Mary was a bright smiling face of down home goodness. She had a twinkle in her baby blues and gently bent hands that only come from using them, working them in the dirt. She was kind and funny, and with a twang in her voice, made us laugh, cry, and listen to her wisdom about gardening and life. Mary spent much of her time here working in the bedding area, stocking plants, keeping everything tidy and well tended. She loved helping people with gardening and planting flowers. She would try the new varieties and report back their success or failures.
One Christmas season, she had found out that Kim, a long-time employee had not been back to see her family in California for several years. So Mary set out collecting money from everyone who could help and surprised Kim with tickets to California. That was one joyful day for all of us! That was Mary; she had a heart of gold. She loved her husband, family, grandkids, Arabian horses and all their pets.
Mary worked with us from February 2002 till June 2008 when she and her husband Skip sold their place in Sinton to be closer to family in the Houston area. Little did she know that she would be diagnosed with lung cancer shortly thereafter. Mary thought this move was a blessing as she was able to get the best of care from the doctors at M.D. Anderson. Early on her doctor told her that surviving cancer is 1 part medicine and 3 parts faith. She had great faith and love of God and her family. It was evident even as all treatments were exhausted, she still had that smile and twinkle in her eye. It was the peace that surpassed all understanding.
Last fall Mary called wanting to come down for a visit. She had a bunch of gardening books she thought we could use. It was a Bunch! Boxes of them! Several of us went to lunch that day and spent time catching up, remembering when, laughing and crying. She knew and we knew it would be our last time together. July 10, 2016 Mary went to be with her Lord and Savior in Heaven.
There are people who never leave you. Even in death they live on in our memories, in the stories we share, and in our hearts. Mary’s not gone, just tending another garden now. Thank you, Mary, for spending time in ours.
-Debbie
Hope Pettibon, the 2016 Texas Honey Queen, will speak with local gardeners on Friday, August 5, 2016 at 4 PM at Gill Nursery 2810 Airline Rd. She will talk about best practices to help support local honeybee populations and steps ordinary gardeners can take to benefit directly from honeybees. Local gardeners are encouraged to bring questions about how to maximize the use of honeybees in our area and improve the performance of their own garden.
We are forever grateful for your support and kindness to our Alameda staff over the past twenty nine and one half years. We are thankful for the kind words shared by you all, whenever we run into you, all over town. Always smiling and telling a good story about something someone did to help you in our store. We are thankful for our staff, many who joined our team not knowing a whole lot about plants but wanting to learn and always, good people. We are thankful to Garnett Brooks and his Texas Star staff for providing us with a great location and support over the years as our landlord. We are thankful to Dollie and Tom Hunt for being such amazing neighbors, helping us to be as successful as we were. 
And we are thankful for our vendors who many times would drop smaller than minimum orders off at Alameda to help get you the plants you needed. We are thankful for all the donuts you brought our staff, including Billie Johnson who made a run to Gates for us every Saturday morning for years. We are thankful for the fudge and cookies during the holidays, the many cakes from Martha Lewis and Raymond & Curtis from Simply Elegant and the ice cream from Armi Pigott in the summer when our crew was burning up!
How did the Alameda store happen in the first place? Back in 1981, we purchased our land out on Airline Road. It was the size we believed we needed for a full service garden center and space for our landscape construction department. It took a loan from both our parents to put the deal together. It was the closest land to town we could afford, but still way out, with horses and roosters and goats all around us. In the fall of 1986, we got this wild and crazy idea to open a second location in the center of town, just for a spring season. DeAnna (aka “That Tall Lady”) was working at our Airline store. 
We felt she would be the perfect person to run our spring garden shop for a few months. Well, we all know how that turned out. Twenty nine and one half years later, DeAnna Baumgartner, along with Gary Cring, who came on just a year after it opened, have been there ever since, helping you, along with many other talented nursery staff over the years, with your gardens and doing the best they could to take care of you.
-Marta
