I'm a lucky girl to live in Santa Barbara, I know.
In our small town that's painted pastel pink and turquoise blue and lemony yellow, the sun shines almost all the time and the air smells jasmine-flower sweet and also sea salty. You can hear the ocean rumble and breezes rustle in the fronds of palms.
All year long we surf and skate. Sunset picnics in the park in January, suntan sessions at the shore in February, bottled beers on the beach in March.
We're famous for our clear coastline water, Spanish-style architecture, and beautiful people. On the weekends, it's no wonder that Santa Barbara is flooded with visitors from our San Francisco neighbors to the north and our Los Angeles friends to the south. On Saturdays and Sundays, always, coffee shops crowded with long lines, busy bar tops in the Funk Zone, and shorelines packed tight with beach blankets and folding chairs and rainbow umbrellas.
There's no shortage of things to do here, especially when the weather is nice (which, let's be honest, is always). Hiking and swimming and sailing. Posting-up at busy seafood joints serving fresh local lobsters and bubbly cold Mexican beer is a favorite pastime, and so, too, are pool parties and park barbecues.
But if you're looking to escape the crowds and enjoy a day in Santa Barbara that's a little bit more exclusive and a lot more special, next time you're in town, or if you're a local and you have a day off, make some time for a two hour guided tour of Lotusland Botanic Gardens.(Reservations for a docent-led tour of the gardens are required for entry, unless you become a member, in which case you are allowed to make a reservation to tour the gardens independently.)
I will be fair and warn you that admission to the gardens isn't cheap. The price of just one adult ticket will run you a whopping $48. But I promise, the cost is well worth it and you won't regret spending the money, or the afternoon, at Lotusland.
Located deep in Montecito, California, Lotusland is a non-profit botanical garden at the historic estate of Madame Ganna Walska, a well-known Polish opera singer and socialite who purchased the property in 1941. She would spend the next 43 years of her life creating, designing and caring for the Lotusland gardens and after her death in 1984, Lotusland was turned over to the Ganna Walska Lotusland Foundation, which opened the garden to the public in 1993. Today, the spectacular collections of exotic plants featured in more than 20 unique gardens throughout the 37-acre property is recognized as one of the ten best gardens in the world.
Up until a few weeks ago, I had never been to the gardens, but, I myself grew up the daughter of an ambitious orchid, cactus and succulent gardener and so I had always been so eager to visit.
Tim and I toured Lotusland on a the first clear day in Santa Barbara after a week of heavy rains. I had been nervous the whole day before our visit that perhaps it might be too wet and cold and that we might have to postpone our tour to some indeterminable day in the future, if we were even able to coordinate our days off again. But, on the Saturday morning of our reservations, blue and sun sifted through thinning clouds that dissolved in the heat. The rains had left the gardens looking refreshed, dewy, sparkly and dreamy.
Because of so many cancellations in anticipation of another rainy day, Tim and I enjoyed a practically private tour, save for an International student from U.C. Santa Cruz named Luke who trailed quietly behind us with his Cannon camera.
Our lovely docent, Barbara, was a great guide. All the while pointing out fresh buds and new blooms, she provided us with lots of rich historical and horticultural information and also sprinkled in some spicy stories and gossip about Madame Walska. While the flower enthusiast in me was thrilled to see such an extensive and extravagant garden, the stories are what made the tour so interesting. Barbara painted a verbal portrait of Madame Walska as this extraordinary woman with immense talents and taste. She was a little wacky and wildly enthusiastic about the theater and the arts and music and travel. She was at one time a very successful opera singer in Paris and New York. However, throughout her tumultuous operatic career, it was not her voice that attracted attention and notoriety, but her singular beauty. She was a great attraction to men of great fortune and throughout her life she would have six husbands, including a count and yoga guru. I think had we the chance to meet, Ganna Walska and I, we might have been best friends.
(I found out after my visit to Lotusland that my sister-in-law, Mercedez, is actually a direct decedent of Madame Ganna Walaska. Now a killer wedding florist herself in Austin, Texas, I can see where she gets her stunning design sense from. You can (should) read her Heirloom Table blog here.)
Lotusland garden is just a fifteen minute drive from downtown Santa Barbara, but when you enter the estate, it's easy to feel like you've been transported to somewhere really far away and super exotic that you only get to visit in your fantasies.
