Jensen family descendants dedicate a memorial bench in the Jensen Botanical Garden. The founders’ grandchildren include Stephen Terry (standing, left), Barbara Bartell, Dan Terry, Maureen Buckley and Georgia Langford. Seated are granddaughters Emily Elliott (left) and Shirley DicKard. Photo by Susan Maxwell Skinner

CARMICHAEL, CA (MPG) - Descendants last week gathered in gardens planted by Carmichael old-timers Charles and Marguerite Jensen.

A plaque, a bench and new plantings were dedicated. More than 50 guests represented civic and volunteer agencies. As temperatures rose, the couple’s leafy canopy blessed the gathering with shade.

The Fair Oaks Boulevard Garden is a beloved destination. During the founder's lives, the Jensens’ glade drew tourists from throughout California. Charles and Marguerite Jensen festooned their drive with “visitors welcome” signs; they exhibited blooms at State Fairs and dispatched flowers to the White House, receiving gracious thanks from First Lady Pat Nixon.

Today, the park hosts up to 4,000 visitors a year.

“Our memorial validates grandpa and grandmas’ vision,” said granddaughter, Shirley DicKard. “They’d be thrilled that people still enjoy what they created.”

A plaque, a bench and new tree plantings honor garden founders Charles and Marguerite Jensen. Photo by Susan Maxwell Skinner

In 1955, Charles and Marguerite Jensen moved from Oakland to Carmichael. Their three children had settled here and had children.

Over ensuing decades, the green-thumbers planted thousands of flowering trees and bushes.  As Carmichael grew, so did their redwoods, dogwoods, rhododendron and camellias.

Now known as Charles C. Jensen Botanical Garden, the pocket is administered by Carmichael Park District and maintained by Friends of Jensen Botanical Garden volunteers. When flowerbeds explode with spring color, the masses descend with cameras. Graduates and brides pose. Famed tulip beds appear in countless family albums.

Jensen descendants have their own recollections, such as 1950s Easter egg hunts.

“What eggs we didn’t find, we usually encountered mowing grass the next day,” said granddaughter, Georgia Langford. “Grandma and grandpa put us to work when we visited. Mowing that vast lawn was hard going in summer.”

Years of backbreaking work shaped the Jensen vista. At first, retired produce buyer Charles Jensen and his wife roughed it in a tent.

“Grandma had been a missionary in Guatemala,” said grandson, Dan Terry. “She had a machete and she’d slash through blackberry bushes and poison oak. We formed family work parties to help.”

The cousins remember Grandpa Charles on his porch, hand-feeding squirrels.

“He knew them all by name," Terry said. "We fished in Folsom Lake and brought back live perch and catfish to stock the pond that grandpa diverted from Skunk Creek.”

Offspring recall grandma face-down on the wooden bridge.

"She’d call ‘here, kitty, kitty' as fish swam up to eat crumbs from her fingers," said granddaughter, Emily Elliott.

Charles Jensen hosted countless free tours.

“Grandpa's garden was a gift he shared from the love in his heart,” DicKard said. 

Charles and Marguerite Jensen came to Carmichael from the Bay Area in the 1950s. Their legacy is a verdant reserve, now part of Sutter-Jensen Community Park. Photo courtesy Jensen Family Archive

An organic believer before his time, Jensen fought aphids with hose blasts. He planted azalea in varying degrees of shade to extend blooming and dispersed white-flowering plants to highlight colored specimens.

Predeceased by his wife, Charles Jensen died in 1974. The verdant property was saved from subdivision by public subscriptions to a “Jensen Botanical Garden Corporation.” Carmichael Recreation and Park District later took over stewardship and the reserve was recently combined with adjacent Sutter Community Garden to form Sutter-Jensen Community Park.

 Skunk Creek is now called Carmichael Creek. Fair Oaks Boulevard is a roaring thoroughfare and the Jensen grandchildren are now septuagenarian grandparents themselves. Charles and Marguerite’s retreat remains a community gem.

“Their garden is a place for celebrations, reflection and solitude,” DicKard said. “That’s what Charles and Marguerite valued in their own lives. We're grateful Carmichael Park District allowed us to create a lasting memorial to them.”

The Charles and Marguerite Jensen memorial is located on what was once their lower lawn. Anyone may visit the garden at 8520 Fair Oaks Boulevard.