Category Timeline 2

Staff gardener Frank Fujii and stonemason Oswald Da Ross work with Madame Walska to create the Japanese Garden.

Madame Walska begins her collection of bromeliads from Carlsbad Garden and from orchid grower, Fritz Kubisch. He completes the layout…

Local artist Joseph Knowles, Sr., is hired to enhance the Gavit-era crescent-shaped pool in the Aloe Garden, adding abalone shells…

Topiary animals from the Osaki Plant Zoo in Los Angeles are planted around the horticultural clock. Madame Ganna Walska establishes…

The 25-foot diameter horticultural clock designed by Ralph Stevens is built and planted with succulents. Ralph Stevens retires. Madame Walska…

The Cactus and Succulent Society tours Lotusland as part of their biennial convention. Madame Walska almost single-handedly oversees the conversion…

Stevens designed the iron entrance gates on Sycamore Canyon Road, the new swimming pool and shell-strewn beach, rooster grotto, plus…

Theos Bernard serves Madame Walska with divorce papers and removes many valuable furnishings and books from the house on the…

Always Room at the Top, Madame Walska’s memoir is published. Santa Barbara Superintendent of Parks Ralph Stevens, son of the…

Ganna Walska and Theos Bernard are married in a secret ceremony in Las Vegas; a prenuptial agreement protects her property…