- He's a bonsai master and founder of the largest bonsai nursery in the United States, honing his childhood hobby into a craft to be enjoyed worldwide over the last 60 years.

And it's all happened right here in the Mid-South.

I'm Joellen Dimond, and this is A Conversation With Brussel Martin.

[gentle music] Brussell, so nice for you to be here with us today.

- Thank you.

- Tell me, how did you become a bonsai master?

- Well, it's taken a while.

And it was a long journey, but I started in my parents backyard in the '50s, and started importing trees from Japan and growing trees.

And it's for many years I had a day job, Needless to say.

And, so I grew in my parents backyard.

I rented a little place in Germantown, and in most bonsai trees are pretty specialized.

Like trident maple and elms.

So you're only interested in certain types of trees which you couldn't find in the United States.

So I started growing bonsai-related trees.

And it was kind of a cottage industry for a while.

And, I would say probably 20 years ago it really took off.

And I have had several people that work for me that, went to Japan and studied in Japan and brought back all the techniques.

So, cause growing bonsai is you apply techniques to plants, you create a bonsai.

It just doesn't happen.

So knowing the correct techniques is kind of the foundation.

And once you do that, then you know you can mass produce them if you want to or, or and I actually took many trips to Japan to study with growers and, you know, people that were established and knowledgeable and could teach you techniques.

So it was an evolution over the period of probably 30 or 40 years that got me to where I am, where I was 20 years ago.

And then bonsai was really grown in the past 20 years.

And I have people that work for me that we train into bonsai artists and but it's, and you never know it all.

I don't claim to know it all, but the horticulture end is a big, you know, no bonsai is a good bonsai unless it's healthy and we have a special soil, so we keep them healthy.

And then you apply the techniques of which, is do a little something, wait a little bit.

So it's, bonsai is kind of a slow transition over years in from a young plant to a older, nicer bonsai.

So, that's, you know, it didn't happen overnight.

I'll put it that way.

- No, it did not.

[gentle acoustic music] So your father brought some bonsai from California... What did you do after that?

- Well, he went out there, he's an architect, he went out, brought them back and they were- That's where the Japanese all were, you know.

Right at, this was in early 1950s.

So after he brought them back, we had those trees for probably five years.

And that's the nucleus that got me interested to start in, in my parent's backyard, which, you know, I was probably there ten or fifteem years still working for him as a draftsman and, and creating and growing bonsai.

And then, eventually outgrew my parent's backyard.

- So how long have you been in this location?

And, can you tell us about the facility here?

- We've been here since ‘04, 2004.

We've added on some since we initially moved here, but it's we have more shipping capabilities here, which that's our main forte is shipping bonsai all over the country.

Old ones, young ones.

And so we've, it's we have a production area where they produce them, we have them contract grown trees, grown little azaleas in Mobile and, ficus and trees down in Florida.

And then we import from China.

So we bring product in here from all over the world, basically, and tweak it a little bit, reestablish it and get it to a sellable point.

And then we ship through one of our many drop shippers or our own website.

We have brusselsbonsai.com that, but that's not the only way we sell.

So, you know, it's this building is, it handles all the space we need for both.

We can ship out.

I'd say it's the most we've ever done in 1 day's like 6,000 orders.

So it's, you know, that's everybody doing shipping, but so it's a good growing environment.

It's, everything's automatically watered.

We have everybody's pretty trained.

So it's an evolution too.

It's just happened over... Bonsai is, like I said, probably really, really taken off in the past 10 to 15 years.

So - Wow.

- And it's it we we we sell wholesale retail.

You know, there's two categories of bonsai, indoor and outdoor.

So a lot of Americans want a bonsai in their kitchen window.

So we have a bonsai for everybody.

Whatever level or age or type of tree you want.

- Wow.

That's a lot.

- Yeah, yeah.

- How much greenhouse space do you have here?

- I'd say probably it's, this is an educated guess, but I'd say probably, a couple of hundred thousand square feet.

It's 36 houses, and about a third of it's tropical or indoor and about two thirds is outdoor, so.

- And you have an outdoor facility for some outdoor-- - Yeah, and we have what we call our pad or one of our growing areas because like I say, we have a lot of material contract-grown.

We bring it in here, tweak it a little, put it out there, take it and, refine it, and then put it in a pot and then knock on wood.

If everything goes as planned, it's sits here about another six months and it's gone, so.

