Spring being a time for renewal, how’s this for a new career: for 20 years, Hillary Pennington, one of the new owners of the beloved Abernethy & Spencer Greenhouse & Garden Center in Lincoln, was a funeral director. A graduate of mortuary school, she oversaw everything from embalming to burials. “Gardening is a big change although I did work with flowers!” Hillary said. A year ago, Hillary and her husband Jacob along with green-fingered friends Jim and Autumn Knowles learned that the famous center, in business 100 years, was for sale. They partnered with another friend, Matt Lamberski, to buy it and renovate over the winter. The center, which has its grand opening in March, is enormous with 13 perennial houses, eight greenhouses (one the size of a football field), acres of flower gardens, a garden store, a conservatory gift shop and a coffee truck named Lolas after a cockatoo on site. They also have blue-and-gold macaw parrots, feathers as colorful as the flowers.
