our long term property. Investment and first steps are similar except: - ensure land ownership is setup properly - in-ground beds can be extended to orchard and perennial growing systems. **C. Tier 1 Timeline, Ideal Investment** This strategy involves finding a permanent land solution to house Giving Tree Nursery, Stewardship School & other therapeutic programs, farm operations and long term community solutions. The nursery would include a huge diversity of plants protected in green houses and hoop houses for winter security. This enables us to purchase wholesale bare root plants, grafted trees and mature starter plants to grow out for higher retail prices, or flip immediately for retail prices. With an investment into land, we would have space for farm & nursery storage and utilize barn space as a garden center, construct tiny homes to generate income through rentals and retreats. Our 2020 project, Blossom Branch Homestead, serves as an example of how community, as the first step, can generate return on investment within the first year, and exposure to our projects from the greater community. The garden center allows us to sell wholesale purchased materials to cover the cost of supplies used in the farm and nursery projects and provide an outlet to sell local commodities. Desired landscape characteristics * Land for nursery must be flat, 1-5 acres (depending on year two plan and scale), within 20 minute drive from my home * Options * Land is leased in town for easier public sales (less resilient) * Land is remote with sales booth in city (doubles expenses) * Land is remote with focus on in-person, plant sales and online sales (more resilient, more expensive initial setup, more marketing focus to bring people out) * Water must be stable, clear and calm. Ideally, water will come from a well with a quality pump and housing * Relative proximity (within 20-35 minutes) to high population density for on-site sales Setup Objectives * Once investment is secured and land is leased, greenhouses and irrigation installed within a month * Greenhouse installation - One hired labor for help installing greenhouse * To offset costs of greenhouse, we will also install areas without a greenhouse for cold tolerant perennials on irrigation Tree Nursery Objectives * Greenhouse purchased, installed and irrigated * Purchase $X of bare root plants in fall, potting them up for sale next year. Whatever is unsold will be allowed to grow in pot or potted up. * Estimating that 2% of tree buyers will purchase upsell installation service Seedling Nursery Objectives * Tree seedlings started for potting up in spring, moves to Tree Nursery * Grown as root stock for grafting * Grown for Seed Our greenhouse advocates * for genetic diversity in plants and sources seeds from trees that are known to have high quality taste and resistance to disease and pest * Perennial herbs started **General Timeline:** Note: Depending on tier of investment will dictate the initial land acquisition. In regards to the nursery venture, the general flow will be the same, with the scale adjusting in regards to size & diversity of nursery stock. Year One 1. Species selection for staple nursery plants based on greenhouse, land and water setups 2. Secure investments, land lease/rent 3. Source & purchase soils, tools, supplies 4. Install irrigation, 1-2 green houses, staging areas, potting areas 5. Acquire propagation material for key species and specialized species (seeds, cuttings, root division, tissue cultures) 6. Create website with database of plant usefulness, design tips, online availability list and ecommerce store 7. Outreach to our community through advertising and events 8. Lead or co-lead 3 educational workshops 9. Secure sources for plants for design and installation services while our plants are growing 10. Sell product at plant sales or to other local nurseries **Year Two** 1. Scale, stay or perish 2. Increase diversity of inventory 3. Develop strategies to move away from plastics and external fertilizers 4. Add SKU & Labeling system 5. One workshop per month 6. Begin Work as Service Therapy Programs; Stewardship School & Apprenticeship Program 7. Increase public outreach to make plants available to more of our community 8. Begin planting field crops and processing into viable products 9. Offer Giving Tree Garden Installation to local community using plants from nursery + plants purchased from other nurseries Plant Sale Objectives * Costs: Trailers (available), tables, tents and signage Online Sale Objectives * Listing on Etsy, eBay, Amazon **Year three** 10. Scale, stay or perish 11. Increase diversity in nursery plants 12. One workshop per month 13. Collect seed from our gardens and sell online 14. Plant Landrace Orchards of fruits and nuts for commericial sale and community use 15. First hire for nursery management and daily labor **Year Four** 16. Scale, stay or perish 17. Establish design and installation business to convert conventional farms into beyond organic methods 18. investment into land for plant propagation and ecological restoration 19. Incorporate animals into orchards for management 20. Diversify products offered through processing 21. Distribute products to larger audience **Year Five** 22. Scale, stay or retire 23. Sponsorship of 1-2 more nurseries for different bioregions 24. Have children😛 Start up costs 1\. Install or maintenance on Water access (well, spring) 2\. Storage structure/shed 3\. Weedmat ($150/two rolls) 4\. Pots and containers for propagation (small trays, 4" pots, 1 gal, 3 gal) ($500) 5\. Soil (seeding, potting), fertilizer and amendments (minerals, worm casting) ($1500 for yards of soil and bags of seedling mix) 6\. Various tools; shovels, hoses, clippers ($300) 7\. Irrigation and plumbing supplies ($500-$1000 depends on number of plants propagated and water access) 8\. Propagation material (cuttings, seeds, division, starts) ($1000) 9\. Green houses plastic and structure ($1000 4 year plastic, $1000 for frame) 10\. Truck ($4000) 11\. Land to lease or mortgage 12\. Website design, hosting ($800) 13\. Logo and brand identity design ($200) 14\. Signage ($100) * * * **6 | Goals** One Year Goals Revenue: Profit: Sales: Impact: Development: **Will your business be sustainable?** * we will encourage customers to return pots through a small pot deposit fee * we will move towards developing relationships with soil providers to develop cleaner and more sustainable compost and potting mix over time * as our business grows, we will move toward creating and mixing our own comost and potting mixes * develop growing systems that use renewable resources or multiple use resources **How can your business be waste free?** * we will seek out used pots from organic nurseries * we will move towards in ground planting for nursery stock * * * Common or epected problems and how would you solve them? Seeds don't sprout * order more seeds, double down * test sprout rate and do a partial batch * save seeds for successional planting Water stops flowing and we don't have the money to fix it - fundraise - use credit cards - learn what it would take to fix it - truck water water in