Yeah we house it, we don't grow it all here.

This place would have to be ten times bigger than it is.

So I've figured out a way to have, they can't finish out trees, but several guys contract-grow me thousands of trees so that that helps.

And it makes us kind of like a GM assembly plant to finish them out and get them there.

And like I said, what we pride ourselves on very healthy trees.

So no bonsai's good unless it's healthy and we have a new or not a new soil, but we have bonsai soil that is little high-fired our pieces of clay.

We might get into this later though.

Technically, but it never compacts, so it lets your soil percolate because a bonsai is going to be in a pot for... ever, basically 30-40 years.

So a good soil is like a good diet.

So it lets you like let some take in nutrients and you don't get root rot.

So that you send out a healthy tree with proper care instructions and most folks are up and going and you know... Bonsai is not for everybody.

But, you know, if it's for one-tenth of one percent this place keeps going.

- That's right.

Well, it's beautiful.

- You have a lot of nice plants here, especially this one that's behind us here.

- Well, yeah, this... - Talk about this one.

- This one I've had for 50 years and it's called hinoki cypress.

It's an evergreen and it actually was grafted but it has, it's a very good example of a fine textured foliage tree that's been this is I've had it for 50 years, and it was probably about 30 years old when I got it.

But it's been trained by wired out and detailed by Japanese guys and several professional artist and me too.

I maintain it, but it's a very soft look.

It's a conifer, but yet it's not.

A lot of conifers are real angular and and rigid looking, but this is a much softer look.

And it's, supposedly or, most of the Japanese guys that have seen it said it's probably the best hinoki they've seen in the world.

And it's eventually going to go the National Arboretum.

- Oh, wow.

- But I'm gonna hang on to it.

I've had it a while.

It's kind of my, sentimental piece, but.

But it's a good example, it's a big bonsa.

Just shows you you know, this thing probably weighs 50, 60 pounds.

Takes two guys to pick it up, but it's a showpiece.

It's - Definitely.

- Yeah, it's got all the interesting movement in it and all the nice soft pads.

So, it's just a labor of, you know, 50 years.

And I enjoy it, it's, you know, it brings people to the nursery.

- Yes.

It's beautiful.

- Thank you.

And I see you've got some, you've got a whole bunch of things here we have to talk about.

One of the more interesting things that you have done recently is these cypress trees.

You've gone out to the wild and gotten cypress trees, and you put them.

You've cut them.

- Yeah.

- And - You shorten them, yeah.

And that's a good example of native trees, a native tree that you can collect and make a bonsai.

There's not many, you know, maybe winged elms or something like that.

But bald cypress is a very, you know, you go, when we go, we look for taper.

You know, not every cypress will make as good as bonsai.

And so, believe it or not, we dig them in the dormant season and get a nice, decent root ball.

But we cut the tops off.

Most of them are 30 feet tall.

When we collect them, cut them off, clean them up, and they pop new branches all over.

So they you basically everything you'll see on one is only 2 or 3 year old branches.

And then the top, we'll let a sacrificial top go.

And that gives us a little transition to where we trimmed it.

And then we'll angle the back side.

And that eventually closes over.

And you never know it's there.

And they have great fine-textured feathery foliage.

So it's a real airy tree, but it has this real masculine trunk and it's like, like you said, it's a native.

You can go dig it up and you're finding some most of them are in these are at about six inches of water.

But if you want it bad enough, you can get it.

And they do well in a pot.

And some of them we leave in trays sitting in water because they love water.

So it's a good, you know, if you can't afford a nice bones, go dig you one.

- That's interesting.

- Yeah.

- Well, you have a lot of interesting things here.

And I really enjoyed seeing the black pine that you have just wired up with all the different angles on it.

So that shows how you start, start out with the trunks and - Putting the movement in it - And then have the movement in your trunk and how you said, how old were those?

And how... - The black pine is a is a big tree grown in Japan, it's real popular.

So there's a lot of techniques that we've gleaned from the Japanese, and some of it's wiring them when they're real young.

And you let a sacrificial branch grow to help caliper the little trunks.

But they back-bud.

That's a really the best.

One of the best attributes is the fact that after you trim them pretty hard certain times of the year, that's all timing, but they'll back-bud and so you can grow out a bigger, longer limb, cut it and it back buds on your little trunk so that they they're very receptive to all the bonsai techniques that you apply to them.

