Welcome to Lotusland — Part 1

Prism and Zelda at Lotusland

Lotusland is the amazing 37-acre former estate of Ganna Walska, who was a Polish opera singer and socialite. Tucked into the hills of Montecito, Califot is not surprisingly considered among the top 10 botanical gardens in the world and recognized both for the diversity of its plant collections as well as for the its many garden landscape designs.

GANNA WALSKA

Born Hanna Puac, in Brest, Russian Empire (1887-1984), at the age of 19 years old Hanna attended a 

 royal ball​ in St. Petersburg, Russia where she chosen the most beautiful woman there. A few years later she eloped with a Russian baron, which was dissolved two years later.
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At the onset of her musical studies in Russia, she took the stage name of Madame Ganna Walska — madame being the customary title for married women, and well-known actresses and operatic singers in Europe; Ganna, a Ukranian form of Hanna; and Walska because her favorite dance was the waltz. In 1914, she moved to Paris to study singing. Two years later, she moved to New York to avoid WWI and it was during time that she learned to her former husband Baron d'Eingorn had died in battle.

She became a singer at the French Theatre, Century in NYC, and upon suffering a throat ailment, met he second husband, Dr. Joseph Fraenkel, the endocrinologist whom she consulted. They were married 10 days later! Her New York concert debut was held in 1918 where she shared the bill with famed tenor Enrico Caruso. In the hopes of securing future singing opportunities, she met with Harold McCormick, a key supporter of the Chicago Opera and whose family founded International Harvester. In 1920, Dr. Fraenkel died and three months later boarded the Aquitania where, enroute, she met Alexander Smith Cochran, the multi-millionaire tycoon and sole heir of a carpet manufacturing business. He proposed two days later and several times again until she accepted. 

​Meanwhile, Harold McCormick, who was in love with Ganna Walska, had received a divorce from his wife Edith Rockefeller, and traveled to Paris to ask her to leave Cochran. Though regretting her marriage to Cochran, she turned McCormick down ... until August 1922. They divorced in 1931.

In 1922, she bought Paris' Theatre des Champs Elysees, which she owned for more than 50 years. To help offset the costs of running her theatre, she created numerous fragrances and beauty products that she sold out of a boutique she opened. Her first fragrance was Divorcons (Let's Divorce). In 1929 she purchased a chateau outside of Versailles — Chateau de Gallius — where she began cultivating her first garden. 

In 1934 she was awarded the French Legion of Honor for her contributions to French culture. In 1938, she married an English inventor of an alleged death ray Harry Grindell Matthews until he died in 1941. When the Nazis occupied France that year, she moved permanently to the United States.

Around 1933, Ganna embarked on her search  for the "great purpose of her life. She was already a student of yoga, astrology, meditation, telepathy, numerology, Christian Science, and Rosicrucianism. 

Her studies in hypnotism and Indian philosophies let her to meet Theos Bernard, also a charismatic individual and yogi, who was one of the earliest and most famous proponents of hatha yoga in the West. Bernard became Ganna Walska's sixth and last husband (1942). They divorced in 1946.

LOTUSLAND

Ganna Walska purchased what has come to be known as Lotusland in 1941.  Previously the property was known as Cuesta Linda.  She and Theos Bernard renamed it Tibertland  and intended to serve as a retreat for Tibetan lamas.​ WWII scuttled their plans to bring lamas to America.

 After she and Bernard divorced, she renamed her estate Lotusland after the sacred plant that flourished there. She dedicated the next 40 years of her life to creating this magical botanical paradise.

Lotusland has 22 distinct gardens and more than 3,700 types of plants with at least 35,000 individual specimens. Her maximalist ethos, typified by profuse groupings of single specimens and the assemblage of massive varieties of plant family.

JAPANESE GARDEN

This beautiful 1-1/2 acre garden is the largest of the themed landscapes and was designed with balance and peace in mind.  It is flawlessly pruned by master gardeners and volunteers all trained in the artistic pruning techniques passed down by legendary Japanese gardeners.

