Ganna Walska Lotusland 1

Together with the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Lotusland has been at the top of my must-see list for many years. Needless to say it was the destination I was looking forward to the most on our recent trip to Santa Barbara.

Entrance on Cold Springs Rd

Ganna Walska Lotusland, as it is officially called, is located in Montecito, a few miles south of Santa Barbara. The 37-acre property was purchased by former opera diva and wealthy socialite Madame Ganna Walska in 1941 for $40,000. She originally named it Tibetland with the intention of creating a retreat for Tibetan priests. The priests never came—they were unable to travel to the U.S. because of World War II—and Ganna Walska’s marriage to her 6th husband soon fell apart. Turning her back on men for good, she decided to invest all her energy and her considerable fortune—the spoils of several very lucrative divorces—into creating a botanical wonderland unlike anything that had ever been done before.

Entrance on Cold Springs Rd

Madame Walska loved plants—the more unusual, rare and exotic, the better—but she wasn’t interested in the scientific aspects of botany or horticulture. She left all that to a succession of very talented and dedicated gardeners, garden designers and landscape architects. Instead, Walska used plants the way a painter uses a brush: to bring her artistic vision to life. It is said that she ordered plants she liked by the dozen. Why have one or five or ten specimens of a cactus when you can have a hundred? What may have seemed excessive at the time fortunately turned out to be a stroke of genius. Without Madame Walska’s love of excess, Lotusland wouldn’t be the magnificent botanical paradise it is today.

Giant agave near entrance

Today, Lotusland is more than just a botanical garden. It is a collection of gardens, as many as 18 different ones, depending on how you count them. The gamut runs from cactus and succulent gardens to a cycad and fern garden, from a bromeliad and water garden to a topiary and theater garden, from a blue garden to a Japanese garden. The gardens are connected by paths shaded by majestic trees ranging from eucalyptus and palm trees to live oak and Monterey cypress. Tucked away in the myriad garden beds are hundreds upon hundreds of garden ornaments: statues of animals, humans, cherubs, and mythological creatures; decorative urns, vases, and other pots; even a baptismal fount from the late Middle Ages.

The overall effect is like walking through a dream. This is not a place borne of scientific inquiry, like a botanical garden affiliated with a university or research institution, but the idiosyncratic playground of an eccentric individual with unlimited imagination. And through sheer luck, it has been kept for people like me to see.

I couldn’t help but think what would have happened if Ganna Walska had had children. It’s very likely they would have carved up Lotusland and sold it off, to be turned into yet more exclusive estates for Hollywood zillionaires. Fortunately for all of us, none of Ganna Walska’s six marriages produced kids, and she was wise enough to establish—and fully fund—a foundation that would preserve her legacy in perpetuity.

Ganna Walska had a long and tumultuous life (she died in 1984 at age 96). She came from humble beginnings in Poland, married well and divorced even better. Her ambition to become an opera singer far exceeded her talent but she pursued that dream just as doggedly as she pursued her dream of turning Lotusland into a world-class botanical collection. Her autobiography, Always Room at the Top, was published in 1943 when Lotusland was still in its infancy. Unfortunately, no other books have been written about her (her life would make a great movie) but here are two interesting articles:

• “Enemy of the Average,” New York Times, 4/14/2002
• “The Many Husbands of Ganna Walska,” LuxEcoLiving, 4/17/2012

Ganna Walska Lotusland is located a residential area in the exclusive enclave of Montecito. Since only a limited number of visitors are allowed per day to comply with city regulations, advance reservations are a must. For complete details, visit the Lotusland website.

Prior to our visit I became a Lotusland member so I would be able to walk around on my own. Regular visitors are confined to a docent-led tour. In fact, we did both: In the morning the whole family did a docent-led tour, and I went back on my own in the afternoon. The individual admission charges we would have paid equaled the price of a one-year family membership, so we broken even—and now we get to go back to Lotus as many times as we want until the end of April 2014.

I should mention that my mother was in a wheelchair since she had injured her knee just prior to our visit. Lotusland was so accommodating, they gave the five of us our very own docent who, in turn, customized the tour to what we wanted to see the most. The docent (unfortunately I forgot her name) was extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic and made our visit even more special. As we were walking through Lotusland, we encountered several other docent-led groups, and they were all small (no more than seven people, I would say).

VISITOR CENTER/AUSTRALIAN GARDEN

Like everybody else, we began our tour of Lotusland at the Visitor Center. This small building has the same color and Mediterranean Revival style as the main house, which you will see in part 2. The Visitor Center is actually just a small gift shop, a plant sale area and a set of restrooms.

