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San Diego’s Neighborhood Topiary Garden
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More than a dozen gardens can be toured at Balboa Park, but Harper’s Topiary Garden, unlike most topiaries and privately owned gardens, is grown and maintained by just three individuals. Harper’s Topiary Garden sits between India and West Washington Streets, just minutes from Balboa Park, the 1,200-acre urban cultural park where a landscape of arts and culture prevail. Twenty years ago, the hillside front yard of Edna and Alex Harper’s Middletown home succumbed to the neighbor’s cape honeysuckle vine. As vines do, they crept, conquered and grew in an uneven manner. Unhappy with the way the climbing plant was growing on the home’s front bank, Edna took a seat across the road and mentally turned the uneven vines into manicured sculptures.
116 | LOCALE MAGAZINE
WRITTEN BY: JEANNETTE SWANSON | PHOTOGRAPHED BY: SARAH NAIL
Edna’s imagination soon produced sketches from memories of sites seen abroad in Asia, Europe, Mexico and South America. Though impressed by Edna’s sketches, Alex was skeptical of the proposed garden, but he agreed to pay for the gardener and water if it panned out. Edna sought out her mother’s gardener, Pedro Duran. Pedro, an Oaxacan Indian from Mexico, became lead gardener, following Harper’s concept of recreating images from past trips. It takes a delicate hand to work with the vine in its older age to ensure it doesn’t snap and break. Pedro’s background in hat weaving gives him the knowledge of how to work with an older vine when it needs to be reshaped. Unlike most topiary gardens, Edna’s sculptures have no internal form. Instead of being bound by wire, string is used to manipulate the vine’s HARPER’S TOPIARY GARDEN 3549 Union St San Diego, CA 92103
growth into a desired creature. The string will eventually decompose and that act saves Pedro from having to cut out wire once the sculpture has matured. The garden is free of admission and open year-round and seems to see no lull in visitors during any time in the week. They’ve received visits from garden groups, senior citizen bus tours and school buses of children. Most surprising to Edna though have been visiting college students. She’s amazed at how her sculpted vines have captured the attention of an age group with such varying interests. Today, the garden features more than 50 imaginative creatures including an orca, six elephants, a dragon, a teddy bear, a surfer boy and pyramids. Edna calls her garden sculptures her children. “They don’t answer back; they just need a haircut often,” she says.
DO IT FOR THE VINE: Edna is involved in many local art groups including a group that meets at the San Diego Botanic Garden and the Friends of Taki.
NATIVE KNOWLEDGE: Pedro works on the garden five days a week for three hours at a time.