Oasis Blooms for Gardener’s Birthday : Environment: ‘Dante’s View’ on Mt. Hollywood comes back from fire, to delight of 86-year-old caretaker.

Charlie Turner’s green eyes swept across a clearing nestled atop Mt. Hollywood in Griffith Park as he waved his hand, like a magic wand, toward a clump of yellow flowers.

“I didn’t really expect it to come back as good as it has,” the 86-year-old unofficial caretaker of “Dante’s View” said Sunday.

Daily, for nearly 16 years, Turner has trekked from his Hollywood home up a winding, four-mile path to tend the half-acre grove overlooking Griffith Park Observatory.

A lush garden of pine, eucalyptus and flowers until a brush fire last summer scarred it all, Turner’s hillside retreat is slowly springing back to life.

And that’s good news, according to Turner’s friends, a group of nature lovers who helped him celebrate his 86th birthday a day early Sunday.

The fire put a strain on the man they described as “good for a hug” and “always here with a big smile on his face to greet you.”

Turner’s smile was working overtime Sunday, as the octogenarian said he was happy to see the garden thriving again.

Laughter and Irish music greeted groups of hikers who took a shorter, one-mile path from Griffith Observatory to the garden.

“Special friends” are what Turner calls the nature lovers who meet there for his bagel and champagne brunches on weekends. Sunday’s session was in honor of the garden’s rebirth.

“Finally we’re beginning to see the green,” said Lisa O’Connor, a member of Turner’s “brunch bunch” for seven years. “It was so barren for so long, I think it really took a toll on him.”

“I had a lot of help,” Turner said.

Park hikers gave their friend wild flower seeds and new trees. A Korean hiking club, which serenaded Turner on Sunday with a Korean rendition of “Happy Birthday,” donated money to replant the hideaway.

Between hugs and kisses from friends, Turner talked about how the mountaintop oasis has changed. The eucalyptus trees that once canopied the area are gone, but the atmosphere and caring friends are the same, he said.

Sporting his trademark yellow tennis hat and big smile, Turner poked around the hillside, showing clumps of cassia, a flowering yellow plant, that he said will soon carpet the slopes. “It’s going to be all nice and yellow.”

The pine trees are a major concern.

“I don’t think they’re going to make it,” Turner said in a near whisper, shaking his head and looking toward blackened branches on one part of the hillside.

But the caretaker already has plans for new pines, which a park gardener has said he will provide.

Turner wasn’t always the garden’s caretaker. He inherited the job from Dante Orgolini, a Brazilian-born Italian muralist, who lugged trees, cacti and water up Mt. Hollywood in 1965 to create the oasis. When Orgolini died in 1978, Turner, who had helped tend the garden, took over.

“If I can last another five years, I’d love it,” Turner said.

Any ideas for the next caretaker?

“I don’t know,” he said, frowning.

He was lost in thought for a moment, then a smile spread across his face.

“I’ve just got to hope that somebody comes along like I did.”