{"id":445,"date":"2012-02-06T14:00:13","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T19:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mymontys.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=445"},"modified":"2012-06-18T22:54:26","modified_gmt":"2012-06-19T02:54:26","slug":"about-monty-justice","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.wordpress.mymontys.com\/?page_id=445","title":{"rendered":"About Monty Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/strong>

Monty Justice<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Memoriam \u2014 Montrose\u00a0“Monty”\u00a0D. Justice<\/strong><\/p>\n

An outstanding Kentuckian and Rosarian has left his gracious mark on gardens – and farms – all over the world. Monty Justice, who was described as an inventor, tinkerer, evangelist and prankster, passed away surrounded by his family at his home in Louisville, Kentucky on February 6, 2012. Monty had also been described with adjectives such as creative, determined, passionate, competitive, generous, devout, devoted, talkative, tireless, fun, instructive, inspiring and larger-than-life.\u00a0 His most frequent descriptor, however, was as the creator of a unique plant food formula now known as Monty’s Plant Food.<\/p>\n

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Coach Monty<\/p><\/div>\n

He was loved for being a tireless coach of generations of children’s basketball teams, an avid tennis player, and an active member in the recreational and choir programs at Crescent Hill Baptist Church for more than 25 years. Monty, his wife Becky, and their daughters, Debbie (Stephens) and Jennifer (Merrick) have all been members of Hurstbourne Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky where Monty sang in the choir, coached children in Upward basketball and directed others in the maintenance of the grounds about the church.\u00a0 Becky remains a member at Hurstbourne.<\/p>\n

Born and raised in Crescent Hill in Louisville, Kentucky, Monty attended Barret Middle School, then Male High School. While at Male he was known as one of the \u201cThree Musketeers\u201d with his good friends Bob Lehman and Jack Miller. They earned the moniker through their hijinks at school. Monty\u2019s father, Monty and both his daughters all graduated from Male.\u00a0 Monty\u2019s granddaughter is currently a sophomore there.<\/p>\n

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Monty and Becky on their 25th Wedding Anniversary<\/p><\/div>\n

Monty joined the Navy in 1945, and trained at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station outside Chicago, Illinois. Shortly after Japan surrendered, Monty was stationed in the Philippines under a commanding officer who wanted a championship table tennis team. Seeing that the team did not have guard duty, had easy duty in the base post office and had the prospect of steak instead of Spam if the team won its weekly match, Monty was motivated to join the team.\u00a0 The team traveled to nearby islands and eventually to Okinawa where Monty placed 6th in the Southwest Regional Table Tennis Championships. \u00a0Monty also sang in an a cappella choir on base.<\/p>\n

After returning from the Navy, Monty enrolled at the University of Louisville where he attended the Speed Scientific School for 3 years.\u00a0 Prior to graduation, he changed his major and was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree from the School of Business. \u00a0Upon graduating, he worked as an inventory control clerk at Tube Turns, a metal manufacturing company in Louisville, Kentucky.\u00a0 He became Materials Manager before taking early retirement in 1985, at the age of 58, ending his 32-year first<\/em> career.<\/p>\n

The origins of Monty\u2019s interest in roses<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Mrs.<\/a>

Mrs. Corn's Rose Garden<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1962, at the age of 35, friends gave Monty a 25 cent ticket to the National Rose Show in Louisville. Monty was not going to let a 25 cent ticket go to waste, so he attended the show.\u00a0 That rose show changed his life.\u00a0 Unable to see roses in a garden setting at the show, Monty asked where he might see some.\u00a0 He was directed to the residence of Mrs. C. T. Corn.<\/p>\n

Monty\u2019s visit to Mrs. Corn\u2019s was an awe-inspiring experience.\u00a0 The long driveway and well-manicured lawn paled by comparison once Monty pulled around the side of her house to the sight of over 2,000 roses in bloom.\u00a0 Monty had long ago learned that if you volunteer to help someone who is successful, you can learn much and eliminate the many pitfalls encountered when you try to learn things on your own.\u00a0 Naturally, Monty volunteered to help care for Mrs. Corn\u2019s roses. Mrs. Corn and Monty became close friends as he spent many years in her garden learning how to care for roses from Mrs. Corn and from Charlie Dawson, the man who had designed, landscaped and planted Mrs. Corn\u2019s inspirational rose garden. Mr. Dawson was not only a local Rosarian, and founder of the Louisville Rose Society, but he was also recognized nationally and was the winner of many gold medals for his roses.\u00a0 Monty continued his rose gardening hobby after work and on weekends for years.<\/p>\n

