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Two green teddy bears sit with arms stretched out to greet visitors to the Green Animals Topiary Garden Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004 in Portsmouth, R.I. The animals are among the shrubbery that have been coaxed into bigger-than-life shapes by a handful of gardeners since the early 1900s.
AP Photo/Victoria Arocho
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PORTSMOUTH, R.I. -- The whimsical green elephant has stood in these gardens for nearly a century, getting a trim every few weeks to look his very best.
Across from him is a lion. A friendly looking plump teddy bear is down the path.
The animals are among the shrubbery that have been coaxed into bigger-than-life shapes by a handful of gardeners since the early 1900s, and make up one of the oldest and largest topiary gardens in the nation.
"It's a wonderful piece of living history," says gardener Eugene Platt, who for two decades has shaped and snipped the animals with wire and pruning shears, which he carries in his pockets.
The sprouting menagerie at the Green Animals estate has hosted a coming-out party for Jackie Bouvier, who went on to marry President John F. Kennedy and summered in nearby Newport, and entertained the likes of Mamie Eisenhower, the wife of President Dwight Eisenhower.
The gardens house 22 animals and more than 60 other topiary, including arches and spirals scattered on the grounds of flowers, a grape arbor and fruit trees.
"That's the most photographed thing here," said head gardener Jim Donahue, pointing to the bear, sitting with outstretched arms. "Everybody wants a bear hug."
Donahue is the keeper of this kingdom, started in 1905 by Joseph Carreiro.
Carreiro had first seen topiary animals in the Azores, where he grew up and worked in a formal English garden.
Carreiro and his successor, George Mendonca, painstakingly trained young plants into animal shapes by letting branches grow, weaving them and tying them onto a frame with fishing line.
They clipped back errant growth, until an animal or other shape formed.
Most of that work is complete. The main garden hasn't changed dramatically since its creation. The gardeners concentrate nowadays on preserving the estate.
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A green elephant stands guard over the Green Animals topiary garden as greenery sculpted into giraffe can be seen in the background Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004, in Portsmouth, R.I. The animals are among the shrubbery that have been coaxed into bigger-than-life shapes by a handful of gardeners since the early 1900's.
AP Photo/Victoria Arocho
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"It's like a haircut. It always looks better a week later, and if you trim too much off, it always grows back," Donahue said.
The estate was bought in 1872 by Thomas Brayton, treasurer of Union Cotton Manufacturing Co., of nearby Fall River, Mass. When his daughter, Alice, died in 1972 at the age of 94, she left her white clapboard home and estate, which she named Green Animals, to the Preservation Society of Newport County. The group opened it to tourists.
Mendonca, the son of a nurseryman and dairy farmer, was hired to make repairs in the Brayton garden after a hurricane damaged it in 1938. He learned topiary from Carreiro.
Mendonca married Carreiro's daughter, Mary, and together they have lived for more than 60 years in a white cottage on the grounds overlooking Narragansett Bay.
He retired as estate superintendent in the 1980s, after about 40 years tending the gardens.
Though he's in his mid-90s and is slowed by time, Mendonca continues to snip the animals into submission and offer advice to the younger gardeners.
"He weaves through the animals, clipping here and there. He lets us know what to leave growing and what we need to snip back. He's into the details," Donahue says.
Mendonca also recounts stories about how some of the animals came to be.
"The idea for a camel, Mr. Mendonca told us, came from a package of figs, which had a picture of one on it," Donahue says.
Many of the estimated 12,000 annual visitors to the garden ask Donahue how they can carve their boxwood bush into the shape of a giraffe or bear. They can't, he tells them, the shrub would die from lack of nourishment.
"It's not like carving marble," Donahue says. "You let it grow into shapes."
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Green Animals Topiary Garden head gardener Jim Donahue points out some of the detail located on the front of the topiary guard figure as he tours a reporter through the grounds Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004 in Portsmouth, R.I. The animals are among the shrubery that has been coaxed into bigger-than-life shapes by a handful of gardeners since the early 1900s.
AP Photo/Victoria Arocho
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The topiary garden has seen some weather-related destruction over the years, despite the hardy privet shrubs. In 1954, five years of work to grow the head on a giraffe was lost to a hurricane.
It was grown back, but with a much shorter neck.
Though times have changed since the future wives of presidents visited the gardens, the estate remains a peaceful refuge, said Andrea Carneiro, communications director at the Newport preservation society.
Each year, Green Animals hosts a children's party, attracting about 1,000 people.
"It's like a treasure hunt for them," Donahue says. "They run around to find all the different animals and shapes."
