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Community Corner

1967: When Flowers Bloomed

News from the April 27, 1967 edition of the Lemon Grove Review.

Lemon Grove's perfect climate facilitated not only its legendary citrus orchards, but flower gardens of all kinds.

America's Violet Queen:  On April 10, 1967 in Boston, Helen Van Zele, Golden Avenue, was installed as second vice president of the African Violet Society of America (AVSA).  She had already served as president and would do so again.  

Helen received the Bronze Medal for Horticultural Achievement and was inducted into the AVSA Hall of Fame.  Her skill in raising exquisite African Violets was noted in botanical journals from here to Moscow and hailed by the Society's more than 12,000 members.  

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At the family's historic, Spanish Colonial Revival home (still standing, gorgeous), Helen had two greenhouses, one for raising classic violets and new variations, and one for experiments.  After noting the successful use of CO2 gas on raising chrysanthemums, carnations and orchids, she tested the gas on African Violets and pronounced the results "encouraging."

Helen's daughter, Mildred, also was noted for her African Violets, while her daughter-in-law, Joan Van Zele, was the official photographer for the Violet Society and her images appeared in each issue of its national magazine. 

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Sin's Way:  Famed German horticulturist Sinjen Eberle (he preferred "Sin") came to America in 1928 and to San Diego in the 1940s.  He designed gardens extolled in Sunset Magazine and gardening books, and featured on countless garden tours.  

His specialty was planting small gardens on "ordinary lots", lacing trees into perfect canopies and creating gardens that looked and felt spontaneous, as though they had always been there.    

One of Sin's famous gardens flourishes today in Lemon Grove not far from the Van Zele home.  His trademark elements of sculpture, winding brick walkways, towering trees and rare species of flowers and shrubs flank "Sinjen's Magic Carpet" -- his signature use of ground covers like Polygonum capitatum ("pink buttons") -- on a long, rectangular lot transformed into exotic splendor.

The memorial service for Sin was held in that Lemon Grove garden in 2001.

The Orchard Lives:  On Adams Street is Lemon Grove's last functioning orchard, originally planted in the early 1920s by Edmond and Gladys Dunn.  Now nearing the century mark, the healthy trees produce some of the best fruit on earth (we've enjoyed them for nearly three decades).  Mrs. Dunn's enormous stag horn ferns and their many offspring live on, together with her larkspurs, roses, daisies and bowers of fuchsias and bougainvillea.

The Dunn descendants lovingly care for both the plantings and the Dunn home with its coffered ceilings, archways and charming tile work.  Mr. Dunn was a noted contractor, who built much of downtown La Mesa.  He was also the foreman on construction of The Big Lemon, working closely with architect Alberto Treganza, who designed our civic mascot.

Treganza's Way:  Alberto Treganza's father, Eduardo Treganza, was a noted horticulturist who taught grafting techniques to many of Lemon Grove's early growers.  Alberto's daughter, famed pediatric optometrist, Dr. Amorita Treganza, was a gardener in her own right.  Her gorgeous Amaryllis flowers thrive today at the Treganza Cottage (see photo), as does Eduardo's spectacularly gnarled Brazilian pepper tree that was photographed by Sunset Magazine.

The Moores' Way:  You can't beat Marianne Moore's marmalade or her husband Jack Moore's loquat preserves produced from their own trees.  Ditto, their way with those pesky pomegranate seeds (rendered into rich juice) or with raising gigantic, flavorful avocados and citrus on the slopes of Lemon Grove. 

She's from Germany and he's from California and they've lived in the middle of Lemon Grove for decades--another example of the expert, modern gardeners, who carry on the work of our town's planting pioneers.  Not for nothing was Lemon Grove declared "the Pasadena of San Diego County" in the early 1900s. 

Pint-Size Artist:  John Castellanos, 10, Roy Street, was a student at Golden Avenue School when he received a three-year scholarship to the federally supported Art Conservatory run by Grossmont High School District and Chula Vista School District.  John (see photo) was nominated by his teachers for his talent, notably, in landscape painting.

Today, John is a veteran, favorite teacher at Mt. Vernon Elementary.  He is a descendant of the Castellanos-Alvarez families that came to Lemon Grove late in World War I and settled here in 1921.  Their contributions to Lemon Grove's orchards, gardens and housing are notable.  It was an Alvarez descendant who restored the beautiful, hand-cut, cedar shingle roof on the H. Lee House. 

Roses in April:  Chuck Pennell is why roses flourish in the Rose Garden Rotunda of Civic Center Park between the H. Lee House and the Parsonage Museum.  Chuck (see photo) volunteers to do the expert annual cutback in January, making possible the springtime explosion of blooms enjoyed by everyone. 

And so it went in 1967, continuing into 2013, as Lemon Grovians make their gardens grow and render poetic our little corner of the world.

About this column:  Compiled by Helen Ofield, president of the Lemon Grove Historical Society, from newspapers archived at the H. Lee House Cultural Center.  Each week, we take a peek at the past with some news and advertising highlights from a randomly chosen edition of the Lemon Grove Review.  In 2012 Ofield was awarded second place in non-daily reporting and writing from the Society of Professional Journalists for the column.

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