It is surrounded by the Australian Garden, created after Ganna Walska’s death but very much in line with what she would have chosen. It encompasses a range of Australian natives, not only the more familiar grevilleas and banksias but also rare cycads and grass trees.

Visitor Center/Gift Shop with Australian plantings

Lepidozamia peroffskyana, a cycad endemic to eastern Australia

Australian grass trees (Xanthorrhoea quadrangulata), majestic but very slow growing

Xanthorrhoea quadrangulata in front of Visitor Center

 

Xanthorrhoea quadrangulata in front of Visitor Center

Grevillea at Visitor Center

Sale plants at Visitor Center

Sale plants at Visitor Center

 

Sale plants at Visitor Center

Tea tree arbor

Spear lily (Doryanthes palmeri)

Spear lily flower (Doryanthes palmeri)

Behind the Australian Garden is a relatively wide road that starts at the original entrance to the estate and ends at the main house. The first stretch is lined on both sides with hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Agave attenuata underplanted with Sedum pachyphyllum (in bloom at the time of our visit). I had never seen so many Agave attenuata in my life!

Agave attenuata-lined road at the original entrance to the estate

Agave attenuata-lined road at the original entrance to the estate

Agave attenuata-lined road at the original entrance to the estate

Agave attenuata and Sedum pachyphyllum

Agave attenuata with flower spike

Agave attenuata with flower spike

Looking back towards Agave attenuata-lined road

TROPICAL GARDEN

The next garden we visited was the Tropical Garden. This area is completely shaded by eucalyptus and other trees. Its most outstanding feature are baskets of orchid cactus (Epiphyllum sp.) suspended from the trees. This was something else I had never seen before. The Tropical Garden also contains many specimens of ornamental ginger, masses of Clivia miniata (like Agave attenuata a Santa Barbara staple, it seems) and a few beautiful banana trees.

Trunked Agave attenuata in Tropical Garden

Trunked Agave attenuata in Tropical Garden

Fused eucalyptus trees in Tropical Garden

Eucalyptus trees in Tropical Garden

Hanging orchid cacti (Epiphyllum) in Tropical Garden

Hanging orchid cacti (Epiphyllum) in Tropical Garden

Hanging orchid cacti (Epiphyllum) in Tropical Garden

Hanging orchid cacti (Epiphyllum) in Tropical Garden; Monstera deliciosa in the foregound

 

Hanging orchid cacti (Epiphyllum) in Tropical Garden

 

Bananas in Tropical Garden

 

Bananas in Tropical Garden

Bananas in Tropical Garden

Staghorn fern in Tropical Garden, with Clivia miniata peeking around the tree trunk

Tiger grass (Thysanolaena maxima); it looks like a bamboo but it’s not

JAPANESE GARDEN

While much smaller than the Portland Japanese Garden or Hakone Gardens, the Japanese Garden at Lotus is maintained just as meticulously. The muted palette of the plantings is very much in line with what is typical for a Japanese garden and shows the restraint that is appropriate for such a setting. This is quite remarkable in and of itself because Ganna Walska was not big on restraining herself. The only nod to her penchant for excess are the many stone lanterns—far more than you would expect to find in a Japanese garden this size.

 

Bamboos along the edge of the Japanese Garden

Crane statues in pond

The clump of sago palms (Cycas revoluata) adds a tropical touch not often seen in a Japanese garden

View of sago palms from a different angle

Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) and Buddhist pine (Podocarpus macrophylla)

 

Colorful Japanese maples along the pond

 

Stone lanterns in the Japanese garden

Rustic lantern sheltered by a lace-leaf Japanese maple

Shinto shrine added in 1990, six years after Ganna Walska’s death

Traditional stone lantern

Traditional stone lantern and Cycas revoluta

Sitting Buddha surrounded by a stunning Japanese maple and a blooming camellia

Yet another stone lantern…

…and another one

Variegated juniper (Juniperus cv., left) and holly olive (Osmanthus heterophylla ‘Argenteo-marginatus’, right)

Part 2 of my Lotusland coverage features the Blue Garden, the Cycad Garden, the Fern Garden and the Bromeliad Garden.

Part 3 takes you to the Aloe Garden.

Part 4 covers the Water Garden, the cacti and euphorbia plantings along the road to the main house and the main house itself.

Part 5 wraps things up with a tour of the Cactus Garden.

RELATED LINKS:

• Index: April 2013 trip to Santa Barbara, CA
• Interactive garden map on Lotusland.org