 The main focal point is a reflecting pond that was originally created in the 1880s. It was originally used as a reservoir for the owner's nursery business. At he time Ganna Walska purchased the estate, it was already densely filled with Asian lotuses. Local stonemason Oswald de Ros and gardener Frank Fujii. The latter continued to be associated with this garden for the next 40 years. His design, reflect the Edo era-style of strolling garden, including the technique of shakkei, where the illusion of space is manipulated to capture a distant view and make it an integral part of the immediate landscape. Cedars, pines and other conifers reinforce an Eastern sensibility. Akebono cherry trees and Chinese fringe trees add  texture and color that evolves throughout the year, we are told.

An inveterate collector in all areas of lilfe — certainly husbands — Madame Walska amassed a collection of more than 30 Japanese stone lanterns (ishi-doro), which are placed artistically throughout the garden. A multi-year renovation now incorporates some of Walska and Fujii's original plans that were never fully executed.

THE WATER GARDEN

Originally designed in the 1920s for the Gavit family by George Washington Smith, as a bathhouse and rectangular swimming pool flanked by two waterlily ponds. By the time Ganna Walska purchased the property the pool had severe leaks. Instead of repairing it, she decided to fill in the pool with soil and gravel, bringin the water level to its current 3' depth and planted a wide variety of aquatic plants. 

PALMETUM

Throughout Lotusland is an immense collection of over 500 mature palms. An iconic feature in central and southern California, yet only one species, the California Fan Palm is native to the state. Near the Water Garden, the Palmetum has over 60 different types of palms. This is one of Lotusland's newest gardens and was designed by Eric Nagelmann and completed in 2017.

RESIDENCE LANDSCAPING

After purchasing Lotusland in 1941, Ganna Walska began working with landscape architect Lockwood de Forest and added cacti, succulents and euphorbia plantings to the beds in front of her residence. We are told that she had a special fascination with desert plants. 

Fun fact: Our guide tells us that Ganna Walska didn't live in the main house, but instead chose to live in the guest house; the main house was used to house her various collections.

​Across from Madame Walska's residence is Dracaena Circle, filled with the fantastical dragon tree, which is native to the Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, Madeira and a stand in western Morocco. ​These Blood-red sap trees, ooze when the bark is cut or bruised. A member of the asparagus family, it has a distinctive growth pattern that is quite wonderful. They typically grow for 10-15 years before flowering and then develop two or more branches where the flowering occurred.

FERN GARDEN

Disclaimer: I love fern forests ... it was one of the first experiences that captured my heart on my first visit to New Zealand in 2007. My partner, Montana Ranger Rick and I would seek them out and spend endless hours tramping through these towering prehistoric plants pretending we were on a pre-human adventure.

The first ferns at Lotusland, were first planted by the property's orginal owner Ralph Kinton Stevens, after an expedition to Hawaii in 1891 to bring back specimens for Golden Gate Park in San Francisco (and a few remained in Santa Barbara).

Unlike most plants, ferns don't flower or produce fruit, and like unrelated mushrooms, they produce spores on the underside of their fronds to propagate. The Fern Garden here was designed and created in 1969-72 by fern and bromeliad expert Bill Paylen.  Interspersed in the landscape of this garden are redwoods and oaks. We are told that Paylen added begonias to bring in a bit of subtle pink color. Though Madame Walska's wan't keen on the idea at first, pink was a favorite color and she agreed. The fern forest was doubled in size in 1987 — can't have a big enough fern forest! 

ORCHARDS AND PARTERRE

Stopping briefly in the Insectary Garden, we learn that this garden is one of the workhorses of Lotusland and a driving force behind its sustainable horticulture program. In fact, Lotusland is recognized as one of the first botanic gardens in the U.S. to use environmentally responsible gardening practices, and its Insectary Garden serves as a living laboratory teaching the importance of companion planing, attracting insects and pollinators. This garden was designed by Eric Nagelmann and Lotusland's former plant health coordinator Corey Welles.

Inheriting an established orchard upon purchasing Lotusland, Ganna Walska continued adding to it. Today around fruit trees grow including peach, plum, apple, pear, persimmon, fig, orange, lemon, lime, kumquat, grapefruit, and guava.

 A parterre are generally formal ornamental gardens on one level, arranged with multiple axes and extended crisscrossing paths that lead the eye to distant viewing points. 

