Reading a Wholesale Availability List, and Pricing the Plants in a Bid

A wholesale availability list is the most useful document in landscaping and the least explained. It is a spreadsheet of a few hundred lines, each a plant, a container size, a count and a price ex tax, published by a grower for the trade and refreshed as stock sells through, and every plant line on every bid a landscape contractor, designer or estimator writes is priced from one. The idea that matters most is that a single list is one grower's price on one day, and the only way to know whether it is a good price is to set it beside the other growers' lists for the same plant at the same size.

This page explains what each column of a grower's list means, why the same plant at the same size varies from grower to grower and state to state, how the low, median and high on the HortOS price pages are built from those lists, how many growers to price a line against, and how to carry the plant line of a bid from the list to the client. It draws on the live price pages of HortOS, a free directory of American wholesale plant growers with their published availability and trade prices, on the University of Georgia's landscape estimating program and Penn State Extension's estimating course, on the American nursery stock standard published by AmericanHort, and on Florida's sales tax rules as the worked example of ex tax. It is written for the contractor, the designer, the estimator and the student, and it summarizes rather than replaces the specifier's documents.

Quick facts

The columns	Plant name, size, quantity, price and unit, a note, and the date the list was updated. A blank price or a call-for-price note means price on application. A size is the container, not the plant.
Ex tax	Every trade list price and every HortOS figure is ex tax. Florida's rule treats nursery stock sold to the final consumer as taxable and a sale for resale as exempt on the buyer's resale certificate; a contractor buying to install is the consumer of the tax question and should say so on the bid.
How much prices vary	On 24 September 2026 the live price page for pink muhly grass put a #3 at $3.75 low, $6.00 median and $11.00 high across 163 pricing growers; wax myrtle in a #3 ran $4.50 to $14.47 across 86.
The state effect	Pink muhly grass in a #3 had a median of $5.00 in Florida, $8.50 in Georgia, $11.00 in Texas and $11.50 in North Carolina on the same day. Price the line in the state the job is in.
How the median is built	One price per grower, the lowest; trade lists only; a median once three growers price a size; a range from the 10th to the 90th percentile once five do; a state median once three growers in that state price it.
The rule of three	Price a line against at least three growers in your state at the size specified. Below three the median does not exist and a bid rests on one list.

What each column means

Why the same plant costs different amounts

Two growers price the same plant at the same size differently because their costs, their stock ages and their customers differ, and the difference is larger than most estimators assume. On 24 September 2026 the live price page for pink muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris) put a #3 at $3.75 low, $6.00 median and $11.00 high across 163 pricing growers, a ratio of nearly three between the 10th and the 90th percentile; wax myrtle (Myrica cerifera) in a #3 ran $4.50 to $14.47 across 86, with a median of $8.00; dwarf yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria 'Schillings') in a #3 ran $5.00 to $10.85 across 87, median $7.00. Even a tree at the tight end, live oak (Quercus virginiana) in a #15, ran $45.00 to $80.00 across 69 growers around a median of $65.00. A bid priced from the dearest list on the first plant and the cheapest on the second would be wrong by half on both.

The state matters too. The same pink muhly grass page printed a #3 median of $5.00 in Florida, $6.88 in Louisiana, $8.50 in Georgia and South Carolina, $11.00 in Texas, $11.50 in North Carolina and $12.50 in Virginia; wax myrtle in a #3 was $6.28 in Florida and $11.75 in North Carolina; live oak in a #15 was $48.50 in Louisiana, $58.50 in Georgia, $60.00 in Texas, $65.00 in Florida and $77.50 in North Carolina. Florida grows the Southeast's shrubs in volume and prices them lowest; a state with a dozen growers on a line prices it higher and the range is wider. Price the line in the state the job is in, at the class the plan says.

How the low, median and high are built

Every HortOS price page prints, for each size with enough growers, the median trade price, a low and a high, and a median for each state, and it prints how they were made. One price per grower: a grower listing the same line twice counts once, at the lowest. Trade lists only: prices taken from public websites, which may be retail, and lines from resellers never enter a statistic. A median is shown once three growers price a size; the low and high are the 10th and 90th percentile once five growers price it and the full range below that; a state median appears once three growers in that state price the size. Price-on-application lines are counted as growers holding the plant but never priced. Freight is not included.

