clippers run amok
A couple of topiary-related reports dropped into my consciousness over the last few days.
First, I think it was hort.net that passed on a sighting of a roadside vegetative formation that resembled a giant chicken. The photo was published in the Telegraph, and was purportedly a naturally occurring plant in Cambridgeshire that had managed to grow itself into a sorta-chicken shape. [ source ]
I could swear it was the English subspecies of the chicken that I posted on a couple months ago, a local topiary creation in the Pacific Beach neighborhood here in San Diego:
And then I was reading an interview with Yelp.com’s local San Diego’s manager. When asked what his favorite weird thing on Yelp was, he piped up that it had to be this gonzo bit of topiary in the Mission Hills neighborhood of town. Although it’s only a few miles from where I live, the house is a little off the beaten track, and I’ve never been by it.
And for a more immersive and interactive look, check out Google Street Views.
Or better yet, visit the house at 3549 Union Street. I’ll be paying a visit soon myself. There will be pictures.
It’s such a great mishmash of geometrical shapes and gunslingers and real and imagined creatures, and as it stands it’s a great piece of folk art. (Could it be inspired by the topiary at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania?)
But I could having all sorts of fun with the basic idea: maybe using several kinds of plants, or refining the shapes into more definite forms and layering a more fanatical sense of order that you see in a lot of topiary. But whatever you do it’d be a shame to lose the sense of humor and barely-controlled chaos of the original!
February 14 2009 | Categories: gardening • landscape design | Tags: Cambridgeshire • San Diego • topiary | 6 Comments »
