Good Neighbor Podcast: Port Saint Lucie
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Good Neighbor Podcast: Port Saint Lucie
EP# 252: Heathcote Botanical Garden's Living Museum | Vicki Hoyos' Inspiring Journey from Nonprofits to Nature Leadership
What makes Vicki Hoyos with Heathcote Botanical Garden a good neighbor?
Can a single visit to a botanical garden truly capture its essence? Meet Vicki Hoyos, the Executive Director of Heathcote Botanical Garden, who will make you think twice about that notion. Vicki's journey from her extensive work with nonprofits like the Cleveland Clinic to leading Heathcote is nothing short of inspiring. She paints a vivid picture of the garden as a dynamic "living museum" where each visit offers new and breathtaking discoveries. From the largest public display of bonsai in the U.S. to a variety of orchids, palms, and local wildlife, Vicki promises that Heathcote is a treasure waiting to be explored repeatedly.
Throughout the episode, Vicki also opens up about her personal struggles and triumphs. As a single mother who found love again, she shares her heartfelt story of overcoming hardship and mentoring others in similar situations. Her commitment to making Heathcote accessible to all demographics is unwavering, and she passionately speaks about the importance of preserving green spaces for future generations. Get ready for practical advice on how you can get involved with this vibrant community hub while balancing life, travel, and gardening. Tune in to be inspired by Vicki's dedication and learn how you can become part of the Heathcote family.
To learn more about Heathcote Botanical Garden go to:
https://heathcotebotanicalgardens.org/
Heathcote Botanical Garden
(772) 464-4672
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Garfield Bowen.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. Are you looking for a botanical gardens? Well, one may be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing Vicki Hoyas with Heathcote Botanical Garden. Vicki, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:Hey, I'm well, thanks. Thanks for asking me to come on.
Speaker 2:Listen, we're excited to learn all about you and your organization. Tell us about it.
Speaker 3:Well, heathcote is a small botanical garden in Fort Pierce. It's about five acres. We've been here for 38 years now, so we consider it the kind of the hidden gem of the Treasure Coast. But what most people don't know as a botanical garden is we are the largest public display of bonsai in the United States, and so that's right here in the Fort Pierce community, the United States, and so that's right here in the Fort Pierce community. So we embrace folks that come in loving bonsai, or we embrace those who come in who just want to see orchids and palms and other types of flowering shrubs. We're happy to do that as well, but we've been doing that for 38 years now.
Speaker 2:Bonsai 38 years, that's a long time. How did you get into this business?
Speaker 3:Oh golly, it's funny because I have been in nonprofits my entire life. I spent a good part of 20 years with the Cleveland Clinic down in Fort Lauderdale. So I always tell people I started when I was 12. And from there, when my husband and I moved up here, I was going to take an early retirement but I ended up working in some poverty charities and I decided after a few years that maybe I wanted to have my own business. I think I was having my midlife crisis at 50. And so I said, ok, I'm just going to go ahead and do my own business. And I had that for a number of years and I felt very confident with the things that I learned about business, because it's definitely different being an employee versus an owner. And but I had always stayed connected to nonprofits and have been on nonprofit boards and so after I sold my business I was, I was going to retire again. I said, ok, I'll just do charity work. And I did that for a little bit and I did some consulting.
Speaker 3:But a gal that I was familiar with, who attends the Rotary with me I'm on the Fort Pierce Rotary and she said, oh, I have a little job for you. And I'm like, oh okay, I can do a little job, as long as I don't have to fundraise, it'll be good. Figured out, she lied. It was the operations manager position, which was great. It's more geared towards running the day to day. And then after about six to seven months she moved on to another organization. I was like OK. And so after several months of just helping to sustain the organization here, they invited me to be the executive director and I said, sure, it is so different than anything I've ever done and it's just beautiful. And the feeling that you get, just being in what we call a living museum every day, is amazing.
Speaker 2:We're happy to have you. What are some of the myths and misconceptions that people have about the Botanical Garden?
Speaker 3:I think some of the misconceptions they have is that once they've seen it, it's done. You don't have to necessarily come back. But as a living museum, things change day to day, week to week, as seasons change, so do planting, so do colors, things bloom, things die, things reemerge, things come out bigger, better, grander, smaller, and so I just think that that's a misconception, that you can have it all. You can come back multiple times and see something different. It's kind of like have you ever been to Cracker Barrel? You walk in and you know you want to shop around.
Speaker 3:You have to look up, you have to look midline, you have to look down to shop around. You have to look up, you have to look midline, you have to look down to see everything and you have to walk through a couple of times. It's the same thing with a botanical garden you have to walk through, you have to look up and you can see an owl in the tree. You could see a red-shouldered hawk, you can see the zinnia plant, which is probably my favorite, because out of one plant, the flowers that come out, each flower is a different texture and a different color. It blows my mind. So there's just something to be seen all the time and if you appreciate nature, you know this is a great place to be.
Speaker 2:You can learn a lot from nature. Now, Vicki, when you're not busy running your business, what do you like to do for fun?
