G&S Nursery Winter 2019 Newsletter

INSIDER
WINTER 2019
Home DNA
test kits:
...what
will they
reveal?
WHAT’S INSIDE | THIS ISSUE
WATER BAGEL WATER
G&S MONDAY VIDEOS
CAMELLIAS

Brooklyn Water Bagels
bring their own H 2O
New York bagels. Some people insist
they are distinctly better in NYC
than any other place in the world.
The secret, according to Steven
Fassburg, is in the composition of
the water that supplies the region.
When you consider the role water
plays in the creation of a bagel—not
only added to flour to create the
dough, but also thrown in boiling
UPCOMING SHOWS
DATE SHOW VENUE
JAN
9-11 MANTS
JAN
30-
FEB 1
JAN
30-
FEB 1
FEB
7-8
GULF STATES ​
HORTICUL-
TURAL EXPO
SC GREEN
JAX
LANDSCAPE
SHOW
BALTIMORE
CONVENTION
CENTER
BALTIMORE
MD
MOBILE
CONVENTION
CENTER
MOBILE AL
COLUMBIA
METROPOLITAN
CONVENTION
CENTER
COLUMBIA SC
JACKSONVILLE
FL
water when it is cooked—certainly
plausible that the water would
influence the flavor and texture of
a bagel for better or worse.
This is the premise behind Fassburg’s
chain of restaurants called
the Original Brooklyn Water Bagels.
The restaurant may be located
in Florida, California or Massachusetts,
but each location has an
elaborate water filtration system
on prominent display. This impressive
assembly transforms the local
water chemistry into a blend of
minerals and trace elements to
replicate the magic formula allegedly
responsible for making a New
York bagel the world’s finest.
Whether the water thesis is correct
or not, there’s no denying that the
waterworks on display in every
store presents a bold statement
that is easy to understand and
differentiates this bagel restaurant
from all the competition.
LOOKING FOR OLD MAN
WINTER TO SHOW UP
I’ve lived in Lake City all my life.
Winter to me is when the grass
turns brown. Our nurserymen put
down their clippers and await orders
to spread out frost cloth in the
afternoon and fold it up again the
next morning.
It has snowed here before, but it
only happens about once every 20
years.
Last year was a very mild winter.
We have an event around here
called Iche Nippy Dip Day that
takes place on the first Saturday
of each year. People are invited to
come down to our local springs
and bathe in the Ichetucknee. The
water temperature is a consistant
72° all year round. It was sunny
and in the 50s when they held the
event last year, so it wasn’t such a
feat of valor as it is some years.
What will the weather hold for us
this winter? Will it be freezing cold
for the Iche Nippy Dippers or will
it be mild again? Will we skate
through the season with little to do
to keep our plants in top condition,
or will we have to match wits with
an unrelenting freeze? Stay tuned,
and we’ll all find out!
Be sure to take a look at our show
schedule on the opposite page.
We’re going to be doing a lot of
exhibiting in the next few months,
and it’s always a tremendous
opportunity to get together with
people we speak with often but
seldom see in person. I hope we
can get to see you at one of these
events!
Thank you for the chance to serve
you!
Zack Kirsch
General Manager
386 754-0161
zack@gsnursery.com
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3

4
Letting the “Gene-ie” Out of the Bottle
We live in a world fraught with equal
parts wonder and danger. From prehistoric
days when man first learned
to build a fire to modern times when
scientists unlocked the secret of
nuclear fission, our ingenuity often
brings great benefits paired with the
seeds of our own destruction.
This is certainly the case the deeper
we come to understand our own
DNA. As our science has evolved,
the knowledge of this genetic
fingerprint has revolutionized our
criminal investigation process,
solved paternity disputes, united
children with their birth mothers, and
greatly aided the field of medicine.
This same technology taken to one
extreme even raises serious ethical
questions about the authoritarian
use of information to decide the fate
of people who possess so-called
“undesirable” markers in their genes.
But before this piece becomes too
heavy for a publication whose purpose
is keep you in touch with our
wonderful nursery, let’s talk about
the amazing ways DNA testing has
become a part of our everyday lives!
Home DNA test kits have become
so affordable that they became a
popular Christmas gift in 2018. For
as little as $75, folks are now able
to spit in a tube and send it off for
evaluation. Four to six weeks later,
the results come in.
What will your results
include?
• A detailed
breakdown of
your genetic
heritage
• Opportunity to
connect with
DNA relatives
• In some cases,
health screening
Different vendors seem to cater to
different agendas. 23andme is decidedly
more concerned with what your
DNA may reveal about your health
risks, and AncestryDNA provides a
more detailed analysis of where you
come from. Since Ancestry has long
existed as a website to help people
find out about their family tree, they
have a pre-existing database to
enrich their genetic testing by linking
the information of subscribers that
the genetic testing may reveal are
related to you.
A small percentage of test takers
are completely unprepared for what
the results reveal. Take the story
of Catherine St Clair, from a recent
Bloomberg article:
St Clair, 57, is her family’s
resident genealogist and
had sent her saliva to Ancestry
for testing. So when her brother
Mike showed up as a “first
cousin or close relative,” she assumed
it must be a glitch. Even
stranger: The test showed that
someone she had never heard of
was a much closer genetic match
than Mike.
The import of the story was that Catherine
discovered that she and Mike did
not share the same father. Moreover,
she was able to contact the stranger
who shared her genetics through a
cooperative arrangement on the website
to find that her biological father,
now deceased, had actually been her
mother’s boss in 1960. This boss had
two daughters from his own marriage:
one of which was this genetic match
that Catherine now realized was her
half-sister. She would meet her other
half sister through this connection.
Such occurances add a special
dimension to the job of customer
service at these testing companies.
When the results don’t make sense,
the first reaction the customer has is
to pick up the phone and contact the
company to discuss what appears to
be an error.
“How most of those conversations
start is people come to us to verify
the accuracy,” says a company rep
in the Bloomberg article. “Somebody
has known something their whole life
and then this company is telling them
something different.”
Sources: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-12-19/surprise-dna-results-are-turningcustomer-service-reps-into-therapists
Ancestry.com
23andme.com
5

