Gift Natural Holiday Wreaths this Season - Mickman Brothers, a Davey company

Dennis Zerwas Jr., Commercial Landscape Services (CLS) advertising and promotions manager from Mickman Brothers, a Davey company, shares the inside scoop on the company's holiday wreath-making process and how you can buy your own! 
 
In this episode we cover:  

• How did Mickman's Brothers begin making wreaths? (:43)
• Is right now a busy time for wreath-making? (1:57)
• How big are the wreaths? (3:55)
• What are some characteristics of each wreath? (5:06)
• What is Dennis' favorite wreath? (6:50) 
• How are the wreaths made? (7:27)
• How long do wreaths last? (9:07)
• Mickman holiday centerpieces and living trees (11:21)
• What is the ordering process like? (14:22) (17:27)
• How many wreaths are Mickman Brothers producing in a season? (15:52)
• How does Dennis feel about spreading holiday cheer? (16:42)

To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.

To purchase Mickman wreaths, centerpieces, living trees and more, visit HolidayWreathShop.com. 

For more information on corporate gifting, visit the Mickman Brother's Corporate Gifting Program website.

Connect with Davey Tree on social media:
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Facebook: @DaveyTree
Instagram: @daveytree
YouTube: The Davey Tree Expert Company
LinkedIn: The Davey Tree Expert Company 

Connect with Doug Oster at www.dougoster.com. 

Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!

Transcript

Doug: Welcome to the Davy Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more, because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer. I'm joined this week by Dennis Zerwas, Jr. He's the advertising promotions manager for Mickman Brothers, which is a Davy company in the northern metro area of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Dennis, I am working at the corporate office at Davy today, and I got to see these wreaths, because they have them all over here. Welcome to the show, and tell me a little bit about how this all began with the wreaths.

Dennis Zerwas: Thanks for having me, Doug. The wreath story goes way back, all the way back to the turn of the century, 1908, is when John and Chris Mickman, the founders of Mickman Brothers, that's where their grandmother learned how to make wreaths as a little girl in Norway. As the story goes, she had an idea to make wreaths during the Great Depression, living in St. Paul, to help raise money for their young family. John and Chris's father, John Sr., was a boy at that time and grabbed the wreath from their own front door and sold it to somebody on Summit Avenue. His mother was like, "Could you do that again?" Sure enough, a wreath industry was born from that moment in the Great Depression. John and Chris's grandmother taught them how to make wreaths when they were young boys, and that's where it started, and that's where we are now, and the legacy continues 50 years later. Next year will be our 50-year anniversary of Mickman Brothers.

Doug: I know that you had to record from home because it is so busy making wreaths that it would just-- No way, it was just too loud.

Dennis: It is a very exciting time of year because we put a lot of work into it. It's weird to be talking and thinking wreaths in May and June but to then have this time of year come around, and all of our efforts are being seen now, and we've got about 200 employees making hundreds of wreaths a day if not thousands. We've been making them since early October, believe it or not. When I tell people that, and they are like, "Wow, that's early," think about this. When we're growing our 60,000, 70,000 annuals in our back greenhouses, we have people who are tying actual physical jingle bells that jingle to pine cones as people are shopping for their Mother's Day baskets in our greenhouses.

They'll be looking back and be like, "What are those folks doing?" I'm like, "Those are our artisans. They're already working on next year's wreaths," and they shake their head as they're holding two beautiful hanging baskets. As the season continues, we've got people that are tying bows. All the bows are hand-tied, and they're doing that all through June, July, and August. It's really interesting to see. I'm in it all the time. I get chastised by the wife a lot for whistling Christmas songs throughout the year, and I try to explain to her what my job is and how I'm just surrounded by Christmas magic all year round, but I have until November 1st before I can start doing that whistling in the house. I'm excited for that. It's coming up real soon.

Doug: It's important to have rules.

Dennis: That's exactly right.

Doug: Where does the plant material come from to make the wreaths?

