Business Thrives on Joy Juice

By WAYNE TOMPKINS, The Courier-Journal
April 5, 2000

Monty Justice is not a chemist as such. He's a retiree with a passion for growing bigger, brighter, stronger, award-winning roses.

Through years of experiments, often little more than trial and error, by 1991 he had come up with a powerful liquid plant food that a lot of people liked.

He called his concoction Monty's Joy Juice and let the stuff market itself through word of mouth. It was made in small batches for his own use, for customers of his Louisville-area rose-care business and for gardeners he met along the way at garden shows and seminars.

Growing demand spurred the formation of Monty's Plant Food Co. two years ago. In 1999, its first full year in business, the company logged $100,000 in sales.

Now, with his product drawing international attention, the 73-year-old Louisville native oversees a business that itself seems poised to blossom.

Where and how will it bloom? Even Justice is not completely sure.

"Well, I go wherever the Lord leads me," Justice said. "My feeling is that it could be -- this is a dream -- that the U.S. government will offer this to a Third World country as a grant to feed people in that country."

With little to no advertising, word of mouth alone has criss-crossed the planet so that Monty's Joy Juice now is sold in 18 states. Experts around the world are testing the product and the company is preparing for its next major growth spurt.

It has been operating out of home offices, but is planning to set up a company office and is looking to hire people with agricultural expertise. The company also is seeking distributors to help move the product into new markets.

"We're an operation that truly is getting ready to go to the next level," said Kevin Voss, who oversees marketing for Monty's Plant Food Co. "As a small emerging company, we're starting to get spread pretty thin."

Justice's growth strategy often has been deceptively straightforward.

"You go to trade shows and introduce the product -- you give it away to growers, if you will," Justice said. "It's being tested for all types of plants grown by farmers. Growers in India and Saudi Arabia and the Philippines are testing it."

Voss emphasized that the product was not "just for gardeners. . . . We think this product helps Third World countries in better agricultural development. There are big things happening with this."

Justice's fertilizer is so concentrated and powerful that a few drops -- half a teaspoon to one gallon of water -- are all that's needed to improve plants. It is sold primarily in nurseries in quantities ranging from eight ounces ($7.95 suggested retail) to two and a half gallons. There are high- and low-nitrogen versions as well as one for indoor use.

"It's being tested this year by farmers to try and find out how little is needed to give optimum results," Justice said. "It's a tremendous opportunity for farmers to produce a better crop with more nutrition at less cost."

Justice has grown roses for nearly 40 years and began judging them for the American Rose Society in 1976. When he retired in 1985 as a manager for a Louisville manufacturer, a friend talked him into turning his hobby into a business.

Monty's Rose Care started with six accounts. Today, with his son-in-law Dennis Stephens helping out, Justice cares for 180 Louisville-area rose gardens with more than 12,000 plants. He grew the business almost entirely through word of mouth.

Monty's Joy Juice -- named for a powdered drink and iced tea mix that he and his wife, Becky, used to make for neighborhood kids -- arose from the competitive spirit of the lifelong coach and athlete, still an avid tennis player.

Determined to grow championship roses, Justice sought the advice of a grower at a Tennessee seminar.

"He said, 'Monty, you're never going to have Queen of Show unless you start using a liquid fertilizer on your roses,' " Justice recalled.

"I started using a popular brand in the marketplace and adding nutrients to it that the rose would particularly like. I got very good results. But after using a gallon around each of 300 plants for two years, the soil got so acid that I lost 75 of 300 plants."

He sought a fertilizer that wouldn't change the soil's pH, no matter how much was used.

Justice slowly perfected his plant fertilizer, which includes some ingredients he keeps secret. He mixed it in his garage before growing demand prompted him to go into production.

"Really, we have something quite special," he said. "When we saw the way these roses looked, we knew this substance had done something special. Not only did it give you larger roses and more depth of color, it doubled the size of the rose foliage."

Charlie Davis, who lives in the Okolona area, is one of the many fans Justice and his product has gained over the years.

"I've been using it for a year and a half and I grow everything from banana trees to vegetables with it," Davis said. "It's real simple to use. . . . Whatever Monty is putting in there, it's the right stuff."

Joe Pedigo, manager at Frank Otte's Nursery in St. Matthews, said the nursery was among the first to sell Monty's Joy Juice.

"It sells well." he said "It goes three times farther than the other brands on the market and we can recommend it because even if people way overdo it, which sometimes people do, it's not going to tear up their plants."

Pedigo said it also has a "good amount of iron in it, which helps green up the plants real well."

For all the attention his product has received, Justice said it is hardly a cure-all, even for roses.

"Every year, we learn something more. When you have 180 different localities where roses are growing, you have 180 different ecologies, if you will. The temperatures, the shade, everything about every garden, just up the street from here is different," he said.

"Our success in growing roses is more dependent upon nature and the weather than it is on me. If you have good roses, don't give me all the credit. But then, if your roses aren't as good as they have been, don't give me all the blame."