Leisure World Managers Dug Themselves a Hole When They Tried to Change Rules About Gardens and Made a Lot of Residents . . . BLOOMIN’ ANGRY

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, 82, a 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.”

Only last week, residents said Leisure World threatened to eliminate “yellow-stake” flower beds that surround its 12,700 individual condos and co-ops housing 18,000 people. The yellow stake has long been recognized as the symbol of a personal and 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 misconstrued and 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.

They hope to do this, directors said, by exhuming plants that exhaust the community of valuable water supplies in favor of desert-friendly plants that can function with very little, if any, moisture.

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It would also cost less, they said. In other words, more beauty, less money. 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 & Co., 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 in the first place.

Carefully cultivated flower beds were never in any 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, said Smith. “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 just aren’t buying it.

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

These days, plants aren’t the only bloomin’ 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?”

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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. They handled it poorly.”

Hausmann stared at her impatiens and managed a wry smile.

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