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Monty tending roses<\/p><\/div>\n

Monty\u2019s Second Career<\/strong><\/p>\n

After Monty retired in 1985, Charlie Dawson, having recognized Monty\u2019s gift for rose care and knowing that Monty was not ready to really retire, encouraged Monty to start his own rose care business. He also referred Monty to a few friends.\u00a0 These referrals became Monty\u2019s first six rose care customers. Sadly, Charlie Dawson died two years later. Monty, with his equally practical and hard-working son-in-law Dennis Stephens, continued to build this rose care business by word of mouth.<\/p>\n

So it was that Monty\u2019s Rose Care, LLC was formed in 1991.Through much hard work, many shovels, rakes, clippers and thorn pricks, the business grew to where Monty’s Rose Care maintained 160 gardens.\u00a0 While most of these gardens were residential, Monty\u2019s also cared for Gainsborough Horse Farm’s 800-plant rose garden in Versailles, Kentucky and Overbrook Horse Farm\u2019s gardens in Lexington, Kentucky, where D. Wayne Lucas trains horses.<\/p>\n

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Monty Judging Roses<\/p><\/div>\n

Monty Justice was an active member of the American Rose Society and the Louisville Rose Society for over 40 years.\u00a0 He was a rose judge at the Kentucky State Fair and numerous regional and national annual rose shows every year. Monty truly personified one of the principles of a rose society, to educate and interest others in growing and showing roses<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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"Monty's Joy" Rose<\/p><\/div>\n

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His namesake rose, \u201cMonty\u2019s Joy\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the rarest of pantheons, populated with royalty, composers, designers, authors, playwrights, movie stars, saints, Greek goddesses and the like, is that of individuals or fictional characters with rose cultivars named after them<\/a>.\u00a0 Monty is one of the few mere mortals to ever have a rose named after him. In the 1990s Monty was honored when his friend, Whit Wells<\/a>, who has hybridized roses in Tennessee since the early 1970s, named a mini-flora rose, \u201cMonty\u2019s Joy,\u201d<\/a> after Monty.
\n <\/strong><\/p>\n

How did Monty\u2019s Joy Juice come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Monty wanted the gardens that he cared for to be the best, even though only a little time was spent every week or so to care for them.\u00a0 He also wanted to compete favorably with top exhibitors.\u00a0 A good friend and<\/p>\n

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Monty with Prize Ribbons<\/p><\/div>\n

top exhibitor in Tennessee said to him \u201dMonty, you\u2019ll never consistently achieve this until you feed your plant leaves with a liquid fertilizer, as well as the soil.\u201d\u00a0 Monty then set out upon what would turn out to be a 2-year journey testing special nutrients he added to a popular liquid fertilizer.\u00a0 Very good results were achieved during the course of the first summer.\u00a0 However, 75 of 300 rose plants in Monty\u2019s own garden died that winter.\u00a0 Monty determined that the acidic base material of the liquid fertilizer had changed the pH of the soil, making it impossible for the roots to take in the elements needed to protect the roses from the cold of winter.\u00a0 Finding a pH-balanced fertilizer seemed impossible.\u00a0 Finally, an unlikely long-distance call to a man selling fertilizer to farmers in Indiana turned out to be the answer that only God could have made possible; he had a pH-neutral material.<\/p>\n

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Monty with original "Joy Juice" mixer<\/p><\/div>\n

