Is Gardening Like Growing Money On Trees?

With Any Money Tree, There Are Seasons To The Gardening Niche!

Gardening is like growing money on trees; and what a wonderful, magical idea; but it’s not possible in a literal sense unless you have a…

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And even figuratively, the idiom is, “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

But, as a gardener myself, I and other gardeners and farmers will be quick to disagree.

Money can come from trees.

If you’re smart and hardworking enough to put the effort into planting and growing plants to help other people.

So, the question really is, “Can gardening be more than a hobby?”

Can knowledge of horticulture help you earn extra money?

Websites like EasilyGrownGarden.com and  YouGrowGirl.com, both popular sites on gardening, seem to prove that gardening is more than just a hobby.

It’s part of daily life that you can definitely make a living from.

So, let’s dig deeper and see if the gardening niche is worth getting your hands dirty.

Gardening Website Ideas

• Vegetable Gardening
• Herb Gardening
• Container Gardening
• Flower Gardening
• Water Gardening
• Fruits
• Edible Flowers & Plants
• Converting Lawn To Garden
• Wildlife Benefiting Plants
• Knowing & Purchasing Native Plants
• Flower Bulbs
• Houseplants
• Cannabis Growing
• Lawn Care
• Tree & Shrub Care
• Insect Control
• Ornamentals
• Landscaping

Gardening Is An Industry

Horticulture has grown from the science of cultivating plants into a multibillion-dollar industry.

I didn’t really think of gardening as an online industry until I did some research for this post.

Farming did cross my mind, but farming is not gardening.

Farming is growing crops (usually corn, wheat and other edible plants) on a large field for consumption and market.

Gardening is planting herbs and flowers in a yard, usually as a form of relaxation or art.

The statistics on GardenResearch.com prove that gardening is more than just a hobby, though.

It seems people spend both time and big money on their lawns and gardens.

Americans spent about $36 billion USD on their lawns and gardens in 2019.

That breaks down to about $400 per household on average, for the year.

Google Trends indicate a consistent market interest in gardening, with major markets in Australia and the UK, as well as the US.

It’s good to note that interest in this niche drops in December when it’s Winter in the northern hemisphere, and peaks during the Spring and Summer.

For wannabe’ garden bloggers, there’s plenty of keywords in the gardening niche.

However, you won’t be picking them off trees.

You need to get in there and dig them out.

Before you start picking keywords at random, it’s a good idea to do some niche research.

Get to know the gardening niche and see what others are talking about.

That will clue you into what keywords could be most profitable target. 

In the gardening niche, for example, you can find keywords from popular gardening websites, and on sales pages for gardening products.

The most common keywords I came across are “garden,” “gardening,” “perennials,” “lawn,” “lawn improvement,” and “garden tools,” for starters.

Gardening Website Monetization

As always, I checked out the ClickBank Marketplace before building my gardening “affiliate” website, RuralMoneyHomesteadGarden.com.

ClickBank does have a couple of gardening affiliate programs, but they don’t have a high gravity or the commissions are small.

However, you can do your own ClickBank Marketplace search to find the best digital products on gardening that are best for your site.

My choice for making money in the gardening niche is gardening affiliate websites.

I have not found any gardening affiliate templates per se, but you can create a site easily enough that have built-in affiliate programs and Google Adsense for respectable commissions, overtime.

And of course, there’s always Amazon.com, which has its Amazon Associates affiliate program that you could incorporate into your site.

A Beehive For Your Traffic

Your gardening affiliate website monetization should be considered first, but you need a “trap” to catch a swarm of traffic.

“You don’t need a fancy bait hive to catch a honey bee swarm.”

Kiesha Easley, EasilyGardenGrow.com

The second component to building an online gardening business is a website.

To be specific, you need a gardening affiliate website.

A website that focus on gardening as explained above with affiliate programs such as ClickBank, Google Adsense and Amazon, just to name a few.

As your traffic increase to at least 100,000 pageviews per month, you can apply to AdThrive to increase your revenue significantly.

If you already have a huge social media following, I recommend starting with an Income Activator website, which include all of the revenue software!

