A business blooms in the Texas heat

A liberal dose

March 09, 2008

AZLE -- Two years ago, a trio of Californians pulled up stakes and moved halfway across the country with dreams, derided by some in the hypercompetitive cut-flower industry, of growing Dutch tulips and lilies in North Texas with no synthetic pesticides or fertilizer.

Azle is not exactly a hotbed of flower production. Neither is Texas. While it produces potted and bedding plants, the Lone Star State doesn't show up in national statistics of cut-flower production.

Of course, that meant no year-round local competition either.

Styling themselves Texas Floral, they arrived in 2006 after looking over, then rejecting, sites in Northern California, Oregon and Arizona because of the high cost of land.

They built a 13,000-square-foot greenhouse on land bordered by suburban-style homes on large lots and saw last year's summer rains destroy an outdoor crop with a retail value of $100,000. A second, 33,000-square-foot greenhouse was built to help avoid a recurrence.

'Outdoor crops are extremely risky in Texas, what with hailstorms and strong winds,' said Peter Thaman-Bigsby, the group's master grower. But nature wasn't their only problem.

The group is dependent on bulb shipments from the Netherlands, and one supplier air-freighted orange tulip bulbs for the Christmas season.

The three have also been turned down for an agricultural property tax exemption for their 10 acres -- and collectively reeled when a retailer suddenly canceled $25,000 in monthly purchases after the bulbs were already in the ground.

But Thaman-Bigsby; his wife, Denise Stevens; and business partner Jason Meyer hope to break even this year and diversify their marketing.

Last year, the first full year of business, sales were $506,000, said Jason Meyer's brother Brent, a Los Angeles-based certified public accountant and Texas Floral's fourth partner, the one who handles the books. 'This year we project sales of $1.2 million, which will definitely put us in the black.'

Building a clientele

After disappointing run-ins with wholesalers over its first crop of flowers in December 2006, Texas Floral has built a clientele of direct customers: 50 retail florists in the Fort Worth area as well as the Lubbock-based United Market Street supermarkets, Whole Foods in Texas and two neighboring states, Tyler-based Brookshire's and many of the Central Market stores.

'They have a great product, provide great customer service and they're really, really nice to work with,' said Jace Jeffery, manager of Flowers on the Square. 'A tulip is a tulip is a tulip in that high-end niche at the top of the market where they are. But if there's a mistake before a big wedding, they can quickly fix it.'

Not so suppliers in New Jersey and California. Jeffery's business saves a few hundred dollars on shipping because Texas Floral delivers, which also alleviates the need to send a truck and an employee to the airport, he said.

With its healthy customer base, Texas Floral is about to upgrade and promote its Web sites for direct-to-consumer sales, said Meyer, who handles marketing. 'This way, there's no middleman,' he said of the Web-based transactions on their site, www.dailycut.com.

The big flower-delivery Web sites are operated by brokers, 'while we ship directly from our fields,' said Meyer, a chiropractor-turned-flower-marketer. Meyer injured his own back, making it impossible for him to pursue his profession, when an unconscious 250-pound patient fell on him. The episode led to his search for a new career that ultimately led him to Azle -- not far from Bridgeport, where his wife, Mia was born.

Longtime friends

Thaman-Bigsby and Meyer have been friends since high school in Carpinteria, Calif., a major flower-growing area south of Santa Barbara. Thaman-Bigsby had most recently farmed tomatoes and flowers in Paso Robles, a more difficult growing area because of 110-degree summer afternoons. With his architectural studies background, he fashioned greenhouses with evaporative cooling devices like household swamp coolers that lowered temperatures by 20 to 25 degrees.

'When I first went to florist shops, no one believed we grew them in Texas,' Meyer said.

'But I was told you couldn't grow lilies in Paso Robles either,' Thaman-Bigsby said. 'So I was used to it.'

Staff members of the Texas Agriculture Department were believers, helping the three get a state-guaranteed $450,000 loan under a 'young farmer' program. The partners invested $400,000 of their own savings to acquire the land, which came with a large house, and to build a greenhouse. They've since refinanced through a California bank, getting a larger note to cover the cost of the second greenhouse.

After running through a number of workers in what is a very

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