Plant nursery
A plant nursery mostly remains highly labour-intensive. Although some processes have been mechanised and automated, others have not. It remains highly unlikely that all plants treated in the same way at the same time will arrive at the same condition together, so plant care requires observation, judgement and manual dexterity; selection for sale requires comparison and judgement. A UK plant nursery has estimated in 2003 that manpower accounts for 70% of his production costs. The largest UK plant nurseries have moved to minimise labour costs by the use of computer controlled warehousing methods. Plants are palletised, allocated to a location and grown on there with little human intervention. Picking merely requires selection of a batch and manual quality control before dispatch. In other cases, a high loss rate during maturation is accepted for the reduction in detailed plant maintenance costs.
Plant nursery
Some plant nurseries specialize in one phase of the process: propagation, growing out, or retail sale; or in one type of garden plant: e.g., groundcovers, shade plants, semi-mature trees, or rock garden plants.
Plant nursery protocols
A plant nursery often grows plants in a greenhouse, a building of glass or in plastic tunnels, designed to protect young garden plants from harsh weather (especially frost), while allowing access to light and ventilation. Modern greenhouses allow automated control of temperature, ventilation and light and semi-automated watering and feeding. Some also have fold-back roofs to allow "hardening-off" of plants without the need for manual transfer to outdoor beds.