GARDENING : Creating a (Green) Scene in Fullerton

Thanks to a group of Cal State Fullerton hippies who wanted to get back to nature in the late 1960s, Orange County has what is now known as the Fullerton Arboretum. What started out as a community garden for these students blossomed over the years into one of the most impressive arboretums in Southern California.

“The arboretum began as a grass-roots movement among CSUF faculty and students,” says Lorra Almstedt, executive director of the Friends of the Fullerton Arboretum, which is the facility’s main fund-raising group. Today and Sunday, the Friends are sponsoring the Green Scene plant sale, a giant swap meet of plants and plant products.

More than 50 vendors will be there to sell a wide variety of plants, including water lilies, German bearded iris, tillandsias, epiphylums, New Guinea Impatiens, rare tropical fruit trees, bromeliads and rare species of palms and cycads.

There will also be more common plants, such as iris and day lilies, cactus and other succulents, a variety of vegetable plants, begonias, miniature roses, herbs, orchids, bonsais and fuchsias.

Ceramics, pottery, garden supplies, tools, dried flowers, natural-science books and kits and topiary items will also be offered.

In addition, there will be lectures and demonstrations on bonsai care, artistic mounting of bromeliads, low water use and growing fuchsias and begonias. And KIEV-AM show hosts Lucy and Burnell Yarick will answer gardening questions Sunday from noon to 2:30 p.m. at 970 on the radio dial.

The Green Scene is the largest and most successful plant sale in the Southland, Almstedt says. Last year, 6,300 people attended and $40,000 was raised.

“The first Green Scene was held in 1973,” says Ted Hanes, past director of the arboretum and a professor of biology at Cal State Fullerton. “It was one of the Friends’ early attempts to generate money for the arboretum. Today it is a major fund-raiser.”

Jorice Maag of Fullerton, who is past president of the Friends and one of the first Heritage House coordinators, says the arboretum “has really evolved into something impressive.”

“When you look at where the arboretum began--as a flat orange grove with a lot of plain dirt fields and weeds--it’s amazing to see it today,” Maag says.

Originally a grove of Valencia orange trees, the 26-acre site on the university campus was designated by campus officials as a future parking lot in the late 1960s. But a group of students envisioned a “green oasis”--a place for study that would be shared with future generations.

“The students were unhappy with the idea of turning the former citrus grove into a parking lot,” Hanes says. “Students wanted to get away from the high-tech world and back to nature, so they started planting organic gardens and fruit trees and even camped out in the orchard.”

By 1970 the students--with help from Eugene Jones, a professor of biology--persuaded city and university officials to grant the arboretum skeletal operating money until the year 2020. Money from the authority pays the basics, Almstedt says.

Much of the money used to operate the arboretum and provide programs is generated by the Friends group, she says.

“This organization formally formed as a community support group in 1972,” she says. “Today it is a 1,200-member group of citizens who contribute money and time to the arboretum, enabling it to operate at the capacity it does.”

Hanes agrees. “Without them, the arboretum wouldn’t function. It would just be a passive park without life and personality,” he says.

Life sprouted at the arboretum over several years. Though the facility was conceived in the early 1970s, it was not until 1979 that it was opened to the public. And even after opening, a lot of planting and other work took place in the early 1980s.

“Because the arboretum property was an orange grove, the land was originally completely flat,” Almstedt says. Hills, valleys, a pond, lake, streams and a waterfall have since been built.

One addition is known as Chaparral Hill, now planted in native chaparral-type plants. “In 1979, there was a great deal of flooding, which caused a giant sediment deposit in a basin on the northwest corner of Associated Road and Bastanchury in Fullerton,” says Hanes, who was director at the time.

“In the early 1980s,” he says, the Orange County Flood Control District “needed to remove the soil and were looking for a place to deposit it. I OKd moving it to the arboretum and forming a hill.”

The flood district carted in 100,000 cubic yards of dirt, and local residents also donated soil removed for pool and home constructions, Hanes says. This created the 40-foot Chaparral Hill, the highest elevation on the 260-acre campus.

At the same time, the arboretum was being planted at a rapid pace.

“The Friends of the Arboretum came out on Saturday mornings and had what they called ‘Big Digs,’ ” Hanes says. “They planted many trees and shrubs and were responsible for what the arboretum is today.”

Heritage House, an 1894 Victorian cottage, was also moved from a citrus grove on Lemon Street to the arboretum. Several citizens had heard that the house was to be demolished to make room for a parking lot.

“A friend and I were very fond of that house, so we decided to try and save it,” Maag says. “We started a drive and eventually got the city of Fullerton to agree to move the house and contribute $2,500 toward doing so, if we could find a place to move it.

“Fortunately, we eventually heard about the space set aside for an arboretum at the university,” Maag says. “Officials there agreed to take the house.”

In December, 1972, the house was deposited in the middle of a giant mustard field at the arboretum.

The North Orange County Board of Realtors then paid to place the house on a new foundation and restore the exterior. After this the Friends furnished and decorated the interior.

When decorating, members used many possessions of the original owner of the house, Dr. George C. Clark, who moved into the home in late 1894 with his wife, Edith. Clark was Fullerton’s first physician; like many doctors of the time, he had an in-home office.

In 1976, Heritage House was designated as a national historic site.

In addition to the house, there is a Heritage Garden and the Historical Orchard. The garden is a re-creation of Clark’s herb and kitchen garden, and the orchard contains commercial fruit tree varieties that were an important part of the county’s agricultural economy in the early 1900s.

“The bud wood was taken from the original parent trees, making them exact replicas of commercial trees grown in Orange County at the turn of the century,” Almstedt says. “There are several avocado varieties, Olinda Valencia Oranges and Placentia Perfection Walnuts.”

The Fullerton Arboretum’s Green Scene plant sale is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and Sunday, on the northeast corner of the Cal State Fullerton campus, Yorba Linda Boulevard at Associated Road. $3. (714) 773-3579.