🎯 The business: houseplants, succulents, herbs and seedlings sold at markets and pop-ups, with the photogenic booth doing the marketing on Instagram. High margins, low entry cost, and wholesale supply a click away through Faire and regional growers.

Apartment dwellers, first-time gardeners, gift buyers and offices wanting greenery. Small houseplants sell at $8 to $25, statement plants $40 to $120, pots and soil as add-ons. Spring seedlings sell by the flat; propagated cuttings cost you almost nothing. Corporate plant installs and care contracts are the quiet recurring money.

Open an account with a regional wholesale grower or through Faire. Learn the twenty plants that survive beginners and stock those. Build a booth that photographs well from the aisle and post it every market. Offer a care card with every plant and a text number for questions; the replies are where repeat sales come from.

Plants bought at $4 wholesale and sold at $14 is about 70 percent margin before losses, and you will lose 10 to 15 percent to damage and neglect at first. A market Saturday of $900 in sales clears $500 to $600 after the fee. Add propagation, pots and workshops ($40 a seat for a terrarium class) and it becomes a $4,000 to $6,000 a month seasonal business.

Most states require a nursery license to sell live plants, usually cheap and simple. Sales tax. Shipping plants across state lines runs into agriculture rules, so stay local until you have read them. The market’s own insurance requirement.

A heat wave in a parked van. Pests that spread through your whole stock. Winter, when markets close and plants do not travel. The sellers who last move indoors for the cold months: workshops, office installs, and a holiday booth of easy gifts.