Downton Abbey, the popular BBC show about an Edwardian-era family & their estate, is filmed at Highclere Castle, a royal estate with a garden that dates to 1218. Today, the garden retains the aesthetic of its most famous designer—Lancelot Capability Brown, a preeminent British landscape architect who championed rolling meadows and natural overgrowth.
A Victorian-era menagerie still grows today, at an historic country estate in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. With its century-old living sculptures, Green Animals Garden is the oldest topiary garden in the United States.
A small agricultural town in Costa Rica's mountain highlands, Zacero is known for organic farming, fruit preserves, and, for the last 50 years, its topiary garden.
Check out these photographs of La Louve, the private garden of Nicole de Vésian in Bonnieux, Provence, France. This influential garden has multiple terraces filled with elegant topiary and sculpted trees.
An exhibit of contemporary topiary pieces is on display at this year's International Horticulture Expo, in Xi’an, China. The menagerie of living sculptures includes the country's national bird, a giant panda, and a cow.
Part folk artist, though with a surrealistic bent, and part Edward Scissorhands, though without the angst, topiary creator extraordinaire Pearl Fryar is the humblest celebrity you'll ever meet.
