Businesswoman works to make Desert Plant Collection grow

Agnes Gabica has always been a hard worker.

When she was 6 years old in the Philippines, the future owner of Desert Plant Collection started cleaning her first-grade teacher’s home for 30 cents and soon turned it into a business.

She was raised by her grandparents on a farm near Manila after her family members started moving to the United States. Growing things came naturally, but it was not something she considered for a career.

She eventually moved to the States as well, landing in Oregon. She worked for a year and paid cash for her first house. That was before she learned about establishing credit. And she kept on working.

“I worked for four years, seven days a week, all the time,” she said.

Life eventually led her to Maricopa in 2003 to work at Harrah’s Ak-Chin Casino. There, going back to school earned her a promotion. On the side she helped a co-worker in a landscaping business. That was how she met her husband Troy, who has been in the landscaping supply business since 1985.

They married and moved to Phoenix. Though successful flipping houses, Gabica was drawn back to botanicals.

“I said, ‘I think I love plants better,’” she said.

They went into the plant business and became almost too busy for their location. They found a rent-to-own parcel in the Thunderbird Farms area and moved back to Maricopa in 2013.

On the lot at 10910 N. Brewer Road, they established Desert Plant Collection and Nursery, where Gabica puts to use her lifetime collection of plant knowledge and business savvy.

“The business is about getting to know plants and really telling the customer how to take care of everything they buy,” she said.

It is a retail and wholesale business, and they deliver. It is also a true nursery where customers can see how they start and raise a variety of cacti and other desert plants. They won’t sell a cactus until it’s rooted, she said. What they don’t grow, like fruit trees, they bring in from other areas of Arizona.

She has made a point of putting 75 percent of the money they earn back into the business, something that has taken great discipline, she said.

Gabica is constantly learning – about plants, business and people. She is surrounded by prickly plants and has dealt with her share of prickly people over the years. That has made her philosophical about personal growth.

“When I get negativity from someone, I don’t want to give that back and I don’t want it to have power over me,” she said. “I use that negative to improve myself.

“I may be a businesswoman, but I have a really soft side.”

Over the next five years, Gabica wants to grow Desert Plant Collection to the point she can hire a full-time helper and get away for some recreational time with Troy. And maybe not even work for a day.

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Agnes Gabica
Hometown: Manila, Philippines
Age: 48
Residence: Thunderbird Farms
Education: Gilbert Community College
Family: Husband Troy and three daughters
Pets: Two dogs, fluid number of cats and ducks
Vehicle: Toyota Tundra
Languages: Filipino, English, some Spanish and little French (for her Canadian customers)
First job: House cleaning
Favorite job: Line server in a restaurant
Greatest challenge: Financing
Best business advice received: Put your money back in the business

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This story appeared in the May issue of InMaricopa.