Hello Barb,

First of all congratulations on your find!

It isn't a problem unless you have a vested interest in a company, own the company and are doing advertising for it. Finding plastic Dixie cups is one of the biggest problems people have so if you have a resource for them feel free to divulge that information.

Larry

Thank you Larry! The place is called www.buythecase.net. Type in "solo cups" and you will see the description. It's $17.66 for 960 3 oz. Solo cups. Sounds like a deal to me...better than driving all over my town locating them, that's for sure. Larry - if I get tossed in jail for this, you better come and bail me out! Barb

Hi Barb,

I was a little confused about what the minimum quantity that one had to purchase at buy the case.net. Can one I get things by the item or does one have to buy a whole case of everything?

Another question. Can you really use 960 plastic solo cups?

Larry

PS - it is quite a drive for me to get to Fresno if they throw you in the slammer. lol

To give you an idea of how many cups a "normal" person might go through, it is both more and less than you might think. I have made it through about 6 of those bags in the last year.... and I have traded away (at a conservative guess) somewhere between 1 and 2 hundred plants.

For comparison I have bought cases of 2 1/4" rose pots, which are 3 1/2" deep, a case of 960 cost about $45. I don't know what the short regular 2" pots would cost--I would guess about half to 2/3 of that. The little dixie cups seem to work very well for many people who propagate for club plant sales or trades or Ebay sales. I wouldn't want to be drilling holes in so many though. How do you do it?

The company where I formerly bought pots by the case, went out of business after 20+ years. They were a big wholesale supplier to the greenhouse industry. But, I know people who now buy their cases of pots from McConkley. I have seen their catalog but I still have plenty of pots so haven't ordered from them. They have an 800# and I am sure their web site and catalog could be found on the net.

Jon

PS: I am continually amazed at how fast I use up pots and labels--where do they all go????

I've been looking for those little cups everywhere. I don't know, though, $17.50 sounds like more than I can pay, esp when you add in shipping. Then again, I guess if you consider it's for 960 cups, that's quite a deal. I've managed with the little black square pots and little clay-colored round pots that I got from the violet showcase for about 89 cents a dozen. I wish I had ordered more than 2 dozen, but I don't think I'll be up to 100 even. Where could I put all those cups?!

I'll go check out your source, though. Thanks for the knowledge.

If you don't all need a whole case, then why doesn't someone order them and you guys can split the cups and the cost?

...just an idea.

And it's a good idea, too. The only problem is that if one of us orders them, not only do we have to split the cost of shipping from the company to that person, but we have to also pay for the shipping from that person to us. It would be better if, say, a plant club could order it and we could just divide them and not have to pay for them to be shipped to us. Hmmm, maybe I'll suggest that.

I checked my cup order. It was "free shipping" but they did charge me $5.00 for a "handling fee." I would be more than willing to forget the $5.00 charge. Now to figure out the shipping from me to anyone that wants some...comments?? The unit price (per 80 cups) according to the order was $1.47 for each package of 80 cups. Can't be that much to ship them...you think? They are so light...I can check on that tomorrow.

I tried to post a follow up to my above post after Barbara pointed out to me that dixie cups are not plastic. I think the forum wasn't working that day. I meant solo cups but made an oops. When I need new pots I get them from our gesneriad chapter. We buy them in bulk and then offer them to our members at cost. We store them at the meeting building in the arboretum where we are allocated a storage locker. So we can't have too much on hand, but we do have a nice selection of pots. The funny thing is that sometimes the wholesale prices go up but we continue to sell at the price we paid. For the longest time we had three wire pot hangers for a penny a piece. Many of our mad propagators have switched to the 2 1/4" rose pots, which are 3 1/2" deep, but they are much larger than solo cups, so are most useful when you know a plant is going to grow quickly and have a large root ball. I find they are nearly equal to a regular 3 1/2" or 4" pot. But, I always save and reuse the solo cups that my convention sale plants come in.

So, Nikki, if the NIGS don't have a program like this see if someone in the club can help you out with pots. I know that some of their members are also mad propagators. I should know, when they hosted the AGGS convention they provided one of the best convention plant sales in many years; and I was an excellent customer of many of their plants.

Jon, mad propagator and mad plant sale shopper.

PS: When you folks get the new Gloxinian, there is a picture of me fighting over plants with lil' ol' Carol in last July's convention plant sale. I can be ruthless when it comes to paradrymonias (just kidding!).

I think I found a source for a smaller amount. I did a google search for "3 oz plastic solo cups" and got a hit on walgreens.com . They have them where you can order just one pack for $1.47. I emailed to make sure they were plastic and not paper, because the item description didn't say. But if they are plastic, here is another source.

Jon, you mean Carol Sharits? Wow. The more I talk to the people at NIGS, and here, and on Gesneriphiles, the more it seems like the gesneriad world is a small world after all. Yes, I heard a couple of our members especially are mad propagators, but one has developed, she thinks, an allergic reaction to touching some of the leaves of certain genera, and another, Gary Mikita who is heading toward commercial seller, couldn't come because he had to take a car-full of streps to Texas. So our show was smaller than usual.

I'll be looking for your pic!

First of all...DARN on mwedzi finding those solo cups on-line at Walgreens. Guess I missed that place! Just for the heck of it I'm going to go to a Walgreens down the street and see if they carry them too.