SCBG's Topiary Menagerie

Yesterday, I paid a visit to South Coast Botanic Garden, approximately 6 miles from my home.  My principal purpose was to look in on this year's tropical butterfly exhibit.  I'll provide a run-down of that later this week.  This post focuses on the garden's new topiary exhibit, which opened on May 1st and will remain in place through July 31st.  Arriving about an hour before my time-scheduled entry to the butterfly exhibit, I set off to discover as many of the animal topiaries as I could.

This sign in the palm circle near the garden's entrance announced the topiary exhibit

A selfie station was set up nearby.  These things seem to have become commonplace at public events now.

Based on the description of the exhibit I'd scanned prior to my arrival, I knew there were some 100 topiaries, 70 of which were flamingos.  I also knew that the flamingos were situated on the Amphitheater lawn so I headed in that direction.

The flamingos, viewed from a scenic overlook in the rose garden

Each flamingo is planted with 72-108 wax begonias.  This particular collection is on loan to SCBG from the Franklin Park Conservatory in Ohio and will be returned to that organization at the end of the exhibit's run.

Another view, alongside a sign with basic facts about this group.  The exhibit took its name from the term used to describe a group of flamingos, a flamboyance.

According to the sign, an American flamingo weighs 4-8 pounds, while each topiary weighs 66 pounds

This flamingo had a name tag, which perplexed me until I later learned that visitors may name a flamingo by making a $5000 donation to the garden

I hadn't a clue where to find the other topiaries or even what kind of animals were featured.  If I'd read the description of the exhibit more closely beforehand I would have at least had the latter information.  But a little mystery increases the challenge!  I was beginning to think I wasn't going to find any of the remaining topiaries and was headed back in the direction of the butterfly pavilion when I stumbled on another group, and then a couple more.

This pod of dolphins was planted with succulents

I soon discovered that, other than the flamingos, all the other topiaries were planted with succulents

I came upon the pack of dogs next.

Visitors can also make a $5000 donation to name a dog

Unlike the other groups, the dogs had more individual characters

With 10 minutes to spare before I was due to check in at the butterfly pavilion, I walked over to the promenade and discovered the fluffle of rabbits.

There were 2 groups of rabbits, one on either side of the promenade

Each rabbit is planted with 320-384 succulents

As the sign below described, the average wild rabbit weighs 2-3 pounds but each of these topiary rabbits weigh 42 pounds

In the SOAR (butterfly) exhibit, I discovered another topiary.

This frog was all on its own as far as I could tell

I had an appointment to make, so I didn't have time for any additional searches after I left the SOAR exhibit but, as I was walking toward the exit, I realized that I'd completely missed the troop of monkeys on the back side of the palm circle planter.

In a hurry, I didn't frame my shot well, and lost the top of one monkey's head in the group photo on the left

Upon reading the description of the topiary exhibit in full later at home, I understand that there's just one group I missed, the swarm of butterflies.  I'll be back for the spring plant sale the garden has scheduled for May 14-15 so perhaps I'll find that then. 

After reading the descriptions that accompanied the garden's topiaries, I've new respect for the effort involved in creating them.  I've only tried my hand at it once and the process exhausted my patience.  Maybe I should have given it more time.

A friend gave me a topiary frame of a cat years ago and stuck a couple succulents in it, leaving it to me to do the rest.  I didn't get around to that until February 2021 and this is where I left off.

All material © 2012-2022by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party