So you can have a black pine six inches tall, or you can have a black pine three feet tall, and they're both make great bonsais.

- Oh, wow.

That's so interesting.

And some of the other plants and I know you have a whole section of azaleas that - Satsuki azaleas - Satsuki azaleas that are 100 years old.

Wow, the massive trunks on those.

- That's a friend of mine in Japan that sources those for me.

And find somebody that, you know what might be something less expensive over there, Japan is kind of faddish.

So if azaleas aren't in favor, they're not going to get... But he he collects them.

You have to bare root product to bring it into the United States.

But no two of them are alike.

I mean, they're so old.

Every one of them is a different bloom.

There's 200 varieties, and they got massive trunks and they're grown by experts over there.

So they're all... You don't see many scars on them.

All the branches are padded out and it's they're extreme examples.

And then I even get in little ones, ssme types of Satsuki, that have little interesting twists all in them.

So it's really important if you can growing a bonsai catch it when it's young and put some interesting movement in it because it'll be there forever.

Then way down the road you'll be glad you did it.

- And you, how long do you leave the wires for on the trunks?

- Wires are there temporary.

A wire is there to, once it has a little growth a couple of months.

It all depends on when you did it.

But in the spring, probably those black pines will leave it on there about the rest of the growing season.

So then the branch sets and you can take it off.

Take it off?

Okay.

- It's usually about 6th months and.

- Very good.

Wow.

- Yeah.

- Now, what do you look for?

Because I notice all these have small, soft leaves.

What kinds of trees, outdoor trees and indoor trees, are good for bonsai?

- Well, you know, you don't want to put all your effort into a tree, and the foliage not match up.

And you can reduce foliage some by trimming techniques and all that.

But most of the time we start with smaller leaf ficus.

If it's an indoor or jade that has a small leaf and trees that will be in scale, because a lot of bonsais are no taller than six to eight inches.

So you want to have foliage that matches that.

And so we select, it all most of the time that end up being in the nursery industry.

So we have to source it or have it grown specifically for us.

What we try to pick trees that if they're tropicals, they'll do well in low-light situations because a lot of people want to put them in the middle of a room or in the kitchen window.

Outdoor trees is pretty much you want-- We grow a lot of what they grow in Japan because commercially we want, people see a big trident maple in Japan and they want to buy trident maple here.

So some of that's dictated by what people see in books and are familiar with.

But most of the time it's trees we just picked that that have a small leaf, you know, and twig up well.

- So like maybe pomegranate-- - Pomegranates have a small-- - Interesting one, lace leaf.

Maple.

- Lace-leaf maple.

Any of the smaller leaf Japanese maples.

There's so many.

We grow one called Sharp's Pygmy, Shishigashira.

Then we have a, one that's called, we call it Heritage, but it's a Japanese maple that grows fast but has a small leaf.

That's two good characteristics.

- You know, some of the containers are very nice.

You got a lot of clay ones, some of the other interesting containers that you have where it looks like rocks that you - Oh, yeah.

- Are able to.. - You try to make a nice natural setting and, and these stones happen to be pretty unique.

They're lace rocks out of Utah.

So they're real undulating and cupped and dished out.

So most of the time we put conifers in those cause It mimics the rough environment.

But sometimes we use deciduous trees in there.

But yeah, it's just another way.

You know, we have all the different glazed bonsai pots and they're mainly for deciduous trees.

So that's another differentiation.

On a conifer you usually want unglazed pots and deciduous and maybe azaleas you want a brighter look or a glazed look.

But so we try to match whatever tree it is to a pot, a glazed, unglazed, or a stone.

So whatever makes it look good.

That's what we're here for, you know.

- Very good.

Yeah.

And they, you have all different sizes of the some of the same trees.

You have a small leafed ginkgo that's... - Yeah.

- You got some years ago - That I've had for, I found just a single seedling in Japan, or a rare plant guy that had one.

And so it's taken a while, but it grows fast, but it's a typical nice ginkgo leaf, but it's no bigger than your thumbnail.

- Wow.

- And so, that's kind of the best finds you can have.

Because most folks like Ginkgo but they're normally a really big leaf.

So in a bonsai, if you find a small leaf on a ginkgo, that's a prize.

So we're propagating those.

And you know, eventually we'll have a big market.

- They're really pretty.

- Bonsai is, you know, it's horticulture and art combined.