Dennis: Sure. We will source our evergreens will come from the northern regions of Minnesota here, and then we'll also get some of our other fir material from out on the West Coast in Oregon and Washington.

Doug: How big are the wreaths that we're talking about here?

Dennis: Yes. Our biggest wreath, the best seller, and the one that is the most popular size is our 25-inch wreath. If you think about it, reverse engineering, think about where those wreaths go, and they're typically on a front door. You think about the average width of a front door. That 25-inch wreath is the sweet spot as far as looking right for scale and not being too big or too small on a front door. Then we make them all the way up to 60 inches.

Doug: There's different versions?

Dennis: Different versions. We call them different styles. Some would almost say makes and models if you were talking about vehicles. Four different styles that are tried and true. Some places may offer more styles, but we really focus on these best sellers, the ones that really do well and really resonate with our clients. They come back for them every year, and everybody's got their favorites, and sometimes people will take a chance and they'll try something new, and sometimes that becomes their new favorite. No, it's the tried and true varieties that we stick to.

Doug: Let's hear about them, and then I'm going to ask you, you're going to think about it, what your favorite is if you have one.

Dennis: Sure. The one that's been around the longest is the classic wreath, and that's the one that's got the bright red bow and then the pine cones, but you notice some of the pine cones on our wreaths are coated in white, and those are actually hand-painted every summer. It seems like they pick the hottest day of the year to do it, but, again, it's very interesting to see people painting and glittering pine cones by hand in the middle of summer.

The next one that came around was the Victorian wreath, and that one's got the more burgundy bow and the brown pine cones with the bells. Then the Cranberry Splash was the next one that's got a big velvet bow, and, finally, the Wintergreen is our newest wreath. Interestingly enough, that one has almost like cilantro. You know how cilantro goes where half the people like it and half the people think it tastes like soap? I think Wintergreen is like that, but it's interesting how we get many of our dedicated purchasers and people who buy these as gifts in the South.

It's almost like a lime, not really a lime, more of a mint green kind of a bow. It's very interesting because we're up here in the North, at least, we think red and green for Christmas colors. We're finding a big surge and push and interest in some nontraditional Christmas colors, and the Wintergreen was our first reach out into that. It's been a while now. It's probably been over 8, 10 years before I was with the company. It's gaining popularity. Those are the four main wreaths that we have, and we also do centerpieces and living trees, which we can touch on as well.

Doug: Which one is your favorite, can you say?

Dennis: I can absolutely say just because I know what I like, and it's the Cranberry Splash. The Cranberry Splash wreath to me, is what it looks like and what you get with it, and then the bow is probably what sells it for me. The Cranberry Splash is definitely my favorite. You ask everybody in the office, and you'll probably get an even spray of all the different wreath varieties and being people's favorites.

Doug: I've fallen for the classic. I really love the classic, and I love painting those pinecones. We've touched on it a little bit, but let's talk a little bit about how the wreaths are physically made. As you said, 200 people, and is it like for the pinecone, is it one day where everyone gets together and paints pinecones, or is it a long period?

Dennis: For the pinecone part, that's during the summer and same thing with the bows and the tying the bells on the pinecones. That's all done throughout the summer. Now we've got perishable materials. It's a lot like food, and I've been a photographer for 30 years, and there's a reason why I never got into food photography because it's hot one minute, and it's cold and nasty looking the next minute. Think of that when you're dealing with any perishable items, and especially wreaths. Think of cut flowers. That's probably the most similar thing you can relate to a wreath is cut flowers, where we've got bows on one end, and they're coming in, and you've got just a short matter of time to get them processed, whether they go to the wreath area, the garland-making area, making sprays, and then those are physically made.

They bring over to the decorators, and then from the decorators, they go in the box, up the conveyor belt, immediately into freezer, fridge trucks, and then they go up to our-- We have a facility about 10 miles north of us. It's a gigantic freezer warehouse, and that's how we can start to make wreaths early October, and then for shipping here at November 11th is when we start shipping. That changes every year depending on the calendar and Thanksgiving, but usually, it's that first or second week in November.