Combining his rose-enhancing nutrients to this new base material provided the desired results.\u00a0 This formulation had very low salts, and with the addition of other proprietary products, it did everything Monty had hoped for.\u00a0 Monty\u2019s rose customers noticed the difference his \u201cJoy Juice\u201d made on their roses and began asking for the product so that they could begin using it on their other plants.\u00a0 Because his son-in-law Dennis Stephens had grown up on a farm in Bourbon County, Kentucky he began experimenting on his father\u2019s tomatoes, sweet corn, beans, other garden crops and tobacco.\u00a0 He, too, noticed incredible results when using Monty\u2019s Joy Juice.<\/p>\n

Monty’s Plant Food Company<\/strong><\/p>\n

Monty’s Plant Food Company began not as a company, but as a passion to find the best quality plant food and a desire that everyone using it would be successful. \u00a0Monty was looking for a balanced pH product that would not add salts to the soil, while still maintaining excellent nutrition for his own roses. The problem was, such a product did not exist in the early 1980’s. Instead of giving up, Monty decided he would just invent one. And, he did.<\/p>\n

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Monty's Plant Food Logo<\/p><\/div>\n

Created in his own home, Monty’s Joy Juice, as his daughters called it, soon became the joy of gardeners across the Kentucky community where he was born and raised. As word spread, demand grew. Monty soon found himself bottling his product in one-gallon recycled milk jugs and delivering them to customers across the mid-South from the trunk of his car.<\/p>\n

The initial days of the company were truly a family business, with his wife and children helping with mixing, packaging and distribution.\u00a0 As reports continued to mount about the success of Monty\u2019s on agricultural crops, Dennis Stephens, along with two other businessmen, convinced Monty that it was time to take the product to an even larger audience.\u00a0 Monty\u2019s Plant Food Co., Inc. was formed in 1997.\u00a0 Shortly after, an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal Newspaper by columnist Byron Crawford told of the remarkable results obtained by users of Monty\u2019s Joy Juice.\u00a0 This article created an immediate demand in the marketplace.\u00a0 Gone are the days of mixing the product on the back garage apron, but that same family atmosphere and commitment to value and excellence remain as the firm foundation upon which the company rests<\/p>\n

Today, marketed as Monty\u2019s Plant Food, the product which began with one man just \u201clooking for something to do\u201d after retirement, is now the basis of an organization with multi-million dollar sales both domestically and internationally. One farmer in his second year as a Monty\u2019s customer says, \u201cI don\u2019t know what it is, I can\u2019t explain it, but it\u2019s doing something. Just look at that field.\u201d He points to an irrigated field of corn, \u201cThey told me I couldn\u2019t raise corn this far north, and now my neighbors are asking me how they can do it.\u201d\u00a0 Many of Monty\u2019s customers say the same thing over and over, \u201cI don\u2019t know how it works, I just know it does work.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

A Media Favorite<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cShy\u201d is not a word that was ever used to describe Monty Justice.\u00a0 Words like ebullient, effusive and enthusiastic were more common. Monty always had a story to tell or a lesson to teach.\u00a0 Retired Courier-Journal columnist Byron Crawford and gardening columnist Diane Heilenman frequently featured Monty in their columns, telling his story, quoting his wit and wisdom and sharing his vast knowledge about rose care and gardening.<\/p>\n

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Monty Signing "Starting Over"<\/p><\/div>\n

Life after 60<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2004, Monty was chosen along with 45 others from across the U.S. as one who was successful in starting a business after 60.\u00a0 Pat Kellerman featured these individuals in her book Starting Over \u2013 Reinventing Life After Sixty.<\/em> Monty\u2019s advice, both from his life and as described in the book, was \u201cto work on whatever you\u2019re doing until you do it very, very well.\u00a0 Then give it away.\u00a0 The secret is in doing for others, not keeping it for yourself.\u00a0 The pleasure is in the giving.\u201d Anyone who knew Monty Justice knows that these are words he lived by.<\/p>\n

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Monty Justice, 1927-2012<\/p><\/div>\n

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In Memoriam \u2014 Montrose\u00a0“Monty”\u00a0D. Justice An outstanding Kentuckian and Rosarian has left his gracious mark on gardens – and farms – all over the world. Monty Justice, who was described as an inventor, tinkerer, evangelist and prankster, passed away surrounded by his family at his home in Louisville, Kentucky on February 6, 2012. Monty had […]<\/p>\n

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