Moreover, each website template is “packed” with everything you need for SEO, email marketing and making “passive” income.

No other website builder come close to offering what is in the Income Activator affiliate website builder package.

Inviting Bees To Your Gardening Website

You need to have a good strategy to draw people to your website.

As soon as your website is up, the next step is getting traffic.

This is where most new marketers get stumped, and with good reason.

There are plenty of methods to generate traffic, both paid and free, and no one method is proven to work better than others.

Success depends on a variety of factors. 

You can and should consider trying different inbound marketing methods.

Not all of them will apply to your website though so you need to decide for yourself which ones to attempt first.

Making up your mind can take considerable time; and oftentimes people get stuck in “analysis paralysis”!

So, drawing up a strategy in the early stages of niche research and site building helps to avoid wasting time in deciding which course of action to take.

Some tactics you can apply in your link-building and marketing strategies include:

Amazon Kindle eBooks

You, or someone you hire, can write a book on gardening like this paperback, or an eBook, place links to related pages on your website within the eBook, then upload it to Amazon.

When people purchase the book or download the eBook, they are referred to your website.

It’s straightforward enough, but this method requires a bit more time and effort than most inbound marketing methods.

It also requires considerable financial investment if you’re not keen on writing your own content.

That’s where a Fiverr freelancer come in.

Still, it’s traffic you don’t need to rely on Google for, so it can be worth the effort.

Be sure to familiarize yourself with Amazon.com’s rules on publishing eBooks so you know what is and isn’t allowed on the Kindle marketplace.

Infographics

This link-building method is similar to self-publishing on Amazon.

Like the eBook, you can have someone create the infographic for you for a fee, or you can save money by creating your own using graphics websites like Canva.com.

Either way, you end up with content you can share on your own website and on social media (including Facebook and Pinterest).

The only catch is there’s plenty of gardening infographics available, like these.

Have a look around at what’s already available, and see if there is any new way you can present the information or a topic that hasn’t been covered that might be of interest.

However you decide to do it, make sure the result is something people would consider helpful or entertaining enough to share.

You can check out FastCompany.com’s simple tutorial on how you can create your own infographic.

Blog And YouTube Commenting

This is one of those “staple” methods: A link-building tactic that you should always incorporate into your strategy, and one that applies to any website in any niche.

In addition to websites, you’ll find there are many YouTube forums on gardening, such as LeadFarmer73 and HometeadHeart.

Engage your target market by responding to comments on these forums.

Join the discussion, and get to know the people in this niche by involving yourself in the gardening community.

A word of caution:  Blog and forum commenting take time.

You won’t be able to build your online presence right away, but once you’ve done so and have gained your market’s trust, you’ll see a steady stream of traffic from these blogs and forums.

It’s a win-win.

This article from the SocialMediaExaminer.com on to power of forums and how to engage in them offers a few tips you can use.

Can You Really Grow Money From Trees?

Like with any tree, there are seasons to the gardening niche, so be ready for dry spells.

This is a question I answer for every niche I look into: Can you really make money out of it?

The answer is always a “Yes,” but it’s never with the same degree of confidence.

Some niches are easy to go into, while others are not.

In the case of the gardening niche, the answer is a strong “Yes!”.

Yes, you can plant your gardening website, grow it and make money off it like a metaphorical tree.

But, like in any gardening endeavor, you need to take the time to raise it.

Weed out which link-building methods don’t work.

Nurture your users with good content.

Plenty of people are interested in the topic. 

Keep in mind, though, that the commissions in this niche aren’t all that big.

They have the potential to add up, but this is a seasonal kind of niche where there is a boom during certain times of the year, and a drought during the rest of it.

Even if the interest is there, people don’t buy consistently. 

If you are a fascinated with this niche, or already into gardening, then go and build that gardening website.

You’ll have fun growing your own gardening website, and reaping the eventual fruits of your labor.

And with that, I conclude this post about: Is gardening like growing money on trees?

Do you like gardening, and is this a niche you’d go into?

Leave a comment and let me know!

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