Topiary

Brian Welch came to Los Angeles from England to be a hairstylist. Although that aspiration dissolved several years ago, he is still pretty handy with the clippers. Like the movie mutant Edward Scissorhands, whose hands were a jumble of razor-sharp metal, Welch has carved himself a reputation in his Sepulveda neighborhood as the guy who pruned and preened a shapeless tangle of ivy into a 12-foot dog topiary.

Maybe you've always suspected that there was more to San Diego's North County than beach towns, rolling hills, expat giraffes and a walled kingdom of brightly colored plastic. But frankly, they had me at beach towns. I always figured the rest - even the two marquee attractions, Legoland in Carlsbad and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park near Escondido - was just gravy. Or icing on the cake. Or maybe, given San Diego's love of beer, the chaser after the pint. But now I've spent several days on and off the beaches, and it looks as if you're right: San Diego County's northern reaches, beginning above La Jolla and ending at Camp Pendleton, deserve more attention than they get. So here are 11 micro-itineraries, which are the latest addition to our ongoing Southern California Close-Up series.

The road to Charles and Jennifer Coburn's home meanders through the hills north and east of San Diego. Their property is a quick left off the main road and up a winding drive that ends in a field filled with animals. An older gent stands on a ladder to groom a handsome stallion. His clippers make a snap, snap, snapping sound as he trims bright green privet leaves along the stallion's spine.

IN AN era when superheroes dominate the box office, a documentary about a lanky, 68-year-old topiary artist in the rural South hardly sounds like an attention-grabber. Yet “A Man Named Pearl,” which opens in limited release this week in Southern California, delivers a compelling tale of an ordinary man with extraordinary abilities. The film explores the passion and philosophy of tree sculptor Pearl Fryar. Born to a sharecropper and retired from the Bishopville, S.C.

The Gardens of Versailles have nothing on some L.A. gas stations. Ever since the city of Los Angeles began requiring its stations to landscape in the late '80s, pay-at-the-pumpers have come to expect birds of paradise between the supreme and unleaded. There's even a bonsai fir in the Shell station at Washington Boulevard and Centinela Avenue.

Blame it on "Edward Scissorhands." Ever since the release of that movie last December, Tom Feldner, a landscape contractor and owner of Green West Nursery in Orange, can't seem to keep up with the demand for his topiary animals. He calls the sculpted and formed shapes he creates "animated trees." "Of course, I was familiar with all the topiary animals you see around Disneyland.

The elephant lost its trunk. The 16-foot-tall giraffe lost its head. Both injuries were the result of a 1954 hurricane that roared through this Rhode Island town. But don't worry: The elephant and giraffe recovered and are doing just fine. Unlike most other creatures, these animals can grow back any missing parts. They are members of the menagerie here at Green Animals, the oldest topiary garden in America.

The home gardener can undertake any of the four types of topiary but should realize that the art takes imagination--and patience. The simplest method is free form, which involves no support structure. "Free form relies solely on the creativity of the gardener trimming the plant," said Disneyland's Ken Inouye. Outside It's a Small World, some of the shrubs are carved into geometric shapes, such as boxes and spheres.

It will be about five years before Roger Rabbit makes the scene. Mary Poppins should be ready to take root in about three years. It all depends on how much greenery they muster, and whether they have any bald spots. Roger, Mary and about 50 other characters and animals are the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time topiary figures in Disneyland's landscaping area, out of the public view.

I found Susan Heeger's article on Mark Rios and his design firm enlightening ("Mark Rios on a Roll," Style, Sept. 11). As an artist and closet historian of local design, I'm always interested in seeing what's going on from an architectural perspective. The image of the proposed retail space with topiary letters caught my eye. The idyllic setting has one odd anomaly: Who's the naked guy in the left-hand corner? Nowhere but in L.A., as no one in the image seems the slightest bit interested.

The road to Charles and Jennifer Coburn's home meanders through the hills north and east of San Diego. Their property is a quick left off the main road and up a winding drive that ends in a field filled with animals. An older gent stands on a ladder to groom a handsome stallion. His clippers make a snap, snap, snapping sound as he trims bright green privet leaves along the stallion's spine.

FOUR very big birds -- 17 feet long, 14 feet tall, with glass eyes larger than your palm -- have migrated to the new Westwind Park at Playa Vista, south of Marina del Rey. Crafted of steel and shaped to resemble 6-inch-tall yellow-rumped warblers, the topiaries will be feathered by the grayish-green leaves of fruitless olive trees. The pieces are the work of Coburn Topiary & Garden Art, which has produced character topiaries for Disneylands in Anaheim and Hong Kong.

I found Susan Heeger's article on Mark Rios and his design firm enlightening ("Mark Rios on a Roll," Style, Sept. 11). As an artist and closet historian of local design, I'm always interested in seeing what's going on from an architectural perspective. The image of the proposed retail space with topiary letters caught my eye. The idyllic setting has one odd anomaly: Who's the naked guy in the left-hand corner? Nowhere but in L.A., as no one in the image seems the slightest bit interested.

Allen C. Haskell, 69, whose Massachusetts nursery for 50 years was known for its topiaries and collections of plantain lily and other rare flowers, died Dec. 7 in New Bedford, Mass., after a short illness. His eight-acre Allen C. Haskell & Sons Horticulturists, with strutting peacocks and a 1722 farmhouse, became a destination for tourists as well as gardeners buying plants and seeking advice and inspiration.

Thank you for the wonderful article on gardens and their influence on Southern California ("Where the World Is Abloom," April 24). Our lush and varied landscapes, both public and private, are a true joy of living here. There are two areas, though, where I believe our gardening heritage is being challenged: the ever-encroaching "topiary" style as a result of trimming shrubs by power tools and the overuse of palms in public landscapes. How often has one seen a group of New Zealand flax after they've been given a flattop by a hedge trimmer?

Maybe it's because they often look like cartoon characters or because they make a garden look organized. Whatever their magic, topiaries are popular and have been for some time. Plants shaped to look like objects spark the imagination of kids and adults, said Malee Hsu, owner of Upland Nursery in Orange. "They add an interesting accent and fit into just about any landscape," she said.

The tourists think big. Arriving in Southern California, they expect to conquer Disneyland and Hollywood, perhaps on the same day, in between the surfing and snowboarding. Then they get stuck in traffic. Then come the recriminations, the tears, the vows to visit an island next time. The locals think small. Tracing tight little loops between home and work, they dodge freeways and alien neighborhoods. There are Los Feliz people who haven't set foot in Venice since the latter Bush administration (I'm one)

Nine years ago, Shane Carruth burst onto the independent film scene with "Primer," a heady, complex, sci-fi thriller that made time travel seem disturbingly plausible. Shot for only $7,000, the film took the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, beating out more buzzworthy titles like "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Garden State. " Carruth - a one-time software engineer - served as director, writer, producer, actor, cinematographer, editor, composer, casting director, production designer and sound designer.

Question: How do I create a topiary? A.L., Fountain Valley Answer: Topiaries are plants trained by a variety of methods to resemble an object. They are living statuary. There are three popular methods of creating topiaries: garden topiaries, moss-filled topiaries and trained topiaries. Garden Topiaries To create this style, place a preformed wire structure over a plant growing in the ground or a pot. Chicken wire is usually used to create the form, and the plant grows up through the structure.

The Gardens of Versailles have nothing on some L.A. gas stations. Ever since the city of Los Angeles began requiring its stations to landscape in the late '80s, pay-at-the-pumpers have come to expect birds of paradise between the supreme and unleaded. There's even a bonsai fir in the Shell station at Washington Boulevard and Centinela Avenue.