Romantic. Whimsical. Dramatic. Impressive.
They're just some of the words that come to mind when I think of Lotusland.
Our tour began promptly at 1:30 p.m. I was so excited.
Barbara began by leading us thoughtfully and patiently through the Tropical Garden, where the masses of ginger-enhanced baskets of orchid cacti hanging from coast live oaks and dead eucalyptus trunks had me in a photographic frenzy.
Then, into the famed Cycad Garden, the main attraction to many who visit. The Cycad Garden was the last garden created by Madame Walska and was to me, reminiscent of some Land Before Time dinosaur place where you might find erupting volcanoes and steaming lava lakes. Cycads are basically woody plants which have roots, a stem, leaves and reproductive structures known as cones. Some look like palm trees and others look like ferns, but all are non-flowering. The reason that this garden is so special is because the cycad collection at Lotusland is thought to be the most complete collection in any American public garden. In fact, most species of cyads are actually endangered and some are even extinct in the wild. Their extremely slow rate of growth and the hard-to-recognize differences among some species make buying mature specimens a costly proposition. And yet Madame Walska amazingly amassed a collection of over 450 plants, including three Encephalartos woodii, which are among the world’s rarest cycads, as they are extinct in the wild. Here at Lotusland the rare plants are placed on a rocky cliff pedestal above their own koi pond. She was a true collector in every sense of the word.
From the Cycad Garden, Barbara led us deeper. To the Blue Garden, populated only by plants with silvery to blue-gray foliage. On to the Theater Garden, constructed in 1948 with seating for 100 on three tiers of sandstone benches. Into the Succulent Garden featuring Madagascar palms and aloe plants and haworthia ground cover.
I couldn't wait to get to the Cactus Garden. This extensive collection of columnar cacti was donated to Lotusland in 1999 by Merritt “Sigs” Dunlap, a longtime friend of Madame Walska. Dunlap began his cactus collection in 1929, remarkably growing about 40 percent of the plants from seed. Today, the garden at Lotusland contains about 300 different species of cacti, grouped together by their country of origin.
I was completely mesmerized from the moment we entered and I could have easily spent all day noticing and admiring the collection, the million spikes and spines glowing like spiderwebs in the dimming afternoon sunlight. In this garden, the sun shone golden and tangibly. The kind of sunshine you want to spread on fresh-baked bread like salted cream butter.
The Cactus Garden was maybe my favorite part of the tour.
But actually, all of it was my favorite.
The orchards of fruit trees dripping with lemons and oranges, peaches and pears. I loved the ornate bird cages with filled pretty singing birdies with rainbow feathers. I was amused by the blushing paint color of the pink house that maybe looks a little bit like the color of my own house? And the blue tile and blue glass. I marveled over the swimming pools decorated with giant clam shells and abalones, too. The palm trees and the wisteria vines and floating water lilies. In the garden, all my favorite shades of pink and blue and green and cream.
The Ganna Walska Lotusland Foundation has done a fantastic job in preserving the gardens. Because access is so limited (Lotusland is only permits 15,000 guests per year due to community restrictions so make sure you make your reservation ASAP) the gardens plants are protected and undisturbed. What's more is that Lotusland is completely sustainable and all-natural in the way that they conserve and maintain their gardens. There are absolutely no pesticides used anywhere and they've even adopted natural preservation methods to attract positive pollinators.
Lotusland was truly a gem. A real secret
garden that is as rich in history and story as it is flora and fauna.
And if you have been convinced that the delights of the garden are a must-see, I would suggest making reservations well ahead of time because they can fill up.
I wish that I could live at Lotusland, or at least, I wish that I could have stayed for longer. At the end of our two hour tour, I felt that I still needed more time to explore, but, once the tour is over, so too is your time on the property. Now, I'm seriously considering investing in a membership so that I can visit whenever I would like without having to be required to stick close to the
tour guide (even though Barbara really was sweet like syrup).
The numerous gardens of Santa Barbara are also why I know I'm so lucky to live in this beautiful place.
The Rose Garden. The Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens. Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens. Flowers and vines all over the place and that make our city feel lush and tropical all year round.
But, you guys.
All I can say is, trust me.
Whatever you do, don't skip this garden.
You really won't find another like it.
Comentarios