GARDENING : Family Nursery Blossoms Under Matriarch’s Care
The decision by Victoria Peterson of Fullerton to sell pansies rather than give them away was a far-reaching one: In the 70 years since, she has not only sold many thousands of those and other flowers, she has seen her daughter and her daughter’s daughter follow her footsteps into the nursery business.
Although retired since the early 1970s, the 93-year-old matriarch is still contributing her insights and gardening tips to the family business. Peterson’s daughter, Evelyn Peterson Weidner, and her granddaughter, Mary Weidner Whitesman, own and operate Weidners’ Gardens in north San Diego County.
Under the influence of three generations of women, it seems appropriate that Mother’s Day is one of the busiest days of the year at Weidners. The 10-acre outdoor nursery in Encinitas attracts thousands of customers yearly who dig pansies or tuberous begonias from the growing fields and choose from a large selection of foliage and flowering plants.
“She’s an excellent role model,” says Peterson’s granddaughter. “She’s loving, enthusiastic and curious.”
“And she keeps us on our toes,” Weidner adds. “Whenever she sets foot on the nursery, she spots the one plant that’s a little dry or needs grooming.”
Born and raised in Sweden, where she managed several small grocery stores, young Victoria came to Fresno in the early 1920s and married Simon Peterson, whom she had known in Sweden. Her new husband, a trained horticulturist, worked at Roeding Park.
He began growing pansies at their family home to plant in the park. But his young bride objected to giving the plants away, and she began selling them at a local farmer’s market. In 1924, the Petersons opened a small nursery in Fresno, mainly stocked with pansies and California native plants.
Their two children, Evelyn and Ruth, worked with their parents in the nursery while they were young.
“It was a real mom-and-pop nursery, with us kids also pitching in to help,” Weidner says.
At age 7, Weidner already displayed an innate talent for the trade. “I loved selling the plants and happily charmed the customers,” she recalls.
World War II brought the Petersons to Long Beach, and Simon traded horticulture for a hard hat when he worked in a Long Beach shipyard. But as soon as the war ended, the Petersons were able to return to their first love, and started Petersons’ Nursery in Long Beach.
They operated that nursery until 1960, when they retired and moved to Fullerton, where Victoria Peterson still lives and gardens, and where her daughter, Ruth Trout, also makes her home.
Throughout high school, Evelyn continued helping her parents at the nursery. When she graduated, she worked full time, learning about plants and retail sales.
In going about their business, her mother unwittingly sent Evelyn to meet the man she would marry. Peterson had been impressed with the quality of foliage plants she found at Buena Park Greenhouses, one of the nation’s largest wholesale growers. In a conversation with her daughter, she suggested that she visit the greenhouses.
Evelyn followed her mother’s suggestion and was impressed not only with the plants, but with the greenhouse owner Bob Weidner. A mutual love of plants blossomed into a love for each other, and they were married one year later.
Evelyn Weidner assumed responsibility for the retail part of the business while Bob Weidner continued to manage the growing operation and expanded the nursery. Freeway construction in 1955 forced the business to move from its location at Manchester and Orangethorpe avenues to Brea.
In 1968, as urban development encroached, the Weidners moved greenhouse operations and their family of four children to Encinitas. Later that year, the wholesale business was sold to one of the nursery managers, and Evelyn and Bob Weidner tried retirement. It only lasted a few years though; in 1971, they opened Weidners’ Gardens at its current site.
After her husband’s death in 1988, Weidner assumed total management of the popular nursery. Daughter Mary Weidner Whitesman decided she wanted to ensure that a Weidner would still operate the nursery, and joined the family business full time in 1985. In the family tradition, Whitesman had been helping out at the nursery since she was 7.
“In our family, turning 7 meant it was time to work in the business during the summers,” she recalls. “We were paid 50 cents an hour, and worked from 7:30 a.m. until noon. We got to spend half, but we had to save half, and all the staff were instructed to look after us like a boss and a parent.”
Whitesman credits her parents and grandparents with teaching her about plants and the business.
“She’ll take over this business when I eventually retire and she’s capable of running the whole operation because she’s a flexible person who fits in anywhere, a trait you need in a family business,” Weidner said. “I couldn’t run this place without her.”
“It just seemed a natural thing to do,” Whitesman added. “We seem to be born with a love of the plant business in this family.”
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Retirement is one thing, though, that doesn’t seem to come easily in the family.
After Peterson first retired, Bob Weidner persuaded her to join Buena Park Greenhouses when he opened a Dish Garden Department, a hot trend in the 1960s as indoor plants blossomed in popularity.
Her skills in creating terrariums and container arrangements helped the department to flourish, and she worked for her daughter and son-in-law for eight years. When they sold Buena Park Greenhouses, she retired again, this time permanently.
But her love of plants never diminished.
At 93, Peterson is still an active gardener--watering, feeding and nurturing the plants in her personal garden. She’s a longtime member of the Fullerton Garden Club and the Orange County Begonia Society. Until several years ago, she held an annual plant sale where she shared her cuttings and divisions with neighbors and local garden enthusiasts.
Her secret for success with gardening is simple: “You just have to like the plants.”
Her secret for a successful nursery business, which she instilled in both her daughter and granddaughter, is also simple: “You have to sell the best quality plants you can grow at the lowest price possible.”
Weidner takes care with both her plants and the people buying them. “It does no good to sell someone a weak plant that won’t survive in the person’s garden. It discourages them, and if people think they don’t know how to garden they won’t try again,” Weidner says.
She discourages her customers from buying plants that won’t thrive in their home environment.
Weidner’s daughter recounts this story: A friend of her husband’s wanted a buy a white fuchsia plant. When Weidner asked him where he lived, he replied “along the coast.”
He’d been forewarned that if she knew he really lived inland in a hot, dry climate, she wouldn’t send the plant home with him--a fuchsia plant being happiest in a cooler climate.
