Great Topiary Gardens

Great Topiary Gardens

This article relates to Lawn Boy

Mike Muñoz might be a magician with a mower and a wizard with a weed whacker, but his real talent is topiary. If, like Mike, you thrill to see people, animals and mythical creatures carved from living trees and shrubs, here are a few great public topiary gardens to add to your itinerary.


Levens Hall, Cumbria, England
Regarded as perhaps the oldest topiary garden in the world, the layout and design of this country estate's 100-piece topiary garden has remained largely unchanged since it was originally planted in the late seventeenth century.

Montreal Botanical Garden, Montreal, Canada
Technically called "mosaiculture" rather than topiary, the botanical sculptures at the Montreal Botanical Garden consist of plants grown on two- and three-dimensional frames to create human and animal figures that are truly works of art.

Green Animals Topiary Garden, Portsmouth, Rhode Island
Children especially will enjoy the 80 figures of animals, birds, geometric shapes, and designs that compose this whimsical garden on a country estate near Newport. There's even a cuddly (looking) teddy bear!

Tulcán Municipal Cemetary, Tulcán, Ecuador
This cemetery in Ecuador boasts not only archways and geometric designs but also a truly astounding array of one-of-a-kind figures, animals, and fantastic creatures, many of which incorporate Incan symbols. Cemetery caretaker Josè Maria Azael Franco created this wondrous landscape back in the 1930s, and his descendants preserve the more than 100 figures today.

Topiary Park, Columbus, Ohio
Stop by this unique park in Ohio and you might feel like you've stepped into a painting – a very specific one! The 54 people, 8 boats, 3 dogs, 1 monkey, and 1 cat depicted in topiary form are inspired by the characters in Georges Seurat's pointillist masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

Filed under Music and the Arts

This "beyond the book article" relates to Lawn Boy. It originally ran in May 2018 and has been updated for the March 2019 paperback edition. Go to magazine.

This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access become a member today.