Doug: When we get our wreath, how long should it last? I'm sure it depends on what weather you're shipping it to, but in general, about how long should our wreath last?

Dennis: Yes, that's a great question, and it all depends, too, on the voyage that it took to go from our facilities here in the Twin Cities to wherever you are in the lower 48 states. The climate of where they're going is another factor, too. Obviously, wreaths and those kinds of things are going to last longer up here in the north or, say, in Maine versus down in Florida or Texas. We do have different ways of extending that period of time, and one of those is a product we call Greenzit, which is a green dye that we will put on some of the wreaths that we know are going into warmer climates. It's an absolute must because otherwise, it's just a matter of what it is.

A lot like owning a dog, you're always going to have hair everywhere, so when you open up our box of wreaths, there's always going to be needle loss, nothing to worry about. A quick shake of that, and give it a nice fluff of bow, because you can imagine if you shipped you or myself in a box across country, we would need a little time to put ourselves together. You want to straighten the- fluff the bow up a little bit, straighten the pine cones, give it a nice little shake, and hang it up.

If we're into the right conditions, cool conditions, it'll last longer. Another one tip and these are all included on our care instructions, on the tag that's on the wreath, as well as the box that it comes in, you can spray the back of the wreath, misting it with water, and that will help too. Then if you're able to put it into a location that is not getting baked by sun, sometimes you may have to put it on a side door versus your front door if your front door just gets hit by the blazing, westerly sun. All those little tips will help it last longer. The main thing that we really are proud of is that moment when you open up that box and you smell that Northwoods scent and you've got this big luscious wreath in front of you that's ready to go.

It's quite an impressive gift, especially in today where you just don't see a lot of handcrafted things being shipped directly to people like that. It's very meaningful, Doug.

Doug: Then there's the live tree and also a tabletop.

Dennis: Yes, so we've got the-- The centerpiece is a sugarberry centerpiece is our-- These are two options that are great for people who can't hang something on their front door, say if they're in a more of a communal living situation or apartment. We've got two options. The centerpiece, which is gorgeous. That's in floral form. You treat that almost like you would cut flowers, water it every couple of days, dump out the excess water. That's got a LED candle in the middle. Then also including an LED light set if you want to add a little more twinkle to it. The really great feature, the gift that I thought was perfect now that we're part of a Davy Tree Company is the living tree, which is a 22-inch roughly dwarf Alberta spruce, and it comes in a decorative winter pot and it's got garland and now this year it's got a light up star and twinkle lights.

It's a really neat different thing and it's great for, like I said, people who just want to do a little decorating in the house say they can't do a full-size tree, it's only a couple of feet tall. It's perfect for that corner of the house. One thing that we found is that a lot of people with young children will buy it or receive it as a gift because it gives, it's an activity to decorate it, put it all together. There's just something too about being a kid and having your own little Christmas tree in your room that's magical.

Doug: Now, if I was so inclined and the climate was right, do you think I could keep that tree and eventually plant it outside?

Dennis: You absolutely could. Now, we don't guarantee it because it's sold as a decoration. We've got photos from some of our longer running clients who their clients, who the people they gift these items to, they will send them pictures of the trees growing. It's almost like a signal reception on your phone because of the different years. You've got one that's taller, a little shorter, a little shorter, a little shorter. They say, "Hey, here's the last, four years of Christmas trees you've given to me as a gift. Thank you." They are hardy and depending on where you live too, it can be a little more challenging. For instance, if you live in an area where the ground never freezes, heck, the holidays are over, go out, get it in the ground.

Up here in the north, where we may not see our soil thaw until mid-April, late April, what we do is you just, once the holidays are over, you give it a good drink of water and then go out and bury it in a snowbank on the north side of something so that it stays cold, stays frozen. In the spring, once you see it again and go, "Oh my gosh, what is this thing?" You remind yourself of what you did three months earlier. Yes, we've had many reports of those trees coming back. It's a neat, renewable, sustainable way of doing some gifting with evergreen items that is more permanent and makes a lasting difference.

