Photography by Claire Takacs.
The question was, Does it still exist?
Golden barrel cactus (Echinocactus grusonii) contrasts with giant weeping succulents Euphorbia ingens by the house.
An amalgam of two properties, the gardens around the Spanish hacienda-style house were extended in the 1940s by Madame Ganna Walska, a Polish opera singer with a colorful love life and a half dozen husbands.
Giant weeping succulents give the 1890s house a grand entrance, as conceived by opera singer turned gardener Ganna Walska.
In the Blue Garden, chunks of blue-green glass separate the pathway from blue fescue, Festuca glauca, beneath blue Atlas cedars.
Giant blue Agave x franzosinii stand guard at the entry to the Blue Garden, while Festuca glauca grasses provide a ground cover beneath Chilean wine palms.
Suspended Sedum morganianum (also known as donkey tail) hang like jellyfish from Lotusland’s cedar trees.
A collection of hundreds of cacti was acquired for the garden after Walska’s death.
The sea green pool betrays its origins as a swimming pool through its retro kidney shape. The Aloe Garden, admired for its arrangement of rare aloe species, is set around a former swimming pool.
The perfectly framed Water Garden. The ponds in the garden were already planted with Asian lotus, left over from Kinton Stevens, and the name sets the tone for the garden.
The Water Garden at Lotusland, with floating Asian lotus Nelumbo nucifera, national flower of India and Vietnam.
Claire Takacs’s book Dreamscapes: Inspiration and Beauty in Gardens Near and Far, published this month, is $31.45 from Amazon.