The Role
You'll own our production nursery: the operation that grows, develops, and readies the trees that go out to thousands of workshop participants, private events attendees, and retail customers each year. You'll manage, run and contribute to the optimization of our growing systems, manage the plant health program, plan production against our regional workshop needs, retail, and private events calendars, and oversee a small team of nursery assistants. If you love plants, like solving logistics puzzles, and want to help make bonsai approachable to a whole lot of new people, you'll fit right in.
What You'll Do
- Grow and develop nursery stock — primarily indoor tropical species — from young material through workshop-ready trees.
- Manage propagation, potting, repotting cycles, soil mixes, pruning, and pinching to develop healthy structure and consistent, workshop-appropriate trees.
- Run the plant health program: watering and fertilization schedules, and integrated pest management for common pests.
- Plan production against demand. Forecast how many trees of which species are needed for the workshop schedule and online store, and keep the pipeline full without overgrowing.
- Receive, inspect, and acclimate sourced material where in-house production doesn't cover demand, and maintain relationships with outside growers and suppliers.
- Coordinate packing and shipping so tree shipments arrive to our regional directors’ and customers' doors healthy and intact.
- Hold the quality bar that backs our tree replacement guarantee and Treeiage care promise.
- Hire, train, and lead nursery assistants and seasonal help; build the routines and documentation that keep the operation running.
- Own the numbers: production yield, plant mortality, on-time fulfillment, and cost per tree, and report on them.
What You'll Bring
- Hands-on horticulture or nursery production experience (greenhouse, propagation, or container growing).
- Strong working knowledge of plant health, soils, watering, and pest/disease management.
- Experience planning production or inventory against demand.
- People-leadership experience, or a clear readiness to manage a small team.
- Organized, systems-minded, and comfortable building process from scratch.
- Able to do physical work: lifting, bending, standing, and moving stock throughout the day.
Nice to Have
- Bonsai experience or training (if you've got the horticulture foundation and want to learn bonsai technique, we'll teach you).
- Experience shipping live plants.
Why Bonsai Bar
You'd be joining a team that genuinely cares about doing this well — making bonsai something anyone can pick up, not something kept behind glass. You'll have real ownership over how the nursery is built and run. Send a resume and cover letter to: [email protected]
Pay: $20.00 - $28.00 per hour
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
