[oakleaf]

Amen to MDVaden.
We built our garden centre as our first business, by hand and it nearly killed us. Thankfully my brother and I were 20 and 22 respectfully so could physically cope - but never again. If you can afford it and the numbers make sense - buy would be my choice.

Re: Retail/landscape just mentionned:
True - they are different models and we run them as two different sets of financial accounts. In the end its only the accounting that matters right? So having a clear picture of where you are making profit/losses is critical to survival and to well informed development.
Even if you do this correctly though, it still becomes complex when you also have landscape and the retail site starts becoming your work feed...

Anyway - yes its a killer for time, and you need to have much more of a true vocation than with landscping which can be run more as a "business" in the technical sense. (I can avoid getting flogged for saying that as I am both!). But I for one would not be without it.

You have your plants available, you can boost clents' confidence with the state of your site (ours is ridiculously immaculate for that very reason), along with a whole set of other edge benefits such as preparing of plants and equipment etc. etc.