Godwin Ugwu runs a small decorative plant enterprise beside the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. A brief signboard, virtually coated by leaf-coated hole metalworks, displayed the enterprise’s title: Good Pottery. Ugwu is a florist, and he represented a side of the floral business that had lengthy dominated however was liable to being unprofitable.
“The enterprise is not giving us pleasure prefer it did when the naira was stronger. The naira is not sturdy for us. Folks don’t worry about flowers; it’s not their downside as a result of they’re on the lookout for one thing to eat earlier than buying flowers,” Ugwu remarked, lamenting the biting inflation that worsened between 2023 and early 2025.
He had simply returned from a piece journey and was packing up some flower pots to shut for the day. The price of planting ballooned, whereas his buyer base shrank. A pot of vegetation will get costlier as the price of soil rises.
“I used to purchase a pot of loamy soil for N30,000 when former President Muhammadu Buhari was in workplace. Now, we’re shopping for it for N75,000 to N80,000,” Ugwu defined, as he completed packing and was set to go residence. His enterprise was booming up to now. As soon as, he may simply give a citation of N1m or N2m for a job, however that has modified, as a result of “you’ll not see something that can make you content when the value is slightly low.”
The frequency of shoppers visiting florists or participating the companies of horticulturists for his or her gardens helps describe the lack of momentum within the decorative plant enterprise. Ugwu recalled seeing prospects “virtually every single day, however now, it might be a couple of times in per week.”
Ugwu’s flower enterprise has managed to outlive. He offers with governments and company clientele, since lots of his personal prospects can’t afford him.
Floriculture in Nigeria
Emmanuel Usoro manages the backyard of flowers and different decorative vegetation at his Victoria Island-based florist employer. The backyard is vibrant, and a number of vegetation sprawl on a stretch of area behind the culverts on the Idowu Martins junction.
He tends to the vegetation and sells to prospects, sustaining what could generally be a gruelling routine. In line with Usoro, the gardener have to be hardworking.
The flower enterprise requires a excessive stage of labor ethic. The job meant that Usoro needed to are inclined to the vegetation, stopping the risks that come from individuals defecating or flinging trash within the backyard and animals consuming and defecating on the vegetation.
“To make your backyard look good, so to get extra prospects, you need to work onerous. To keep up your backyard, you need to all the time fumigate and water, a minimum of three or 4 instances a day, below the recent solar. When you don’t do this, your plant will spoil,” the gardener acknowledged.
Usoro defined that he spent years studying every thing he may concerning the decorative vegetation within the backyard. As he moved across the plant beds with care, weeding the pots, he described every notable plant intimately, together with its pricing.
In contrast to Ugwu on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Usoro’s largest prospects have been expatriates on Lagos Island and an unlikely class of patrons: personal residents for his or her properties. This class of patrons, in response to Usoro, would “are available in to purchase one pot of plant for N60,000.” They’re conserving the enterprise alive.
“The principle individuals who purchase vegetation, like this one, which matches for N175,000, come and buy them with out haggling over the value an excessive amount of,” he mentioned, pointing to a cylindrical white vase. “However some individuals could wish to purchase a pot and place it of their parlour.”
Mommies & daddies’ communities
Buying flowers for extra intimate wants is rising in Lagos cities, and lovers are the highest patrons. Lagos usually will get a foul rep for “missing inexperienced areas,” however the tradition is popping round regularly.
Lagos State Parks and Gardens Company, for instance, states that it maintains and screens 373 inexperienced areas, in partnership with personal sector organisations. These inexperienced areas embrace the Infinity Park in Jibowu and the Peace Park in Ketu. These parks and “inexperienced areas” maintained by public-private partnerships host an array of flowers and different decorative vegetation.
Moreover the general public parks, the communities of plant mommies and daddies usually organise themselves to advertise environmentalism in Lagos state. A handful of floriculture occasions occurred in 2025. On April 5 and 6, the Lagos Backyard Membership held its first Lagos Gardening Truthful of 2025.
On April 27, the Backyard Centre NG hosted its Sip and Swap occasion, that includes gardening classes, knowledgeable meetups, plant swaps with fellow lovers and networking.
Between August 1 and three, organisers of the fourth version of the Open Day for Gardeners, in partnership with Ecobank Nigeria, gathered distributors and plant lovers in Lagos. Former Second Girl Dolapo Osinbajo described the occasion in an Instagram submit as “an thrilling gathering of all issues vegetation and gardens, networking and studying in ‘Inexperienced group.’”
With the ability to afford the vegetation is a key issue behind the rise of plant house owners and small-scale gardening in these communities. In line with florist Usoro, prospects often buy essentially the most reasonably priced indoor vegetation between N8,000 and N20,000.
Some reasonably priced vegetation are the Yellow and inexperienced snake plant, the conventional inexperienced snake plant, the Elephant’s tongue and the Girls’ plant.
In the meantime, the most costly ones are Joker, Filavendrum, Raffia palm and Hibiscus.
