By Karen England.
These days, although now retired and happily living at La Costa Glen in Carlsbad, CA, Evelyn Weidner, the SDHS Horticulturist of the year in 2001, is still, 20 years later, actively involved in horticulture. As she puts it, retired or not, she "still has valuable information to share, and loves to give gardening advice wherever she goes."
· She writes a regular column for the Encinitas Advocate newspaper called "Gardening with Evelyn".
· She contributes to the Weidner's Gardens Blog under the byline Evelyn's Corner.
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· Evelyn notes that selling the business in 2013, after 30 years of keeping Weidner's Gardens going along with her daughter Mary, to Kalim Owens (long-time wholesale manager) and Oliver Storm (head grower) was "the best decision" even though the work was always a "full time joy". Kalim and Oliver have taken on the duties of keeping Weidner's open for business and Evelyn’s legacy alive for years to come.
· When she is not recovering from eye surgery and recuperating at home, as she is doing currently, she can be found at Weidner's Gardens where she is the "Garden Center Matriarch". When there, you’ll usually find her outside talking to people.
As Evelyn tells it,
"She was born in the nursery business, her parents were in horticulture professionally.
She was raised in the nursery business.
She was very into the nursery business with her husband Bob and her kids.
and . . .
She's still in the nursery business."
SDHS President Karen England has known Evelyn Weidner and her daughter Mary since she was 11 years old, when the Weidner family were the first to welcome the Richter family to town when they moved to Encinitas in 1971.
Mary was Karen's Sunday school teacher at Solana Beach Presbyterian Church and Evelyn and her husband Bob served with Karen's parents on the Solana Pres board/staff.
The joke over the years was, "if only Karen wasn't working for her cousin at Sunshine Gardens, she could have worked for Weidner's Gardens!"