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Side Trail
Bob Fincham

Bob Fincham

Side Trail Stories Bio. of Bob Fincham

Born, raised, and educated on the East Coast, Bob was a science teacher for thirty-nine years. He started his career as a science teacher in 1967 in Pennsylvania. In 1979 his passion led to the start of a part time, mail order nursery business named Coenosium Gardens, which sold conifers around the world until 2015, when it was closed.

In 1986 Bob and his wife Dianne along with 10,000 plants moved from Pennsylvania to the Northwest where he made the nursery business his full-time job. In 1993 he reentered education in the state of Washington.

Dianne passed away in 2013 and Bob remarried in 2017 to Thecla Siqueira. They presently reside together in Puyallup, Washington where he has a conifer garden on a half-acre lot.

Coenosium Gardens was permanently closed in 2015, but he is still very active in the conifer world.

Always the educator, Bob and has self-published five books on cultivated conifers. He has also written for American Nurseryman, the NARGS Quarterly, Fine Gardening, and the American Conifer Society Bulletin, has produced three videos on conifers and propagation methods. Presently, he is working on an autobiographical book about his years as a high school science teacher.


(Part 2) A Second Day at the Alamo

Bob Fincham

March 6, 1986, was a hectic day for Rose Banner. She had left Houston the day before to drive to San Antonio for the sesquicentennial celebration of the Battle of the Alamo. Her children were with her mother while her husband had to stay home for an important business meeting.

Rose was sitting in the Alamo Plaza looking for a specific old man. Read the full story HERE>>

Read part one, A Day at the Alamo HERE>>


A Day at the Alamo

Bob Fincham

It was early March in San Antonio, the sixth of March, to be exact. A crowd had started to gather in front of a historical mission reverently called the Alamo.

There was a light mist falling, and Martha Henderson was having second thoughts about bringing her daughter, Rose, here so early in the morning.

A native Texan, Martha wanted Rose to have an appreciation of the past and a better understanding of how the State of Texas came into existence. She was rethinking the whole idea of taking Rose to visit historical sites in Texas. All Rose wanted to do was listen to rock and roll music all day. Read the full story HERE>>