St. Lucie Cultural Alliance | Member Spotlight – Heathcote Botanical Gardens
Contributed by Holly Theuns
Member Spotlight – Heathcote Botanical Gardens
Long before Heathcote Botanical Gardens became the garden that it is today, it was a plant nursery called Heathcote Nurseries, Inc., owned by Jim and Mollie Crimmins.
According to Carol Herzog, Mollie and Jim’s daughter, and the Garden’s archives, Mollie Bunting Crimmins was a native of Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania. She graduated from George School, a Quaker boarding school in Philadelphia, then the School of Horticulture for Women, Temple University, at Amherst.
Mollie and the late James F. Crimmins moved to Fort Pierce in 1933 to manage Heathcote Nurseries, Inc. They became co-owners of the oldest ornamental nursery in the county, founded by Frederick Pierce Fox in 1926.
As a landscape designer, Mollie designed and executed landscapes from Vero Beach to the Bahamas, though the bulk of her work was in St. Lucie County and Martin County. She was especially known for her Japanese Gardens, most notably for the one by her home, now part of the Heathcote Botanical Gardens.
One of the first landscape contractors in this area to transplant Sabal Palmetto palms, Mollie moved them for 50 years without a casualty. She promoted the use of native plants in the 1930s when many thought these plants nothing more than meaningless weeds. She persuaded some customers to reintroduce them to land which they had already cleared. Only nesting wildlife would deter her from this purpose.
Heathcote Botanical Gardens is proud to continue Mollie’s stewardship of Florida native plants and her beloved Japanese Garden.
Heathcote Botanical Gardens is located at 210 Savannah Rd in Fort Pierce, Florida. The Garden is open from 10:00 am through 4:00 pm Tuesday through Saturday. For more information visit HeathcoteBotanicalGardens.org or call 772-464-4672.