Enterprise of decorative vegetation
“Nigerians are regularly leaning in direction of extra inexperienced areas, greenery typically and an elevated need to develop what they eat,” mentioned plant advisor Ebuka Okonkwo. Okonkwo, also called Plantboy, is a social creator and showcases gardening and floriculture recommendations on his social media accounts.
He defined that planting and promoting flowers or decorative vegetation in Nigeria “is an increasing enterprise and enterprise with many extra untapped alternatives inside it.”
Okonkwo famous that there’s an rising variety of individuals venturing into gardening or these trying to beautify their properties with vegetation, versus 4 years in the past, when he began gardening and largely individuals already invested within the passion have been driving the demand.
The plant advisor additionally famous that he was puzzled by the heavy patrons of flowers, often for large-scale landscaping, who wish to spend as little as attainable on landscaping or greenery. “Why construct a grand and so-called luxurious property and never incorporate the suitable landscaping to additional improve it?”
He added, “In my expertise, prospects in search of to buy potted vegetation for a small-scale set up and even simply to embellish their indoor area are usually extra prepared to spend the additional, and so they make up the majority of my gross sales.”
For Okonkwo, essentially the most worthwhile a part of his enterprise comes from vegetation harvested inside his personal backyard. He defined: “If one buys a mom plant for N10,000 and nurtures it to provide many pups, then every pup will be harvested and bought for N30,000 and even presumably extra. Now, think about if that one plant yields 50 of such pups quarterly and in addition has lots of mentioned vegetation rising. That may be an awesome funding and money cow.
He famous that this was not all the time the case, “however when it does occur, it may be worthwhile for the grower.”
In the meantime, the least worthwhile for the plant advisor was having to outsource vegetation from different growers resulting from more and more restricted inventory and an absence of economic availability. “It is without doubt one of the many challenges of this enterprise,” he replied.
For Amanda and Stefanie, the house owners of Flora Vista, a backyard and nursery firm, “the plant market is rising as extra individuals are turning into wellness aware and discovering methods to combine rituals into their on a regular basis lives.”
Stefanie cautioned that though Nigerians are adopting flowers and vegetation of their properties although the expansion shouldn’t be exponential but. “Lots of people are moving into herbs and fruiting vegetation, however the decorative area remains to be rising,” she remarked. “I imagine florists and gardeners have to actively create the market, serving to customers visualise how vegetation can remodel their areas. For a lot of, seeing is believing.”
On which class makes for fast-growers, Stefanie defined that “whereas historically, greenery was largely for landscaping (in properties and public or company areas), there’s a stable-income class section that values aesthetics, wellness, and indoor vegetation. Instagram and different social media aesthetics, and the ‘wellness/life-style’ motion are fuelling demand.”
She added, “I’ve a specific love for the person potted plant section, because it feels extra area of interest and permits prospects to precise their personalities by distinctive plant decisions. That mentioned, each segments will be extremely worthwhile when a enterprise positions itself strategically.”
Talking from her expertise, Stefanie famous her choice for retail potted vegetation, which give “regular money move, model visibility, and the chance to create loyal prospects” versus “large-scale tasks that aren’t as frequent as particular person purchases”
In the meantime, Amanda famous that when it comes to quantity of gross sales, each classes of particular person and large-scale purchases will be good for a florist that’s seen, has constructed belief, and is in keeping with worth providing.
For Stefanie, essentially the most worthwhile a part of the enterprise is the vegetation grown from cuttings. She mentioned, “Although they take time to determine, flowers are worthwhile, however they’ve the perishability side.”
Challenges dealing with floral business
As flowers are delicate objects, so is the enterprise of promoting them. A number of challenges, together with logistics and inflation, have weighed on the floral business gamers.
For the plant advisor, Okonkwo, logistics is a problem, “not solely due to the astronomically excessive value of transportation inside Lagos but in addition as a result of vegetation are very fragile.” He lamented that almost all logistics personnel are usually not skilled to deal with the vegetation.
Inflation and the upper value of residing are irritating growers who wish to improve their inventory to stay aggressive, and limiting these prospects keen to buy.
“Business availability is restricted. By this, I imply if a shopper orders 50 items of a specific plant in a specific peak, it could actually turn out to be actually troublesome to supply, the Plantboy famous. “Decorative vegetation have to be farmed to satisfy provide, the way in which tomatoes and peppers, and so forth, are additionally farmed. This requires land and area, and sadly, there are only a few large-scale growers with such farms in Lagos, a minimum of.”
Many growers have resorted to importing vegetation to satisfy rising demand, particularly for distinctive varieties, in response to the advisor. “It should require a whole lot of capital, funding and area,” he suggested.
Equally, Amanda from Flora Vista highlighted logistics as a significant problem to the enterprise. She mentioned, “If outsourced to a 3rd occasion, there are a whole lot of dangers, particularly with care. To achieve success at the moment, you both personal the method or simply handle it extraordinarily properly.”
On her half, Stefanie famous that the commonest challenges are injury to inventory resulting from transit or from environmental elements.
“Imported ornamentals are costly resulting from foreign exchange volatility and customs fees. For some vegetation, domestically grown alternate options are restricted. Transporting delicate vegetation is troublesome—roads, warmth, and poor packaging could cause injury,” she bemoaned. “Even dealing with the flight possibility will be disappointing, and a few unique vegetation wrestle in Nigeria’s tropical local weather and should be acclimatised or grown neatly (e.g. rising roses in patios vs in full solar).”
