Category Timeline 3

Merritt S. Dunlap’s extensive cactus collection, promised to Madame Walska in 1966, is gifted to Lotusland. Plants begin to arrive in stake-sided trucks and semis. Eric Nagelmann, a Santa Barbara native, donates landscape design and consultation services. Three hundred tons…

The Topiary Garden is restored by Lori Ann David, who replicates the original figures.

A five-year plan is devised to remedy Cycad fungal infections and root rot. All infected soil is removed, and a new drainage system is installed. The garden space is expanded and completed in 2003.

A docent program is established, and expanded staff are hired. A Conditional Use Permit to open the garden is granted by Santa Barbara County. The Visitor Center is completed in time for the first scheduled tour on September 15, 1993.…

In preparation for public tours, the Lotusland Foundation repairs paths, improves handicap access and performs deferred maintenance on the house and garden.

Madame Walska dies on March 2 and leaves Lotusland to the Ganna Walska Lotusland Foundation.

The Cycad Garden, designed by Charles Glass, is completed, and features over two hundred species of plants.

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…