Nursery Stands Tall Among Bonsai Suppliers

Dana Quattlebaum of the Brussel's Bonsai company trims a tree in the greenhouse in Olive Branch, Miss. The acidity of the water and the climate in Olive Branch are ideal for growing bonsai trees.

Click on Amazon.com, Proflowers.com or Hallmark.com and order a bonsai tree, and more than likely, employees at a specialty nursery in northwest Mississippi will process and ship your order.
"Chances are good the bonsai is from here," said McNeal McDonnell, 38, of Germantown, Tenn., one of the owners of Brussel's Bonsai, which specializes in the miniature trees.
Brussel Martin, 54, of Memphis, established the nursery in Olive Branch, Miss., in 1978 after years of growing bonsai in his parents' backyard.
"When I was 5 years old, I can remember being instantly captivated by several bonsai my father brought back from a California business trip," he said. "As a teenager, I began to seriously study the art of bonsai. What started out as an artistic endeavor in my parents' back yard quickly grew into a business."
Martin began selling bonsai through the mail and traveled to shows across the country in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, he made annual buying trips to Asia. About 60 percent of the stock is imported.
The nursery moved last May into a $2.5 million complex with a pagoda-influenced roofline and an entrance flanked by Chinese foo dogs, symbols of good luck.
The greenhouses are rows and rows of small wonders planted in small containers, each filled with a special soil-less mix composed of clay aggregate and finely ground pine bark. Ficus, maple, jade, cypress, pine, juniper, holly, ginkgo — and even redwood forests — fit in containers often small enough to decorate coffee tables or fireplace mantels.
Employees use golf carts to move plants from greenhouses to the packing area where hoppers filled with Styrofoam peanuts hang overhead.
A 4-year-old, 6-inch-tall ficus sells for $23 — and that's a starting point for a hobby that can grow into a serious addiction. "Orchids have the same type of collector," McDonnell said.
Trees known as specimen plants cost $500 or more and occupy their own greenhouse. Some of them sport "sold" tags — although the owners must wait two years to take them home. The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires plants to be quarantined for two years after they're imported.
Martin specializes in pruning, wiring and shaping the trees. McDonnell handles the technology. "Our contributions to the business are very much equal," McDonnell said.
About 60 percent of the nursery's business comes from catalogs and online sites for 10 to 12 companies, such as FTD, ProFlowers and Hallmark; 30 percent comes from its own catalog and Web site and 10 percent from wholesale customers such as garden centers, McDonnell said.
"Seven years ago our largest customer was Home Depot," McDonnell said. "Home Depot relied on us to merchandise and order and fill its stores. That became a big headache, and we pulled back from that."
The nursery owners turned to technology to expand the customer base to Internet shoppers who wanted to send bonsai trees as gifts.
"We realized we could import and grow bonsai very well and we were good at shipping," McDonnell said. "The Internet allows us to focus on those two things without having personnel maintain displays and go to garden centers."
This month, the company will expand its reach to QVC TV, the home shopping channel. Martin is scheduled to appear March 21 and sell ficus bonsai and azalea bonsai.
"We expect to sell 1,700 trees in eight minutes," McDonnell said. "If we do well, they'll invite us back."
Brussel's Bonsai mails out its catalog at the end of each March, and business typically picks up in April due to catalog customers placing orders.
"Seven years ago, we sent out 15,000 catalogs," he said. "We'll send out 130,000 this year."