- Yes it is.

- So, you know, the leaves piece of your brushwork and the trunk is in the pot.

So you're trying to take art and combine it with nature and make something that's interesting and looks natural.

You don't want it to look like, you know, human has touched it.

You want to look like you're viewing nature in miniature.

So and like I said, I maybe I hadn't said bonsai means tree in a pot.

So, you know, that's the difference in a styled up tree in your garden, a bonsai pot is a... So even if they're big pot, shallow pots or if it's a tree in there, it's technically a bonsai.

Very good.

- Yeah, - Wow it's a fascinating, place you've got here and you have a lot of beautiful plants and can you tell us some of the names of some of the other trees that you use all the time?

- Yeah.

Like I was saying, I'm trying to think of what we got.

Crape myrtle.

You can do crape myrtle.

You know, anything that has, you know, the green mound procumbens Nana is is the typical Karate Kid looking bonsai which a lot of folks, you know, for me, but a lot of folks that see a green mound juniper, we call it green mound procumbens Nana.

But they think that's all bonsai is, is a little juniper.

And then they come see that you can have maple trees, elm trees, indoor outdoor.

So it's a, you know, we cater to the Karate Kid market, but we actually, want to educate people to broaden up the spectrum that bonsai is basically, you know, something, we got something for everybody.

You know, it's entry level all the way up through, you know, I've got trees that sell for $30,000, so.

And you get what you pay for here.

It's, we're in a good.

climate to grow bonsai We have a good soil, the the water is very good here.

So luckily I've scored, about three of the major issues for bonsai.

And so we can grow and sell bonsai a lot less expensively than anybody in the country, really.

And a lot of that's just due to certain conditions.

- You've got a lot of good artists here besides yourself.

I notice there's one here that's it's a sergeant juniper - Yeah, Shimpaku.

- It's got this huge trunk on it that curls over, and it's one of those in those, rock pots that you were talking about.

- Yeah.

And that fit a juniper, which we call conifer.

Fits are very good for rock pots.

And Shimpaku is probably the number.

And it's not.

It's probably called Sergeant juniper here.

But the Shimpaku I grow is not really available on the domestic market landscape or nursery market, but it's real fine textured and you can make a compact foliage and it's, the most probably used juniper in Japan, mainly because it grows wild there in the mountains and they've collected old specimens and, but, it's that's the best example of a conifer, a juniper that make for bonsai.

Soft looking, you can put all the masculine moves in the trunks, and you can put it on a rock in a pot, whatever.

So it's probably that and our procumbens and maybe our ficus are the three main, and azaleas, Satsuki azaleas, little ones that we sell.

- Very good.

- Yeah.

And I notice some of them are actually there's more than one tree in a container.

You have two and three... -Oh, yeah.

A forest.

- A forest, yeah.

I thought that was interesting - That's my favorite is... That's what I'm known for is, I do other bonsai But forests are my favorite.

And that is a real trick to make them, you know, close enough in the trunk variations.

So it's a lot involved in it.

But the cool thing about a forest, is you can make a forest and it almost looks good instantly.

because you're using mature trees that are one sided and you compact them and touch them.

And so a forest is actually pretty, quickly finished out.

- And it looks, it looks it looks wonderful.

- I've got, you've got, some sequoias and I think you have... -Dawn redwoods and Japanese maples and tridents.

All of those have a small leaf and relatively compact foliage to make a forest.

Some two tree, some I have as many as 15 or 20 trees in a big, big, nice forest.

So - And the Schefflera, the indoor, the interior one... - The big ones in there looks like a banyan.

And usually they're in real thin, shallow pots.

So that makes the trunks kind of jump up out of the ground.

So that's if you've got a nice looking forest it odds are it's in a nice shallow pot.

- Wow.

Well, this place is absolutely amazing.

- Well thank you.

A labor of love.

- We want to thank you very much for having us out and showing us your wonderful facility here.

- My pleasure.

- Anybody's welcome here.

We mainly ship, but we welcome, walk in, you know, visitors or people come here from all over the country to buy a bonsai, look at bonsai... So whatever, you know, everybody's welcome to come anytime.

- Well, it was a pleasure to be here and see all of your art.

- Thank you.

Anytime.

Thank you, Brussel, for having us here today.

And thank you for joining us for a conversation with Brussel Martin.

[gentle acoustic music] [acoustic guitar chords]