The Green Animals Topiary Garden is in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and it contains an extraordinary collection of topiaries, marvelous living sculptures. The art of topiary and formal gardening had its heyday in a bygone time but it's lovely to see it preserved here.
The estate on which the garden was developed was purchased in 1872 by Thomas Brayton. It has been meticulously maintained ever since, first by Mr Brayton and Joseph Carreiro, his horticultural superintendent. After Mr Brayton died in 1939, the garden was maintained by his daughter Alice with the assistance of Mr Carreiro's son-in-law, George Mendonca. It is now maintained by the Preservation Society of Newport County.
Perhaps Don Quixote typifies the thinking in making a topiary garden but why not. Impossible dreams are the finest kind. There's nothing quite so disappointing as achieving your dreams as then you know you didn't dream big enough.
The estate on which the garden was developed was purchased in 1872 by Thomas Brayton. It has been meticulously maintained ever since, first by Mr Brayton and Joseph Carreiro, his horticultural superintendent. After Mr Brayton died in 1939, the garden was maintained by his daughter Alice with the assistance of Mr Carreiro's son-in-law, George Mendonca. It is now maintained by the Preservation Society of Newport County.
Perhaps Don Quixote typifies the thinking in making a topiary garden but why not. Impossible dreams are the finest kind. There's nothing quite so disappointing as achieving your dreams as then you know you didn't dream big enough.
Yah, yah, one hump or two. I get it!
This is a lovely garden and even in a low point in the season there is still color everywhere ... and an elephant!
This is not the lowest point in the season as there would then be a foot or two of snow on the ground.
Perhaps because it is so close to the ocean, Rhode Island doesn't get as cold as the Midwest but it gets plenty of snow and sometimes a hurricane.
Can you imagine how long it must have taken to train the shrub to take this shape! The giraffe stands at least ten feet tall and it must have taken phenomenal patience to develop it.
This is somewhat similar to the building of sand castles in that the artist knows full-well that the tide will wash away the castle and the gardener knows equally well that the plant will ultimately die.
It's a form of music in that every musician knows that each note, once played, is lost to everything but memory until it is played again. So too is the creation of sand castles or topiaries.
That just might be a unicorn over there!
Yep, it's a unicorn, alright!
Perhaps the whimsical nature of topiary is the most charming thing about it.
One can only imagine how long it must have taken to grow these things as there is no trick. There is nothing inside them to rig the growth. Only incredible patience can create these 'sculptures.'
Hopefully you like whimsy and here is some more:
Of course there is a teddy bear!
And how much of a teddy bear was in the mind of the gardener, Joseph Carreiro, who created all this.
To set it all off with a place of reflection, a water lily pond.
The Preservation Society of Newport County
424 Bellevue Avenue
Newport, Rhode Island 02840
Telephone: (401) 847-1000
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