The Parterre and Rose Garden at Lotusland was designed for the Gavit family in the 1920s. Here there are Spanish, Italian, Moorish and Islamic influences, and unlike many of the other gardens at Lotusland with a diversity and abundance of varied plantings, this area showcases an abundance of fragrant roses that bloom for almost 10 months a year. Known to be finicky, the roses are sprayed with an organic compost tea made on at Lotusland to provide a film of beneficial living organisms that both suppress disease and provide a source of nutrients. Additionally, we learn that regular organic additives to the soil — alfalfa, fish and kelp mixtures — provide more nutrients that keep the roses healthy, create their signature blossoms and frangrances.

Low clipped shrubs flank brick walkways and stone mosaic border embelllishments while tall Eugenia and Pittosporum hedges are used to provide architectural structure to the garden.

DUNLAP CACTUS GARDEN

Disclaimer: Besides fern forests, I also love cactus and have several different species in my gardens.

Our guide leads us to the Dunlap Cactus Garden and tells us an amazing story of how this cactus garden came into being in 2003. Though nearly two decades after Madame Walska's passing, it is considered her final opus.

The story begins in 1966 with inveterate collector Merritt Dunlap of San Diego County (CA) sending Madame Walska a letter  stating he wished to bequeath his cactus collection to Lotusland. At that time, he had been amassing his collection over 37 years. In 1999 — 15 years after Ganna Walska's passing — Dunlap changed his bequest to a donation. Semi-truckload after truckload of cactus were moved to Lotusland in 2001. Meanwhile, landscape architect Eric Nagelmann was hired to spearhead the garden's design, orientation and layout to mirror that of Dunlap's.

The Dunlap Cactus Garden is designed around a geographical theme. Most all of the cactus species originate in the Americas, except for one western Africa species. One of my favorites is Creeping Devil with its snake-like, spiny prostrate form.

THEATRE GARDEN

Crossing the Great Lawn, we walk through the Theatre Garden, which was designed by Ralph Stevens. It is a three-tiered, amphitheater-styled garden that combines Madame Walska's love of the stage and gardening. With seating to accommodate 100 guests, this garden was and continues to be one that hosts musical performances. Beyond the vegetation that gives the Theatre Garden its structure, the most prominent feature are an assortment of miniature limestone grotesque statuary in the style of commedia dell'arte. Several of which were rescued from her chateau in France when she fled during WWII.  Sorry ... I didn't take any photos of this garden.

LOWER BROMELIAD GARDEN

Bromeliads are so prolific that the garden began outside Madame Walska's bedroom (Upper Bromeliad Garden). The outsets were planted across the Great Lawn in what is referred to as the Lower Bromeliad Garden.

CYCAD GARDEN

Sometimes the Jurassic period is referred to as the "Age of Cycads." Sadly, these wonderful and unusual cone-bearing plants are one of the most threatened plant groups on the planet due to over-collecting, deforestation, agricultural clearing, and urban sprawl. 

This garden was designed by Charles Glass, a renowned plantsman, who told Madame Walska, "This will be one of the greatest achievements of our lives." Glass was not exaggerating ... our guide tells us that Lotusland includes five species that are believed to be extinct in the wild, and this collection is considered one of the most complete in any American public garden with over 450 specimens and almost half of the known species!

Tropical Garden

Our final garden on this tour was the Tropical Garden which was created in the late 1970s as Madame Walska's extensive collection of orchid cacti were moved to this location. Subsequently, her gardeners planted tropical species around. As the heat of the day descends upon us, this is a cooling way to end our tour at Lotusland.

END NOTES

As I've become more invested in designing and curating my personal gardens, which are mainly planted in succulents and cacti, I've appreciated this tour more so than past visits. On leaving through the gift shop, I purchased a bromeliad (Neoregelia chlorosticta) and a small cactus, which I need to identify, to broaden my plant collection. I've also become a member of Lotusland to support their beautiful and important mission.

I also want to acknowledge the outstanding app Lotusland created where much of this text is sourced from.

It is my sincere hope that everyone who finds their way to this blog post creates the opportunity to visit Lotusland!