Featured
Plant
There are two principal species
of camellia are sasanqua and japonica.
The differences between
the two are that the sasanqua:
• blooms earlier
• has smaller, less dense leaves
• grows faster
• are more sun-tolerant
• are slightly less cold hardy
Camellias thrive in southern
climate zones and do best in
partial shade. Once established,
they will produce a profusion of
blooms beginning in the fall and
providing much-needed color
as other plants in your garden
retire for the winter. The blooms
vary from white to dark pink,
but the stamens are consistently
golden yellow. The blooms
are fragrant and short-lived.
The first sasanqua camellia was
introduced to the western world
in 1820 when Captain Richard
Rawes presented a specimen
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386 754-0161
SASANQUA CAMELLIA
Camellia Sasanqua
7 gal: $38.50!
Prices good through the end of January
2019
to Thomas Carey Palmer in England, having
brought the plant from Japan where it
was first cultivated. In Japan, the leaves
are used to make tea, and the seeds are
used to make tea seed oil, which is used for
lighting, lubrication, cooking, and cosmetic
purposes.
“A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man
with two watches is never sure.”
— Segal’s Law
NEW AND NOTEWORTHY
Natalie Loomis
G&S welcomes our newest staffer to
our Jacksonville offices. Natalie Loomis
has come to work for us in our accounts
G&S Founder Curry Launches Video Series
Gabriel Curry is nothing if not goal-oriented.
He is the “G” of G&S nursery, a business
he built from a $300 investment in
the 1990s when he was a newly-married
teenager.
When the nursery grew from part-time
occupation to full-time business, he put a
manager in charge while he pursued a career
as a salesman for an industrial supply
company in Lake City.
As he forged his reputation in the industrial
supply industry, he continued to
make time to supervise the growth of the
nursery.
He would eventually become the owner
of the supply company. He assembled a
team of talented people who worked with
him to grow the company until it attracted
the attention of one of the world’s leading
industrial supply companies, and Gabriel
and his partners accepted the offer to be
bought out.
Now that Gabriel has fulfilled his responsibilities
with HUB Industrial Supply, he
has been transitioning from behind-thescenes
supervisor to a more prominent
role at G&S. As a service to G&S clients,
he has begun to release a weekly video
on topics he believes to be of interest to
fellow business managers. “I want to challenge
business people to keep optimizing
their businesses,” Gabe says. “We as
receivable department as A/R Credit
Manager.
Natalie has lived in Florida since 1984,
mostly in the south. She enjoys yoga,
the beach, spending time traveling
and exploring new restaurants, and
loves to read books. Sometimes it’s
the sweetest, most soft-spoken credit
managers who best succeed in collecting
invoices that have somehow fallen
through the cracks...
business managers have so much opportunity
to make a positive impact on
the lives of the people closest to us.”
The videos typically run between 2 and
3 minutes and deal with issues businesses
of all types must address to
distinguish themselves as leaders in
their field of work.
The videos are available
on the G&S
Nursery YouTube
channel. If you would
like to be notified
when a new video becomes
available, you
can get on our mailing
list by emailing sales@
gsnursery.com.
www.gsnursery.com
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1550 SW Bedenbaugh Ln.
Lake City FL 32025
RIDDLE OF THE MONTH
In 1901, which port city of Florida laid
claim to the state’s largest population? The
population of this city was 20,000 at the
time.
A) Jacksonville
B) Tampa
C) Key West
D) Miami
ANSWER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN:
HARRY & DAVID
ROYAL RIVIERA
PEARS
LAST ISSUE RIDDLE:
The car’s odometer reads 32923, which
is a palindromic number (reads the same
backwards as forwards). What are the
minimum number of miles needed to
travel to form another palindrome?
ANSWER: In another 110 miles, the
odometer will read 33033, which is the
next possible palindrome.
LAST ISSUE’S WINNERS
Dolores Mews
Tricia Hood
Katie Brugh
Send answers to newsletter@gsnursery.com before January 31, 2019. All
correct answers will be entered into a drawing to win a prize!