‘Magnolia’ grows in Autryville

AUTRYVILLE — With a strong desire to build Autryville back up and bring new visitors into their hometown, Debra Baxley and her partner Amy Brewer held a grand opening earlier this month for their business Wild Magnolia Florist.

“We did a soft opening a few weeks ago just for the town, it was very receptive and everyone’s been so good to us,” Baxley said. “We’ve both been in the florist industry for about 18 years each and we’ve worked with some good people and florist.”

“Being that we’re both from Autryville and we are trying to build our town back, I thought it would be wonderful for us to come home and do something nice for our community,” she added. “Being on the (Autryville town) board, this was very important to me.”

Wild Magnolia Florist is located at 103 Williams St. in Autryville.

“We are a full florist; we have silks, we have fresh, we have funeral, we have weddings, we ship, pick up and we deliver,” Baxley said. “We work six days a week, Monday through Saturday. We are just very excited to work with people in and around our community.”

When asked what it means to be opening up the florist as two Autryville natives, Baxley and Brewer shared their thoughts.

“Ooh it is a blessing, to finally, after so many years, be able to do something for ourselves and our community,” Brewer said ecstatically. “We’ve worked for several people over the years and helped build those businesses. So, we said that it was time to do something for ourselves and the community.”

“We are truly grateful and I know it’s a lot of iffy-ness, but we are blessed,” Baxley said. “We do give God all the glory, that we are in good enough health and financially able to do this right now. Every morning I wake up, I am just so excited to be able to come here. We have this feeling because we know we are doing something for ourselves, community and family.”

When talking about what it’s been like for the business as the grand opening grew closer, Baxley offered a metaphor.

“You know, a friend of mine described it as centipede,” she said. “When you plant it, it’ll start a little slow but once it gets going, it just runs and runs,” she said. “Now we are just waiting for the grass to get full and we will work hard enough for it too. Again, we’ve just been blessed and have even had something happening here every day for the past two weeks leading up to the grand opening. So, word of mouth has been really good for us.”

Baxley also highlighted that opening the florist wasn’t just about bringing business to Autryville, but about making a difference.

“We’ve only got two signs in our shop and one says ‘positive vibes only’ and the other ‘be the change,’” she stated. “We do want to be the change for our community and I think that’s a good slogan, because we definitely want to be a part of the change for the better of this community and our children.”

As for how this duo of veteran florists came together to start Wild Magnolia, they shed light on that as well.

“We actually worked together at another florist and Amy is my brother’s girlfriend,” Baxley said. “When I was thinking about opening a shop I said to myself ‘gosh, I‘m going to need someone to be with me.’ So, I asked Amy and she said she’d love to.”

“We are very family oriented, so if the family’s involved we help one another,” Baxley said.

“It also just so happened that life at that point for both of us kind of lined up to be able to do this together,” Brewer added. “You know sometimes the cards don’t lay out right, so I think God had a hand in this and he brought us to a point where we could do this.”

Baxley also gave thanks to her mom, who was credited as being one of the main reasons the shop came into existence.

“We have a few silent partners, but I also mostly want to thank my mom because she is the reason we are able to do this,” she continued. “She is our financial backer, she absolutely loves the community she lives in and will try to give back so much.”

Baxley shared one final tidbit about the new shop — where the name “Wild Magnolia Florist” originated.

“Some people may or may not think this is a cute story, but I’ll tell it anyway,” Baxley said. “I have a really good friend of mine that I always call Magnolia so I knew that I had to have magnolia in the name somewhere. So when I was talking with my mom about the name, I told her that if I ever thought of myself as a magnolia, that I’d be a wild magnolia.”

What started with Debbie Jones, their first customer, ended with more than 150 people coming through by the conclusion of the grand opening day.