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Telling time and taming wild creature takes on a whole raw meaning in the capricious Topiary Garden at Lotusland , located on a large acres in Santa Barbara , Calif.
An overhead view of the floral clock . A brick walk gird the clock and continues to a restored marble jet , where a low boxwood maze flanks the path . exposure by : Bill Dewey .
The topiary fantasyland dates back to 1955 , when Madame Ganna Walska , the owner of the estate at the sentence , hired landscape painting architect Ralph Stevens to create the 25 - foot - diam flowered clock that serves as the centerpiece of the garden .
Up until the last few year of her life , Madame Ganna Walska was the “ nous gardener ” of Lotusland . She died in 1984 , leaving her garden and her entire estate to the Ganna Walska Lotusland Foundation , to ensure that her legacy would remain in her garden .
Madame Walska then began populate her garden with a zoo of topiary fauna , birds and reptiles she acquired from the Osaki Plant Zoo in Los Angeles . To mingle among them , she tot up giant topiary cheat pieces and other geometrical anatomy . Her quirky topiary “ zoological garden ” vividly expressed her fascination with the complicated relationship between humanity , plant and animals .
A fabulous genus Hippocampus ( half horse , half sea lusus naturae ) gallop in place among an variety of geometric topiary and chess pieces forever locked on their square . Photo by : Barlow .
Built in 1882 , Lotusland is one of the few remaining examples of expectant American estates construct in Santa Barbara during the Golden Age . Madame Walska named the belongings in honor of the sacred Indian Nymphaea lotus growing in one of the pond on the holding . Over the class , many of the original topiary shapes she acquired lose their definition or failed to thrive . In 2000 , the declining Topiary Garden was completely renovated to replicate the original human body . Today , Lotusland ’s garden clock and topiary epitomize the outstanding features incorporated into American garden landed estate during the first half of the twentieth century . Recently , Lotusland receive a $ 1 million giving from an anonymous donor for the purposes of creating an endowment monetary fund to suffer the historic topiary garden in sempiternity .
At the time it was create , the working topiary clock at Ganna Walska Lotusland was the largest in the world . Each hour on the face of the 25 - pes - dimater clock is signified by a zodiac sign created with low - grow succulent and colored Stone .
Guided duty tour of Lotusland are useable to the public from mid - February through mid - November . Because Lotusland is a public garden operating in a secret residential neighborhood , reservations are require . “ It ’s well-fixed to visit if you project onwards , ” say Bob Craig , Lotusland ’s music director of selling and communicating . “ We also take 5,000 pupil each year , so every fourth grader in Santa Barbara County gets to see the garden . The energy of the kids in the garden is wonderful . ”
All the topiary are contained in beds neatly edged with broken hedge of Eugenia .
For more information on scheduling a go , visitwww.lotusland.org .
