Category Timeline Stories

Madame Walska auctions her extensive jewelry collection and reinvests the funds back into the garden.

Charles Glass and Robert Foster renovate the Cactus and Succulent Gardens and enlarge and redesign the Aloe Garden.

Madame Ganna Walska is named an Officer of the National Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in recognition of her artistic career and outstanding sponsorship of cultural and musical events through her theatre. William Paylen completes the…

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 of the original Bromeliad Garden in 196

Local artist Joseph Knowles, Sr., is hired to enhance the Gavit-era crescent-shaped pool in the Aloe Garden, adding abalone shells along the border and creating large clamshell and coral fountains.

Topiary animals from the Osaki Plant Zoo in Los Angeles are planted around the horticultural clock. Madame Ganna Walska establishes a foundation to protect her legacy and open the gardens to the public after her death.

The 25-foot diameter horticultural clock designed by Ralph Stevens is built and planted with succulents. Ralph Stevens retires. Madame Walska is considered “Head Gardener” and works with staff on various projects.

The Cactus and Succulent Society tours Lotusland as part of their biennial convention. Madame Walska almost single-handedly oversees the conversion of the old swimming pool into a water garden, completed in 1956.

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