A Topiary Safari

An English garden takes a walk on the wild side.

Garden designer Dawn Imlach has always wanted her gardens to be one of the most popular attractions at Paulton's Park, a theme park located in Hampshire on England's southern coast. She longed for the children to appreciate the color, shape and power of plants. But in a popular family theme park, it's hard to compete with the roller coaster and Ferris wheel.

She brainstormed about how to get her plants more attention and came up with an idea: create an oversized snake out of plants, inspired by the popular board game, Snakes and Ladders (or Chutes and Ladders). It seemed perfect for park-goers, since they seem to crave a little fear and excitement with their fun. The idea was accepted and Dawn's new Snakes and Ladders garden featured a 32-foot snake made out of 5600 plants.



"The Snakes and Ladders garden proved very popular right from the start. The success of this led to the idea of having an animal topiary," Dawn explains. And Dawn didn't want just any topiary. She wanted the animals to be as close to life-sized as possible for a zoo-like effect. But how was she to get life-sized animal-shaped topiary? She called on a local nursery who connected her with a garden artist in Italy named Luigi Drosini, who designed the topiaries.

The topiaries, which were grown in Italy, arrived on a large truck about four months later. There were three animals in total: an elephant, a giraffe and a crocodile. Each was made of Privet, or Ligustrum Jonandrum -- a hardy evergreen plant used in topiary sculpting -- that was 5 to 20 years old. The plant is a hardy one; it can often survive year round in well-drained soil. In harsh winters, it can yellow slightly and lose a few leaves, but quickly grow back as temperatures rise. Weekly trimming helps maintain growth. Dawn recalls that the truck driver "felt quite the celebrity, with many people stopping in their tracks to stare at our new attractions."



A large barren area of the park where trees had been removed was the perfect location for this "living" safari, now called "Jungle Falls." Herding the zoo animals into place was no easy task. Each gigantic pot weighed over a ton. From the truck, each animal was lifted by an all-terrain forklift. The elephant is about 6' high by over 9' wide. The giraffe is about 9' tall and the crocodile stretches to just about 8.5' in length. "We needed to take great care as the topiary animals weighed almost as much as the real ones...when they were at last in there resting place, I felt it was quite an achievement," says Dawn.


Once in place, Dawn realized that these animals were "alive" and needed to "eat," so she came up with a theatrical design that includes a waterfall that flows into a winding stream lined with pebbles. "It flows down through the colorful exotics and ends at the crocodiles watering hole where he waits for his next child victim," she joyfully explains. This stream leads to a boardwalk walkway over the stream for photo opps with each animal. Dawn says she hopes to add a misting spray and animal noises to complete the experience. They hope to begin work on a new section of the garden next year with a picnic area and more animals -- bears and rhinos, maybe?

I'm sure that whatever animals they decide on, they're sure to be a hit. Says Dawn: "I am quite proud to say that the gardens have never been this popular with the children, which has been my goal all along."

For a look at another unique garden idea, check out our story on Whiskey Barrel Gardening.