She agreed with Okonkwo on personnel, including, “Prospects usually lack plant care information, resulting in dissatisfaction when vegetation die.
She really helpful constructing good, trusted relationships with logistics suppliers and creating techniques for caring for the vegetation.
Flower exports are huge enterprise
Within the first 9 months of 2025, Nigeria exported ‘Reduce flowers & flower buds, recent, dried, dyed,’ price N79.64bn, inserting these decorative vegetation among the many nation’s prime agricultural exports every quarter.
Between January 2023 and June 2025, the worth of export of minimize flowers and flower buds totalled N291.76bn.
Floriculture is hardly delineated from horticulture in Nigeria’s progress information. The federal government additionally lumps all subsectors collectively when discussing its designs to enhance the sector and its practitioners.
In line with a evaluation by the Produce Export Improvement Alliance, Nigeria’s horticultural export sector was nearing an estimated $248m in 2023.
A report by The Nation quoted: “PEDA’s evaluation of export developments paints a promising image, with consultants predicting that Nigeria’s horticultural exports may probably soar to $500 million by 2030 if key challenges are successfully addressed.”
The PUNCH reported in September that the Minister of Agriculture and Meals Safety, Abubakar Kyari, whereas publicly appraising the HortiNigeria programme, funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and carried out between 2021 and 2025, recognized horticulture as a robust driver of meals safety, ladies’s empowerment, and youth employment.
Non-public sector teams react
Chairman of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Trade’s Agricultural and Allied Group, Tunde Banjoko, flagged the method of preserving most horticultural merchandise. “They require chilly chain storage. Till now, we have now used crude strategies to convey and protect merchandise. That’s the reason a few of our merchandise are nonetheless being rejected on the export market.”
He famous that different constraints to the export of flowers from Nigeria are regulatory points and the price of airlifting the objects. Banjoko additionally decried that almost all horticulturists practise within the open area. He urged shifting into greenhouses.
On his half, Director of Technical Programmes on the Nigerian Conservation Basis, Adedamola Ogunsesan, mentioned the NCF’s enterprise of decorative vegetation presents alternatives each for livelihoods and for enhancing city and peri-urban ecosystems.
He famous that the muse’s emphasis has persistently been on the usage of native and naturalised species, that are higher tailored to native weather conditions and help biodiversity.
He referred to as on Nigerians to combine extra vegetation into their residing and dealing areas to cut back the city warmth impact, enhance air high quality, and promote psychological well-being. “Importantly, when indigenous vegetation are prioritised, they supply meals and habitat for pollinators, birds, and different species essential to ecosystem stability. Thus, the decorative plant sector has environmental potential if aligned with conservation priorities,” he careworn.
Ogunsesan hailed the rising variety of plant gala’s which have performed an necessary function in energising the decorative plant business. He defined that the companies have helped to “create platforms for entrepreneurship and information change, the place small companies can showcase plant improvements and lovers can study sustainable practices and construct a way of group round city greening and environmental appreciation, notably amongst younger Nigerians who determine as ‘plant mommies and daddies.’
He added, “NCF has demonstrated this by its orchid backyard established in honour of the late Professor Emmanuel Obot, which educates guests on the sweetness and ecological significance of native orchids. Related showcases at gala’s can encourage individuals to pick out vegetation which might be each aesthetically pleasing and ecologically beneficial.”
How authorities can enhance floriculture
The Assistant Director of Analysis, Nationwide Horticultural Analysis Institute, Dr Gbenga Adebayo, talking on behalf of the Horticultural Society of Nigeria, mentioned that NIHORT has labored to increase the lifespan of flowers in Nigeria.
“If maybe the flower may solely be sustained for 2 or three days, we’re working to elongate its shelf life to about 10 or 12 days. If you’re exporting, meaning you possibly can take it to your nation of vacation spot, and you may nonetheless have the ability to promote the flowers that you really want,” Adebayo famous.
The NIHORT director added that the institute is engaged on hastening the manufacturing of crops, stating, “We are attempting to extend our germ presence and the variety of vegetation that can be utilized for ornamental functions. It might embrace adapting to some that we might not be native to Nigeria, or trying to cultivate these which might be within the wild. For instance, we have now our personal native roses, and there are some that we import to adapt to the Nigerian system.
NIHORT famous that it’s working to create consciousness amongst residents about what can enhance the atmosphere. “We champion the mitigation of local weather change, and we additionally encourage that, even in cities, like in Lagos, to have decorative vegetation on the highway, creating lawns alongside streets and all these issues.”
Adebayo urged the federal government to fund extra analysis at NIHORT and supply laws that ensures builders plant hedges and create a ravishing atmosphere, for instance, at petrol stations and houses.
“You don’t simply construct a home and let the home eat the entire of 1 plot that you’ve got purchased. There ought to be a particular space that it’s best to go away for ornamentals, the place you possibly can plant hedges, or spot vegetation that can create shade,” he added.