Speaker 3:Don't ask my kids and my son. He said describe me as an animal. And he said let me think what's all work and no play. I mean, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? That's pretty well described to me. But my husband and I have two aviation businesses and so you know we enjoy traveling around because we have the airplanes at our disposal. As a matter of fact, we're going to try and go to St Augustine this weekend. Just being around, I love my family. I enjoy seeing them, spending time with them. I would love to get out and exercise more, but walking around the garden every day I say, oh yeah, I've exercised, I walk around.
Speaker 2:Let's change gears a little bit. Life often does this curve ball. Let's talk about one hardship, one life challenge, something that you rose above and you can look back today and say you're better and stronger because of it. What comes to mind?
Speaker 3:The thing that comes to mind is being a single mom before I met my husband. You are not. God never intended us to be mom and dad, whether you're a female or male. You're not supposed to be two parents in one, and that was extremely difficult, and so it was an emotional roller coaster, but I chose to have my son, and but I thank. I thank God that I came through that, because out of that, I met someone who had been married before, who had children, who was never going to get married again, who said you know, lord, if I'm supposed to get married, give me someone like I've never had before, and let her have a child under the age of six.
Speaker 3:And my son was five, and so if you ask my son, you know who's your dad? He'll he'll. He'll say my husband is his dad, that's Poppy, and and he's taught me how to be a better mom. You know, because we're not given a manual, we're not given instruction on how to do that, and so for me personally too, it's also allowed me to be a mentor to several single moms, and so I'm proud that some of my single moms are now getting married or married. They're well in their careers, they've gone back to school and college and just being a help and a resource to them is very, very fulfilling to me, because the struggle is real and it is hard but it can be overcome if you have those people walking alongside you. And I'm happy I had probably four good female mentors, so I always laugh and say you could either love them or hate them for how I turned out, but I'm really, really grateful for the struggles that I went through because they were there to guide me as well.
Speaker 2:My father, who's no longer with us, says you don't become a good parent until you become a grandparent.
Speaker 3:I have no grandbabies. It's a weird thing of the four kids, no, they're just not there and I'm okay. So sometimes we do nursery at church because we can love them up and throw them back Give them right back.
Speaker 2:Well, the verdict ain't completely out yet, so you still got some time. Let's put you on the spot a little bit here. I know you have a lot to say about Heathcote Botanical Garden, but I want you to narrow it down to one thing, one thing that you want our listeners to remember when they think about Heathcote Botanical Gardens.
Speaker 3:Heathcote is a very special place. How it even came to be was very special because it was a retail nursery for 30 or 40 years before the folks who owned it sold it and the folks who petitioned to get the green space and keep it here in Fort Pierce created the non-profit. But we're not county funded, we're not city funded, we are self-funded. It's a beautiful place.
Speaker 3:My mission here the last few years is that trying to bring in all demographics of people into the gardens. And we know that there are a population of people here in St Lucie County who can't necessarily afford the expense to come to a garden. So we have a program called Gardens for All, community Access and it is helping them to be able to come in because they cannot. And people in general cannot appreciate the value of something until they know the value of it. They can't appreciate what's here until they understand the value. And that's my goal is to show them that if this green space goes away then it's not coming back, and that's with any green space. So we are surrounded by apartments and you know it's five acres. We have no ability to expand, but we also don't have the kind of funding that some of the other nonprofit botanical gardens do, and so I enjoy being here and bringing awareness and attention to what we have and hoping that others will come and see the beauty of this as well.
Speaker 2:I'm sure a lot of listeners are listening to you now and excited and would love to learn more about and visit Botanical Gardens, but they have one question on their mind, and that's how, how would they get more information?
Speaker 3:Well, there's always the website, but that's really kind of impersonal now, isn't it? Um, I would say, if you, if you could, um, the thing that I struggle with is um, I have a friend who moved from new jersey and she goes. Well, I live outside, I live over in pga. Why am I going to come to fort pierce? And I'm like girl, I said you live in new jersey, you went to new york, you went to pennsylvania, you could, could go to Delaware for dinner and you won't go to. You won't come over to Fort Pierce to go to the Botanical Gardens or go to one of the other places we have here.
Speaker 3:And so I would say, take the drive over. It's really very charming in downtown Fort Pierce. We're right off of downtown, so come in. You know our fees are relatively reasonable. They're twelve dollars for an adult, you know ten dollars for a senior. We have all kinds of events. We have one coming up in October called Garden Fest it's our 37th year of doing that and then we have the premier, largest holiday light display for six weeks in November and December, called Garden of Lights, where we have just under a million lights in the garden that are handcrafted by 27 illuminators and it's just a beautiful, beautiful presentation to walk at night and get that sense of community and get the sense of the holiday spirit. So there's just something to be had. So take the drive, take the drive. There's so much you could. You could make a whole afternoon out of it.
Speaker 2:I've been there personally. I enjoyed it. You want to share your address and maybe a phone number.
Speaker 3:Sure, the address is 210 Savannah Road and that is in Fort Pierce. So we're off of US 1, and we're kind of in between US 1 and Indian River Drive, and our telephone number is 772-464-4672.
Speaker 2:Well, Vicki, I really appreciate you being on the show. I wish you and your organization the very best moving forward.
Speaker 3:Oh well, thank you so much. We appreciate you taking the time to chat.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Port St Lucie. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpportsaintluciecom. That's gnpportsaintluciecom, or call 772-362-3840.