Those rules are why a median is a safer reference than any single list: no one grower can move it, and a grower's outlier price, high or low, sits in the range where an estimator can see it rather than in the middle where it would mislead. They are also why some cells are empty. A size three growers do not price has no median, and a line one grower holds has a price and no reference.

How many growers to price a line against

Three is the floor, because it is the number at which a median exists and the number at which one grower's stock age, one grower's freight zone and one grower's sale stop deciding the bid. Five is better, because the low and high become the 10th and 90th percentile rather than the extremes. Beyond that the median hardly moves, and the estimator's time is better spent on the lines that carry the money: the trees in a #30 and up, where one grower's price against another's is tens of dollars a plant rather than cents.

The price check does the arithmetic. Paste a bid or a plant schedule, and each line is set against the current median at that size with the number of growers behind it, so a line that sits above the 90th percentile or below the 10th shows itself before the bid goes out. A line the check cannot price is a line fewer than three growers price, and that is worth knowing too: it is a line to call about, not to assume.

Pricing the plant line of a bid

The University of Georgia's landscape estimating program, built by its horticulture and agricultural economics faculty as a teaching tool, shows the shape of the job: the estimator builds a database of plants with common and botanical names, sizes, plant costs and per-plant installation costs, enters plant codes and quantities for the job, adds bed amendments, fertilizer, grading, watering, edging and clean-up, and reads a bid summary of labor, material and equipment for each task, direct job cost, break-even price, profit and overhead recovery. Penn State Extension's estimating course for contractors teaches the same order: know the scope, know your costs, cover the overhead, and understand the difference between what is added to a cost and what is kept as profit. The plant line is the material cost in that structure, and it comes from the list.

Worked at the live medians of 24 September 2026, a foundation planting of 100 dwarf yaupon holly in a #3 is $700 in plants; a mass planting of 500 pink muhly grass in a #3 is $3,000; a street planting of 20 live oaks in a #45 at the median of $265 is $5,300, all ex tax at the nursery gate before freight, installation and the contractor's own lines. The American nursery stock standard, which AmericanHort says establishes common techniques for measuring plants, stating their size, relating height to caliper and matching root ball or container to plant size, is what the specification calls up so that a #45 on the bid and a #45 on the truck are the same tree. The bid's plant line should say ex tax, name the container class and caliper for trees, exclude freight or price it, and carry the list date.

What to watch for

• Pricing from one list. The dearest and cheapest grower on the same plant can differ by three to one. Three lists or the median.
• Reading the class as the plant. A #3 is a container; two growers' #3 plants can differ by a season. Ask for height, and caliper for trees.
• Missing the unit. A palm priced by the foot, a liner priced by the tray and a field grown tree priced by the inch of caliper are not per-plant prices.
• Pricing the other state. A Florida #3 median under a Carolina job is wrong by half.
• Ignoring the note. A per-tray count, a call-for-availability flag or a height range turns a priced line into a different product.
• Trusting an old list. A line last updated months ago may be sold out or bumped up to the next class.

Getting it right

1. Take the plant, class and quantity from the plan, and the spacing from the specification, not from the list.
2. Open each plant's price page, read the median at the plan's class for the job's state, and note the number of growers behind it.
3. Price the line at the median for the estimate, then get written quotes from three growers in the state for the bid.
4. Run the finished schedule through the price check and call about every line it cannot price.
5. Write the plant line ex tax with the class, the caliper for trees, the freight basis and the list date, and contract grow what no grower holds today.

A word of caution

The medians on this page are what the live price pages printed on one date; they change as lists arrive, so a figure there may differ from the ones quoted here. Sales tax is each state's rule and an accountant's question; Florida is the worked example, not the country. The nursery stock standard is AmericanHort's paid document, described here and not reproduced. On stock, sizes and ship dates, the grower's word is the one that counts.

Sources

• University of Georgia Extension, cost estimating and job bidding software: the structure of a landscape bid.
• Penn State Extension, estimating and bidding for landscape installation: costs, overhead and profit.
• AmericanHort, American nursery stock standards: measuring and stating plant size.
• Florida Administrative Code, rule 12A-1.048: tax on nursery stock and sales for resale.
• Florida Department of Revenue, annual resale certificate: what a resale certificate does.