Search Products
Return To Blog
State of the Green Industry
2025 Prices now Online!
By Chris Leinster - February 3, 2025
Happy New Year! Crazy things are shaking up the Green Industry. We just attended the ProGreen Expo at the Colorado Convention Center. This is the B2B annual conference for nursery and landscape professionals. Prices are updated for 2025 at HappyTrees.co, and as always, the listed price includes the tree, delivery, planting, and everything the trees need to get off to a Happy start!
The national tree shortage continues. Homes are being built faster than the growers are planting. Gratefully, prices for smaller caliper trees remain flat or show only modest increases. Larger caliper trees are in short supply, and 2025 prices reflect this scarcity. Growers are harvesting trees as soon as they reach the minimum salability size, forgoing higher prices for larger trees in the future, as who knows if there will be a market as administrations change.
Pricing among my suppliers is showing greater disparity than I’m used to seeing. I use an average cost to post my prices online. I’ve been reluctant to discount trees in the past, as my costs have been fairly uniform and my prices reflected a fair markup. This year I may be able to find some savings, so it never hurts to ask for a bargain.
The buzz around the convention center was rather electric. My friends in the industry are all highly optimistic that markets will pick up and prices will go down. We certainly live in interesting times, and it will be interesting to see where we go from here! Small businesses have been anchored by high taxes, record labor rates, runaway inflation, and an insurmountable regulatory environment. We may be seeing a reprieve, but nobody can look too far into the future with any clarity.
Arbor Valley Nursery has been our primary supplier for almost a decade. The owner, Matt Edmundson, has expanded operations and now has multiple nurseries along the I-25 corridor spanning from Sante Fe New Mexico up to Cheyenne Wyoming. This is a truly remarkable achievement, as very few nurseries expand beyond their flagship stores.
During an industry lecture, Matt confided that he has four sons, none of whom express interest in taking over the family business. Matt says he’s not sure he wants them to. Things simply aren’t as simple as they were when his grandfather started the company. Everywhere he turns there’s another government bureaucracy breathing down his neck hampering his efforts. From pesticides and fertilizers, soil conservation, labor, OSHA, emissions standards, not to mention exorbitant taxes, somedays it doesn’t seem worth the effort to get out of bed in the morning.
These same pressures apply to growers as well. Sadly, many of them are going by the wayside. Since the housing crash of 2008, the market has remained volatile. Remember, farmers plant trees prognosticating what the demand will be 8-15 years from now. Many figure its wiser to rip out the ornamental crops which take years to realize a profit, and plant food crops instead so they can get paid this Fall. Farmland has gotten so expensive that many nursery owners have simply sold the land and retired on a beach somewhere. Who knows if trees will even be for sale in the coming decades?
Meanwhile, a monster lurks among us. Site One, a nationwide mega-corporation mostly concentrated in irrigation and farming supplies like pesticides and fertilizers, is making a move toward the wholesale nursery market. They’ve been steadily buying up businesses around the country, and have acquired Harmony Gardens in Colorado. This could mean cheaper trees in the short run, but they may also knock off the competition and monopolize the industry. Site One also recently acquired Pioneer Sand and Gravel, a massive regional supplier of stone and other landscape products throughout the Intermountain West. Time will tell how this affects landscapers around the region.
Benjamin Franklin famously said “in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes”. Truer words were never spoken, but we’re cautiously optimistic about the economy for the coming year. The last time Trump was in office, diesel fuel was down to two dollars per gallon, labor rates were 40% lower than we now have, and nobody was telling us we needed to electrify our farm equipment. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, lower costs mean lower prices for the consumer, leading to higher sales, and Happier outcomes for all.
The national tree shortage continues. Homes are being built faster than the growers are planting. Gratefully, prices for smaller caliper trees remain flat or show only modest increases. Larger caliper trees are in short supply, and 2025 prices reflect this scarcity. Growers are harvesting trees as soon as they reach the minimum salability size, forgoing higher prices for larger trees in the future, as who knows if there will be a market as administrations change.
Pricing among my suppliers is showing greater disparity than I’m used to seeing. I use an average cost to post my prices online. I’ve been reluctant to discount trees in the past, as my costs have been fairly uniform and my prices reflected a fair markup. This year I may be able to find some savings, so it never hurts to ask for a bargain.
The buzz around the convention center was rather electric. My friends in the industry are all highly optimistic that markets will pick up and prices will go down. We certainly live in interesting times, and it will be interesting to see where we go from here! Small businesses have been anchored by high taxes, record labor rates, runaway inflation, and an insurmountable regulatory environment. We may be seeing a reprieve, but nobody can look too far into the future with any clarity.
Arbor Valley Nursery has been our primary supplier for almost a decade. The owner, Matt Edmundson, has expanded operations and now has multiple nurseries along the I-25 corridor spanning from Sante Fe New Mexico up to Cheyenne Wyoming. This is a truly remarkable achievement, as very few nurseries expand beyond their flagship stores.
During an industry lecture, Matt confided that he has four sons, none of whom express interest in taking over the family business. Matt says he’s not sure he wants them to. Things simply aren’t as simple as they were when his grandfather started the company. Everywhere he turns there’s another government bureaucracy breathing down his neck hampering his efforts. From pesticides and fertilizers, soil conservation, labor, OSHA, emissions standards, not to mention exorbitant taxes, somedays it doesn’t seem worth the effort to get out of bed in the morning.
These same pressures apply to growers as well. Sadly, many of them are going by the wayside. Since the housing crash of 2008, the market has remained volatile. Remember, farmers plant trees prognosticating what the demand will be 8-15 years from now. Many figure its wiser to rip out the ornamental crops which take years to realize a profit, and plant food crops instead so they can get paid this Fall. Farmland has gotten so expensive that many nursery owners have simply sold the land and retired on a beach somewhere. Who knows if trees will even be for sale in the coming decades?
Meanwhile, a monster lurks among us. Site One, a nationwide mega-corporation mostly concentrated in irrigation and farming supplies like pesticides and fertilizers, is making a move toward the wholesale nursery market. They’ve been steadily buying up businesses around the country, and have acquired Harmony Gardens in Colorado. This could mean cheaper trees in the short run, but they may also knock off the competition and monopolize the industry. Site One also recently acquired Pioneer Sand and Gravel, a massive regional supplier of stone and other landscape products throughout the Intermountain West. Time will tell how this affects landscapers around the region.
Benjamin Franklin famously said “in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes”. Truer words were never spoken, but we’re cautiously optimistic about the economy for the coming year. The last time Trump was in office, diesel fuel was down to two dollars per gallon, labor rates were 40% lower than we now have, and nobody was telling us we needed to electrify our farm equipment. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, lower costs mean lower prices for the consumer, leading to higher sales, and Happier outcomes for all.