What should I ask about a landscaping company’s plant nursery or yard?

Begin with the plants. Walk the rows with the owner and ask which stock is sold to customers, which is held for the company’s own jobs, and which is simply old. Look for tired, root-bound or diseased plants, because those are losses that have not been written off yet.

Ask how stock is counted and recorded. A nursery that tracks nothing is hard to judge, and your accountant will want to see how the books value what is on the ground. Ask what happened to unsold stock after the last winter.

Turn to the yard. Check who owns or leases the ground, what the lease allows, and how the soil, drainage and water supply have been handled. Ask what is stored there besides plants: stone, mulch, equipment, trailers. Note what is clearly past use. Finally, ask about people and routine. Who waters, prunes and tracks the stock through the off-season? If one longtime employee knows everything, find out whether that person is staying. Ask what the yard costs to run in a slow month. Ask for any photos of the yard from different seasons. They show how stock moves, how the space is organized and whether plants are being rotated or simply left to age, which is hard to see in a single visit.

Key takeaways

• Walk the stock with the owner and look for dead or unsold plants.
• Ask how inventory is counted and what the books say about it.
• Confirm who controls the land and who does the daily nursery work.