Tissue Culture Plants: A Guide for Sellers

This guide is for sellers who are thinking about buying tissue culture plants wholesale for the first time. It explains what the plants are, why the price is low, what arrives in the box, and how to turn a plantlet into a plant you can sell.

What tissue culture plants are

A tissue culture plant starts as a few cells cut from a mother plant. A laboratory places those cells in a sterile jar on a gel that holds water, sugar and nutrients. Under steady light and temperature the cells multiply into dozens of small plants, called plantlets. Each one is a clone of the mother plant, so a variegated monstera stays variegated and an alocasia stays true to its name.

Because the jar is sterile, the plantlets carry no pests, no soil and no disease. That is why they clear plant inspection easily and why they can be produced in quantity.

Why the wholesale price is low

One jar can hold many plantlets, and one lab can hold thousands of jars. The cost per plant is a fraction of the cost of rooting cuttings by hand. Rare and variegated varieties that sell for a premium as finished plants can be bought as plantlets at a wholesale price. The seller does the last step, acclimation, and keeps the margin.

What arrives in the box

Plantlets ship with their roots wrapped, usually in a small cup or bag, with no soil. They are small, with thin leaves. This is normal. The plant has never lived outside the jar. Your job over the next 21 days is to teach it to.

Record an unboxing video before you open anything. If a plant arrives damaged, the video plus a photo of each affected plant is what a claim needs.

The 21-day acclimation

Acclimation is the step that decides whether your order makes money. The plantlet needs high humidity for the first week, then a little less each day until it is living in normal room air. Read the first 21 days for the day-by-day steps.

How to choose plants for a first order

• Start with a genus you already sell. Your buyers know it, and you know how it grows. Alocasia, Philodendron, Monstera and Anthurium are the four largest groups in our catalog.
• Check the minimum order on each product. Minimums run from 1 plant to 500 plants.
• Check the grade. Seller's Choice ships from the Hong Kong and Fujian collections. Grower's Choice ships from every other collection. The claim rules differ and are on the Refund policy page.
• Check the arrival window on the Shipping and Order Windows page and plan your acclimation space for that week.

How ordering works at Plants Without Borders

Add plants to your cart and submit your list. We confirm stock with the laboratory partner, remove anything out of stock, and send one invoice. You pay the invoice and your plants ship in the next arrival window. There are no credit terms. Signed-in sellers see volume pricing, and the price per plant drops as quantity goes up.

Browse the full range of wholesale tissue culture plants or open a wholesale account to see pricing.