Gardener’s perennial legacy is blossoming
Before gardener Mary Lou Heard died five years ago, she wrote a letter to all those who had bought Old English roses, foxglove and wild French strawberries at her tiny Westminster nursery.
“Though there are still many more gardens in my heart that have yet to be planted,” she wrote, “the body is calling for a rest.”
Heard died at 57 of colon cancer that had spread to her liver. But the customers she taught to sow and plant went ahead and created the gardens she had written about in her stead.
This weekend, they have opened backyards and side lots to public view, revealing showers of sweet peas and cascades of clematis, sun-struck yellow roses and, here and there, small blue forget-me-nots.
The garden tour that Heard founded in 1993 continues this weekend, more robust than ever, with 47 gardens on display from Long Beach to San Juan Capistrano.
Many gardens are flush with flowers purchased from Heard’s Country Gardens long ago.
Some of her favorite roses -- Golden Celebration, Sally Holmes, and, of course, Lordly Oberon -- spill over fences and reach toward the roof in the frontyard of a home near the shore in Huntington Beach.
Three Japanese maples from Heard’s nursery flourish in a garden in nearby Fountain Valley.
And despite some who doubted Heard’s conviction that delicate clematis vines could flourish in Southern California, clematis with soft purple and pale pink blooms thrives in gardens all along the Orange County coast years after leaving Heard’s nursery.
“She said, just put the roots in the shade and let it grow in the sun,” said Debbie Johnson, 51, whose Mission Viejo garden is now resplendent with clematis. “And she said if you can’t get the roots in the shade, put pots in front of it.”
These are not the polished, every-twig-in-place professional horticultural displays of Bel-Air and San Marino, or typical mow-and-blow suburban yards.
Some of Heard’s plants sprawl over lots half an acre or larger. Some are squeezed between stucco walls of homes built close together or grow over trellises in narrow backyards.
Many gardens are full of the hard-to-find plants Heard championed -- peonies, fairy thimbles, lilacs, black-eyed Susans.
Heard, who learned to garden while hospitalized with depression, favored perennials, plants that die down in the winter and return with a flourish in spring. She passed along to hundreds of gardeners her belief in the rejuvenating power of good soils, intriguing, little-known plants and fortitude.
Gardeners say she was a pioneer in introducing perennials to a region accustomed to quick and easy six-packs of pansies and petunias.
Several old customers whose gardens are on this weekend’s tour say they turned to Heard exactly because she offered something different.
She also taught them how to build their own gardens, and how it takes more than soil, water and seeds.
“She inspired me to keep growing, to keep trying,” Johnson recalled. “She didn’t make me feel like I had to be perfect. If I was out there and loved gardening, I was a gardener.”
“She gave me an art, she gave me a purpose in life, that you could never get at a big-box store,” said Cassie Dubourdieu, 63, who gardens in Huntington Beach with her husband, Mark Dubourdieu, 67.
Heard educated her about how to plant roses so that they wouldn’t be stark bushes surrounded by dry earth.
“You plant things underneath the roses, and it’s like a bouquet standing in my garden,” Dubourdieu said, adding that she bought her pinkish-white flowering Lordly Oberon specifically because it grew in front of Heard’s nursery.
“She was such a revelation to all of us, that there was a way you could garden that would be deeply meaningful, that would add an aspect to your life that you never considered,” Dubourdieu said. “When we found out she was dying, I swear, I think people in three counties cried.”
The garden tour stumbled after her death, and then kept going. This year, Sheri Henderson of Fountain Valley has won praise from several gardeners for making the tour the biggest yet.
There is no charge for the self-guided tour. Visitors may make a donation to two charities -- the Sheepfold, a local shelter for abused and homeless women and their children, and the Orange County Foundation for Oncology Children and Families -- or a scholarship set up in Heard’s name for horticultural training through the UC Irvine Extension. More information can be found at www.heardsgardentour.com.
Henderson asked some tour gardeners Friday evening if they still had Heard’s perennials, and many said yes. One woman said she had a redbud tree “that started as a skinny stick and is now lush, beautiful and full.” Another said she had a crabapple tree, an oakleaf hydrangea and a birdbath from the old nursery.
Suzanne McCardle’s San Juan Capistrano garden will be on display today. Heard helped her plant it on nearly an acre of land, with lavenders, vegetables and delicate nepeta, or catmint.
In Mission Viejo, Johnson planted the deep red-maroon Mary Lou Heard rose, named after her in 2003 by friends and the nursery industry. Johnson also has forget-me-nots from Heard’s own garden, given to her by a friend. She put the plant under a tree in the front of her house, where it receives a little sun, but not too much.
“I’ve had it ever since,” she said. “It just keeps coming back each spring.”
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