Doug: I have an unheated greenhouse, so that's where I'm putting mine.

Dennis: Perfect.

Doug: I'm going to put it in there for the winter. Then in the spring, it's going into the ground.

Dennis: That's a perfect plan.

Doug: Yes. Let's talk a little bit about the ordering process and how people can actually get these wreaths. I looked on your website. This is a big deal for companies will buy a bunch of wreaths and give them to people.

Dennis: Absolutely. That's one of my roles at Mickman Brothers is I'm the corporate holiday gift manager. We've got companies all over the country and they'll submit their order forms. These could be their best clients, their top 10 clients, their employees that make things work every day. The people that give them the most referrals, their vendors, the vendors that are supplying the actual goods that they use to make their product. They all are gifted, whatever they want to pick, they can mix and match. The items are direct shipped right to their doors via FedEx in our patent packaging. It's very cheerful-looking packaging, red and white. It doesn't just look like a brown box. You can tell there's some magic inside.

Yes, so we've got, anywhere from companies. That'll do 10 gifts up to some of our larger clients are over eight, 9,000. It's a neat, something different, something different than just a bag of mass-produced food and, or nuts or candy, the stuff that's not really good for you the doctor says, but it's a neat and different way. It's definitely memorable. When someone gives you a wreath or a centerpiece or a living tree, it's different. It's memorable. It means more.

Doug: How many wreaths are you producing in a season?

Dennis: Wreaths in a season. It usually is somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 items, evergreen gifts a year. That's why I'm recording this from home today because it is a buzz of activity this time of year.

Doug: Is it basically a year-round activity?

Dennis: It is, but it really ramps up. It's like your gas pedal in the car. You have times to coast. Then when it gets into this October frame, you're pedal to the metal. Then we'll do four intense weeks of shipping this year. Thanks for the late Thanksgiving but it'll be four intense weeks of shipping between, November 11th and December 6th. Next thing you know, the dust settles, and start planning for next year.

Doug: Tell me how it feels to be making so many people happy during the holidays.

Dennis: It's amazing. Like I said, I've been a photographer for 30 years. My whole career has been making people smile and laugh and have a good time. This was just a natural fit for my marketing efforts to go into something like this because especially these days, it's always good to make people-- It feels so good to make people happy. That's one thing for-- How does it feel to me to make them happy, but just to see them, that's where I get the enjoyment is to produce a product like that, where it brings a smile to their face, especially during these times.

Doug: What's the best way for people to get a wreath and to contact you guys?

Dennis: The absolute best way for people to get a wreath would be through our website, holidaywreathshop.com. That is a great place where you can look at everything we discussed and a little bit more because we also offer Garland and sprays on there, but that's a great way to just enter in the people you want to gift to there's a spot to put in a personalized holiday message and the items are shipped directly from us. Right from the manufacturer, right to wherever they live in the country. That's one way to do it.

Doug: All right, Dennis, thanks so much. Great information. Now you've got to go back to work.

Dennis: I will.

Doug: You can't say that you were all day on a podcast. You've got to get back to work.

Dennis: I know. I'm looking forward to it. I love it. Every day.

Doug: Thanks again, Dennis.

Dennis: Thanks, Doug.

Doug: Wasn't that interesting? These wreaths in the office are really beautiful. You can certainly see the craftsmanship in each one, but I've got to go with the live tree. That will be fun to try. Tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast from the Davy Tree Expert Company. I'm your host, Doug Oster and do me a big favor, subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss an episode. If you've got an idea for a show, maybe a comment, there's two ways to reach us. Send us an email to podcasts@davy.com. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S at D-A-V-E-Y.com. You can click on the link at the end of our show notes to text a fan mail message. Your ideas might be on a future podcast, and we would love to hear from you.

As always, we'd like to remind you on the Talking Trees podcast trees are the answer.

[00:19:14] [END OF AUDIO]