Heritage Garden

My sister just moved to a 55+ community in Southern California and we visited her in her new place over Thanksgiving week. It's a lovely, large community with every amenity from pools to libraries to craft rooms to walking trails and more. And . . .

 . . . it has gardens. So of course we toured the gardens. By touring I mean I plopped down in many of the beautiful sitting areas, and just sat there and marveled at what talented volunteers can do.

This is a 4 acre volunteer built and resident maintained display garden showcasing California natives and drought tolerant plants. It was created in 1991 so it has had time to mature and it has matured beautifully.

It's a themed garden, with winding paths that connect distinct plant displays. There is an African garden, a Norfolk pine woods, a redbud area, a butterfly garden, a Zen garden and more, each a hidden surprise as you come around a curve and are suddenly in a new world.

Some plant specimens were even labeled, botanical garden style, although not everything was.

The desert garden was really well done. It's hard to showcase cactus varieties without having them look like freaky aberrations, but this garden combined shapes and forms and colors close together in an artistic and even naturalistic way.

There is a sage garden (all in bloom in late November -- California is amazing!) and sages were used widely along paths as transition plants. The purples were incandescent.

Every inch of the four acres is used, and although it is on a flat piece of land surrounded by lawn, it feels deeply enclosed and private. Trees shade the paths, and plantings are dense and full, and every turn of the path led to a creatively designed sitting area which only lacked a pitcher of gin and tonics next to the patio chairs. It's a good sitting garden.

And of course the trees looked tropical. I recognized many familiar plants, but the tropical trees were weird to my eyes, especially the palms on a cold November day.

For a volunteer garden in a retirement community this had all the standing of a professionally built botanical garden. In fact, the themed layout and the design reminded me of Huntington Gardens in San Marino, CA that we toured a few years ago. The founders of this space surely had that famous L.A. garden in mind, and they really did create something similar on a smaller scale.

I don't think most residents realize what they have here. There are so many community perks all over the place, and it's the pool and library and cookout areas that get the attention in brochures and real estate listings. The Heritage Garden is tucked away behind the lawn bowling green, and kind of hard to find.

But once you walk through the entrance pergola into this space, you immediately know this is special. They should charge admission and open it to the public. I can't believe a garden of this caliber is included in the association fees and is just for the pleasure of residents.

Or residents' guests -- fortunately I can see this private garden any time I visit my sister.