Lawn and garden business plants seeds for succession

Company: When David and Elizabeth Taylor purchased their original Venice garden center in 2003, the building was essentially a rundown shed. The roof leaked, the parking lot wasn’t paved, and there was no air conditioning. The couple put in $800 worth of light bulbs the first day they owned the place. 

MRT Lawn and Garden Center has since grown from its humble beginnings to a pair of locations, one in south Sarasota County and one in Port Charlotte, which opened last year. The company is now one of the largest plant nurseries in Southwest Florida, serving customers looking for gardening, landscaping and decorating products and services. In 2019 MRT partnered with ACE Hardware, in which the Taylors operate independently, or what Ace calls a co-op, to offer a more complete shopping experience at both retail locations by offering full outdoor living, hardware, paint, electrical and plumbing departments.