Who is Suzy Sparkleberry, anyway?
/In short, she is me as a blonde. Suzy is a character created as a mascot for a shop I owned a while back, the main character in short stories written to market events and seasons in my retail world.
Twenty years ago, I was a partner in ownership of a small garden center in central Massachusetts. The acreage was conflicted with poor drainage, which is optimum growing condition for very few things, one of which happens to be the native winterberry. I grew the variety, Ilex verticillata Sparkleberry, a deciduous shrub yielding abundant medium sized red berries late in the season – a delicacy for birds when the temperature begins to drop. After the turn of this century, I opened a second retail space two miles from the garden center, which became an artisan shop for the locals to sell their makings. Before its doors opened, a name was needed. I tossed around any number of plants that I grew at the garden center to incorporate in my brand, and settled on “Sparkleberrys”, with the encouragement of my daughter. Sparkleberrys became a magical shopping arena, and Suzy became the poster girl.
As time went on, I went through a short period of loss, and the little store was one of them. However, Suzy lived on in a side business I dabbled in with cut flowers. I called it Suzy’s Gardens; and it remains to this day. I still grow and cut flowers, work as a gardener, and provide seasonal upkeep in containers and holiday decoration for my valuable clientele. As long as I continue to play in the dirt, Suzy will live on.