Ann Heathwood first bonded with landscape designer Fernando Wong over someone else’s garden. It was at The Garden Club of Palm Beach’s House and Garden Day, and Heathwood soon learned that Wong not only shared her love of the Herald’s Trumpet vines that bloomed on the property but was in fact the person who had planted them. They exchanged numbers, and soon Heathwood invited Wong to survey the grounds surrounding her home, which was designed by noted local architect John Volk.
“After living in the property for a while, I came to love the fact that we had a formal garden on one side of the house, and a tropical pool garden on the other, so it became intriguing to me to see how we could embellish them,” says Heathwood. “I’d called an architect to see what he could do, but he wasn’t interested because the design wasn’t his. Fernando, on the other hand, said he’d be delighted to take it on.”
The gardens were originally designed for the Heathwoods in 2008 by the late landscape architect Raworth Wall, a one-man show known for the private gardens he created in the area. They unfold as a series of four “rooms” across the property: the Motor Court Garden, with its night-blooming jasmine that scurries across the front of the home; the Great Garden, a large open garden on the east side of the residence that includes pinwheel jasmine and mangrove fan palms; the intimate Secret Garden, with its bleeding heart vines, traveler’s palm, and statues of the Four Seasons; and the Tropical Pool Garden, with its crape jasmine trees and Mexican petunia.
After reviewing Wall’s extensive sketches and other project documents, Wong opted to keep the property’s mature trees and perimeter hedges but revamp the beds to create multiple layers of flora and foliage. He put together a package of information for bed designs in white, blue, and violet, and then purple and pink. Each color concept came with its own set of plants—for example, white begonias or cool blue plumbago—that could be changed depending on what was available, or what hue Heathwood might prefer. He also added a fountain, topiaries on either side of the front door, and, yes, Herald’s Trumpet vines on the portico in the Motor Court Garden. Then, he moved on to the Tropical Pool Garden, filling in the flower-laden beds with Green Island ficus, planting jacarandas and fragrant ylang-ylang trees, placing topiaries, and adding cascading Blue Daze flowers to existing planters. In the Secret Garden, Wong designed around the preexisting central fountain, statues of the Four Seasons, and a simple bench that was framed by tropical foliage.
“I enjoy great bones, and these gardens have them,” says Wong. “We have hurricanes and storms, and change is everywhere right now, so for this project what we wanted was for Mrs. Heathwood to get to keep the good work that had already been done here.”
Heathwood added her own bits of whimsy, among them a green bench that looks like it’s made of popcorn (“that’s one of my favorite spots of the garden,” she shares) and three “pet” geese statuary that were a gift from her interior designers, Lee Bierly and Chris Drake.
Because of the effort and intention that went into revitalizing Heathwood’s gardens, The Garden Club of Palm Beach (a member of The Garden Club of America) submitted the project to the Smithsonian Archives of American Gardens for possible inclusion. The application process was extensive, Heathwood says, and included sharing information about the home’s history, the evolution of the gardens over time, and a comprehensive description of the garden in its current state. The archive, which collects, preserves, and provides access to resources about the history of gardens in America, recently accepted Heathwood’s grounds into its database, a distinction that she and Wong don’t take lightly.
“It’s an exceptional honor,” says Heathwood. “When I hear other people talk about the gardens they have tried to enter into this, only to not be received, it makes it just that much more overwhelming.”
The Heathwood garden is the second of Wong’s projects to be included in the Smithsonian Archives. “I’m grateful to have friends and clients who want to make sure that my work is honored in this way,” he says. “I feel privileged.”
Meanwhile, Heathwood and her family continue to enjoy the fruits of Wong’s labor.
“I love to stroll through the gardens or sit and read and enjoy the sounds of nature and the peace that is there,” she says. “It was serendipity that I was standing next to Fernando that day and that he made all of this happen.”
As a token of his appreciation, Wong sent Heathwood his 2024 book, The Young Man and the Tree. In it, he wrote to her: “Dear Ann: It all started in a garden. Thank you for letting us do yours.”
When she flipped the book over, she saw a glossy picture of her garden on the back cover, a testament to her trust in him, and to his gratitude for that trust. fernandowongold.com
Story Credits:
Text by Paige Bowers
Photography by Jerry Rabinowitz
Facebook Comments