This summer we filed the final federal tax returns for Gilson Gardens, Inc.   I guess we’re finally done!

But we still maintain contacts with our local nursery industry!

In March, 2020, before the world shut down, Mark presented a Powerpoint to the Madison Garden Club on local nursery history, a new take on local nursery history that begins with the glacial lakes which gave rise to the ridges of Eastern Lake County.

Mark still sends occasional posts to Gardenopolis-Cleveland (see Mark’s Corner).

Mark and Kris invited Tom deHaas, local Extension Educator, over for coffee a couple times.  NGLCO recently presented to the membership the constitution changes that Tom’s group wrote up a year ago.

Kris returned to Ballantines Florist part-time in August and this fall she is helping out Elaine at Arcola Creek Nursery with cutting and packing out winterberry.

As a part-time local census enumerator in August and September, Mark sought to encourage census participation among nursery workers in Lake County, traditionally an undercounted group.

During October Mark and Kris visited with Tim Otto and his wife Joanne near Dayton.  Tim’s father was local nurseryman Paul Otto.  Later on that trip Kris and Mark visited with Carla Lee ‘Stell’ at a rustic cabin in Northern Georgia.  Carla worked at Warner Nursery and Sunleaf nursery before moving to New York.  Additionally, she was the NGLCO President in 2006, just prior to Mark’s term.  Back in January, 2020, Mark and Kris visited with Tom Dugan and his family near Fort Myers Florida (from Dugan Nursery fame!) and with nursery icons Bob and Carol Lyons.

David Gilson finally ‘retired’ from The Holden Arboretum (at age 75!) but continues to volunteer in the greenhouses two days a week!

Brian Gilson owns a home on Center Street, Perry, that is surrounded by beds of rare perennials and shrubs!

Kathleen ‘Joy’ Gilson, former office manager at the nursery, lives in the home on Hale Road, Perry, (it was a field belonging to Storrs & Harrison Nursery back around 1920!) where the surviving Gilson clan grew up.

The nursery roots run deep!

Mark and Kris continue to live on Evergreen Road in North Perry and keep in close touch with their son Michael, a reseach scientist at UCSF in San Francisco, and son Matthew, a Senior Engineer in the automotive industry north of Detroit.  Matthew is married to Eva, another automotive engineer!, and they have a young daughter (first grandchild!), Catalina.