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Saluting the late Frederic Heutte, founder of the Norfolk Botanical Garden, his friends recalled Friday that in his reign of three decades he became known as King Gardener.

The area's 48 Garden Clubs gave him that title. To them he was a kind of King Midas of the golden touch, with a slight difference. Everything touched by Heutte's green thumb turned to beauty.

Former U.S. Rep. G. William Whitehurst presided at the program in the Fred Heutte Center in the restored ferry terminal in Norfolk's Ghent Square.

It celebrated the 100th anniversary of Heutte's birth in France.

Whitehurst noted that Heutte "achieved harmony with nature and an urban center. He inspired thousands to make horticulture a part of their lives."

Norfolk Vice Mayor Mason Andrews read a proclamation lauding Heutte for his "passion for teaching others about the wonder of gardening and dedicated his life to sharing the beauty of nature."

The center's president, Sally Simon, announced that Anne Gross, Susan Coe and Kathryn Whitlock, the family of the late Edward E. Gross, had dedicated the memorial fund in his name to an Heirloom Garden with "many cherished herb, vegetable, and flowering plants of bygone days."

Rear Adm. Richard Rumble, former commandant of the Norfolk Naval Base, noted when he asked Heutte for advice during a civic luncheon, Heutte responded with frequent tours of the base and detailed plans for cleaning and beautifying it.

As a child in Paris, Heutte knocked a pot of geraniums off the balcony of his mother's apartment. Replanting them, he discovered gardening.

When he was 12, the family moved to Summit, N.J. He answered an ad by a florist shop for a boy who could speak French and then branched into gardening for private estates.

In 1917 in the Army, guarding the Canal Zone in Panama, Heutte planted it with hisbiscus. The commander, a garden fancier, designated him the company gardener.

While he was head gardener at I.R. Kirkwood's estate in the Adirondacks, President Calvin Coolidge's summer home, Heutte met and married Florence Alford, an Irish girl who was a traveling companion for Mrs. Kirkwood.

Armed with a reference from Coolidge, Heutte was working in Charlottesville for the wife of a University of Virginia professor, William White. A Royster of Norfolk, she introduced him to City Manager Thomas L. Thompson.

In the mornings in 1936, Thompson and Heutte drove around Norfolk, discussing prospects as if the city were one big garden - which was Heutte's goal.

Thompson wrung funds from the Works Progress Administration. Heutte hired 200 black women, jobless farm hands, and set them to shaping the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

The WPA failed to supply funds for seeds or plants but Wirt Winn came through with 4,000 azaleas. There are now 100,000 azaleas, 3,000 roses, 700 camellias.

In 1937, Heutte knocked on doors along Ballentine Boulevard inviting homeowners to join in planting a milelong parade of crape myrtles, demonstrating how individuals could beautify streets.

It spread citywide. Every July, Norfolk sidewalks sprout great pink, white and purple plumes.

When City Hall moved to prune the parks budget after World War II, Heutte offered to resign. Garden Clubs besieged City Council. Its members saw their friends and kin in the mob. City Hall retreated.

Heutte was unconcerned about his own pay. When he retired in 1966, his salary had not quite reached $10,000.

The Heutte Center, completed in 1980, was proposed by Eleanor Capin after Councilwoman Betty Howell informed her that the City Council wished to honor him.

The center was sponsored by the garden clubs with Henry Clay Hofheimer as its founding chairman.

"Were it not for the garden clubs in Norfolk," Heutte once said, "the beauty of Norfolk would not be here today. They were the sponsors, they were the needlers."

Caption: The late Frederic Heutte, born in France, founded the Norfolk Botanical Garden and worked hard for its success. He would have been 100 years old on Friday.

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