‘Flower Power’ Gains Ground at Leisure World

LAGUNA HILLS — “Impeach! Impeach! Impeach!” was the cry heard ‘round the room as Julius Groher and 200 other residents crowded into a Leisure World meeting hall.

Groher, an 82-year-old retired attorney, was directing his wrath at the managers of one of Southern California’s oldest retirement communities. These days, Groher and his band of neighbors seem to regard the landlords about as fondly as his New England forebears did the monarchy of King George III.

Scores of residents are upset with Leisure World executives over what they perceive as a threat to individual liberty--in this case, the planting of flowers. As Groher put it, “Give me petunias or give me death.”

Earlier this month, residents contend, Leisure World management threatened to eliminate “yellow stake” flower beds that surround its 12,700 condos and cooperatives housing 18,000 people. The yellow stake has long been recognized as the symbol of a private garden not to be touched by anyone except the person who planted it.

Leisure World executives counter by saying that yellow-stake plantings were never in danger, that the situation spun out of control because residents misinterpreted what management was trying to do.

“We’ve had to give assurances to people that, whatever happens, their private gardens won’t be harmed,” said Leisure World spokesman Greg Smith. “And they won’t be.”

The directors of Professional Community Management Inc., which oversees the sprawling grounds, said they only intend to change the nature of plantings in so-called common areas in an effort to conserve water--but never planned to touch yellow stake areas unless those gardens weren’t being maintained.

Directors said they planned to exhume common area plants that require large amounts of water in favor of plants that can function with little moisture.

It also would cost less, they said. But in this case, the sowing of what management calls a few innocent seeds reaped nothing but a harvest of rancor.

“This really got blown out of proportion,” said landscape supervisor Milt Johns, who contends that management has always viewed the yellow stake as a boundary not to be crossed. Thus, no one had anything to worry about.

“Balderdash!,” said Groher and company, who showed up 200 strong at a meeting May 9 in a room where the capacity is 60. The meeting was postponed to 9 a.m. Wednesday, and rescheduled for Clubhouse 5, a much larger hall, which Groher predicts will quickly fill with what he calls “flower power.”

In the meantime, plenty of ruffled feathers exist over what management said was a nonissue and not worthy of a weed of controversy.

Carefully cultivated flower beds were never in danger, Smith said.

“We intended to move to a level where, if a plant was not maintained--even in a yellow-stake area--we were going to remove it. And then so many of the residents said, ‘Oh, my gosh!’ ” that now all yellow stakes will be left alone,” Smith said. “It really stirred up some emotions, I mean to tell you.”

Founded in 1964, Leisure World is governed by a homeowners’ association that “tells the management company what to do,” Smith said. “The management company is often portrayed as the bad guys, and they’re not bad guys.”

But Groher and his friends aren’t buying it.

Pete Troy, 73, a retired schoolteacher who lives near Groher, says he read about the sweeping change in plant policy in Leisure World’s own newspaper. He contends that management is now backpedaling because it floated a trial balloon that crashed faster than the Hindenburg.

These days, plants aren’t the only controversy weighing on Troy’s mind. Management recently replaced some of its metal parking sheds with wooden structures.

“We had no say over that either,” Troy said. “In an area where fire is a danger, and where the population is elderly, why replace metal with wood?”

Whether the issue is flowers or parking structures, Troy said, the underlying concern is that Leisure World is becoming “a lot more bottom-line-oriented than it used to be”--in his view, less democratic, more autocratic, less user-friendly to the seniors it serves.

At the very least, said Joan Hausmann, a “70-plus” widow who lives near Groher and Troy, and who has what may be Leisure World’s most beautiful collection of lilies, roses, begonias and impatiens, “they gave no verbal support whatsoever to private gardeners. They confused people. They scared them. And they left them wondering if they could trust them in the future.”

Hausmann stared at her impatiens and managed a wry smile.

“My, my,” she said, “isn’t that one aptly named.”