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<\/a>A great smile is a good marketing tool. Pearl Fryar has one, for sure.<\/p><\/div>\n
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He told us\u00a0how, starting in 1980, he transformed\u00a0a flat cornfield into an amazement of abstract topiary. Without horticultural training, he had no prior conceptions of what he could or couldn’t do. So using plants that a near-by nursery was throwing away, he began to \u00a0sculpt \u00a0the shapes he saw in his head. He did what he wanted to do. And that free spirited approach has resulted in\u00a0a garden with a\u00a0personality so individual that it has attracted attention world-wide.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>This ‘fishbone’ tree is Fryar’s signature topiary.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Pruning shears, patience and vision are the tools he has used to create his magic kingdom. \u00a0I was particularly enamoured of this tree, a galleon under full sail.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Edward Scissorhands, eat your heart out!<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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But where\u00a0I saw a galleon, from a different angle my husband saw a Jack pine, painted by Tom Thomson. \u00a0Fryar says he likes people to use their own eyes and their own imaginations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to let people see what they\u00a0want to in my plants. The creativity\u00a0comes in making a shape that speaks to\u00a0me in one way but may say something\u00a0else to everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Is that an elephant I see before me?<\/p><\/div>\n
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Because\u00a0\u00a0he didn’t follow rules, or horticultural trends and fashions, or\u00a0emulate someone else’s\u00a0style, Pearl Fryar has\u00a0developed his own. And doing that, he accomplished\u00a0things that, according to one horticultural expert, should not have been\u00a0possible.<\/p>\n
He started by building a driveway and lining it with dwarf yaupon hollies. \u00a0Over the year he used\u00a0some of those\u00a0hollies to spell out his\u00a0signature\u00a0message — the word love.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Small shrubs lining the driveway at Pearl Fryar’s Topiary garden give a hint of the magic that is to come.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Love and peace appear throughout the garden, often in the artworks that are spotted here and there. \u00a0Fryar makes his art\u00a0from bits and pieces collected from scrap heaps and who knows where. He mentioned\u00a0that although his ‘junk art’ has been displayed widely, it isn’t for sale.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>One corner of the garden contains unusually pruned shrubs and one of Fryar’s pieces of junk art.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Fryar’s ingenuity\u00a0reveals\u00a0the passion that he names\u00a0as\u00a0one part of the garden’s success. He wanted a fountain in the garden. When someone gave him an old pot bellied stove, he created one.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>A fountain made of recycled materials features an old pot bellied stove, a kettle and various bits and pieces that Fryar found.<\/p><\/div>\n
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The fountain is folksy, personal, idiosyncratic — a bit like Fryar himself. On the flat piece of ground beside the house, the words Peace, Love & Goodwill are cut into the ground. In the summer, Fryar adds begonias to light up the sentiment.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Letters eight feet tall spell out the message that Fryar wants people to remember.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Although Fryar himself made no mention of it, I was struck by how he has combined colours and textures to create patterns and contrast. The trees below were among the first he planted. From tiny rejects, they have grown into full-fledged individuals.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Fryar planted these trees along the drive to provide a privacy screen. Colours and shapes show his distinctive flair.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Geometric shapes or fantastical animals are commonly seen in traditional topiary gardens. Fryar has rejected these in favour of a more free-form approach.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>A pawn in a strange chess game?<\/p><\/div>\n
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Work, passion, marketing: the combination has made Pearl Fryar’s topiary garden the extraordinary place it is. The sort of place that attracts attention from horticulturalists around the world. That ends up featured in books about acclaimed international gardens like\u00a0Villa Medici, Saiho-ji and Hestercombe. \u00a0That sits by an ordinary road in the small town of Bishopville, South Carolina.<\/p>\n
The combination had made it\u00a0the sort of garden that inspires others. Today, along Broad Acres Road, neighbours are following Fryar’s example. Down the street, one family has outlined their generously sized lot\u00a0using\u00a0forms I’ve seen in gardens in Italy, France and England: flat hedges topped on interval with round balls, two-tiered urns, perfect pyramids.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Topiary surrounds this neighbour’s house — not what I expected to see in Bishopville, SC.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Another neighbour’s garden features curved forms set next to a square brick column.<\/p>\n
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