Mission Hills Nursery in San Diego, Calif., is celebrating its centennial this year, San Diego News Room reported. Current Owners Toni and Fausto Palafox coined an appropriate saying for their nursery: “Where the unusual is the usual.”
The Palafoxes strive to keep on top of current gardening trends and interests. Fausto teaches greenhouse plant production at Cuyamaca College. He also is the nursery’s landscape expert, designing and installing gardens and hardscape for customers.
Fausto said he had dreamed of owning a nursery since high school, and he was in the corporate sector of the nursery industry for many years. When the opportunity arose in 1989, he and Toni took a risk and bought Mission Hills.
They are only the third owners. Initially, Kate Sessions started the nursery and sold it in 1922 to Giuseppe Antonicello, a loyal employee she encouraged to move to San Diego from Italy. Antonicello’s son Frank then sold it to the Palafoxes.