{"id":891344,"date":"2026-06-25T08:14:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T08:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/891344\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T08:14:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T08:14:30","slug":"before-she-died-edna-harper-asked-for-one-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/891344\/","title":{"rendered":"Before She Died, Edna Harper Asked for One Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edna Harper asked for one thing before she died: that the next owner of her iconic Mission Hills<\/a> home keep the street-facing \u201cgarden.\u201d Which is essentially asking the future residents to be curators of a whimsical and obsessive, delightful and strange, classic, cartoony and slightly unhinged sculpture museum<\/a>. Harper, who died in January at the age of 87, poured her heart into this topiary bonanza, and it\u2019s right there for everyone to see.<\/p>\n

Like thousands (or millions, there\u2019s no formal estimation) of others, I had scrolled through the photos of this topiary fantasia before I ever stood in front of it. As of this writing, Harper\u2019s Topiary Garden is No. 227 of 2,686 Things to Do in San Diego<\/a> on Tripadvisor, making it a popular tourist stop between fish tacos<\/a>, a day at the beach, and a stroll in nearby Presidio Park. But crowdsourced photos quickly snapped in direct overhead sunlight tend to flatten the shapes that, while meticulously manicured, refuse to behave. In person, Harper\u2019s figures seem to be in motion and, given that they\u2019re sculpted out of bushes, they literally are. (I\u2019d love to see a maintenance timelapse.)<\/p>\n

Animals emerge out of shrubs as if they have impish ideas. A fanciful whale, a man in a sombrero, a random spiral twisting skyward, otherworldly creatures that defy categorization\u2014all of these exist together in a neatly trimmed cascade pouring down the steep front slope of the property.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t accidentally end up with a yard like this. You decide to create it and choose to cultivate it, and then you keep deciding and cultivating\u2014for decades.<\/p>\n

Although a consistent parade of looky-loos have visited over the years, most have never been inside the home, which is on the market for the first time since Harper and her husband, Alex (who died in 2020), bought it in 1969.<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy of Christopher Delgado<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was and is a landmark,\u201d says Christopher Delgado, Harper\u2019s cousin and trustee of her estate. \u201cShe specialized in Chinese brush art and Japanese art called \u2018sumi-e,\u2019 a form of Zen art. She was a creator \u2026 she was very, very talented.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t stop thinking about Harper, sitting at the kitchen window, looking down at her masterpiece and the watchers watching it. The image of Harper enjoying the joy the public took from her handiwork makes me want to understand the woman behind the work. Because topiary, as an art form, has always been a little\u2026 loaded.<\/p>\n

Topiary has always had a bit of an identity crisis\u2014and that\u2019s part of its charm.<\/p>\n

When I think of topiary, I immediately think: Fancy. French bourgeoisie. Palace of Versailles. Mais non! Topiary has its origins in Rome. According to the Center for<\/a> <\/a>Architecture<\/a>, the word \u201ctopiary\u201d has its origins in late 16th century English, which combines the Greek word \u201ctopos\u201d for place and the Latin word \u201ctopiarius\u201d for ornamental gardner.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Casiel Sanchez<\/p>\n

Topiary started as a flex, really. A Julius-Caesar-adjacent pastime for the most ancient one-percenters; an expression accessible only to those with land, labor (or, put more plainly, enslaved people), and spare time. In its earliest form, topiary was about control: bending nature into submission. It\u2019s where symmetry and precision signaled order, taste, and money.<\/p>\n

But with the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages that followed, the topiary almost preceded the Dodo Bird in extinction. Monks quietly kept the art alive by growing herbs<\/a> and manicuring the gardens and hedges within the courtyards of their monasteries.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until the Renaissance nine centuries later when topiary saw a resurgence\u2014ah, Versailles!\u2014and this form of pleasure gardening<\/a> went into overdrive. Nature became architecture<\/a>. The French pruned their foliage into iconic cones and obelisks, walls to keep out the riffraff, and ornamentation designed to impress. The Dutch got a little freaky, as they do, and sculpted complicated figures, animals, and even furniture.<\/p>\n

Inevitably, the pendulum swung again, and topiary fell out of favor once it became viewed as excessive and even absurd. Even so, it never really disappeared. It just migrated to exist in a completely different paradigm. It was less Versailles and more, \u201cWhat if this bush were a mouse?\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast forward to Disneyland in 1963. That year, the park opened a topiary garden in Fantasyland with verdant sculptures of giraffes, camels, elephants, and hippos all inspired by Denmark\u2019s Tivoli Gardens.<\/p>\n

Disney\u2019s interpretation of topiary\u2014which is still a fixture of park decor today\u2014falls more into the realm of imagination and possibility than restrained aristocratic performance.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s one of the stranger throughlines of topiary: It moves from elite to everyday, from stiff and formal to playful and silly, from symbol of control to something steeped in personal expression.<\/p>\n

Which is what makes a place like Harper\u2019s Topiary Garden so compelling and the woman behind it utterly intriguing.<\/p>\n

\"\"Courtesy of Christopher Delgado<\/p>\n

Born in 1938, Edna Harper was something of a Renaissance woman<\/a>. She worked for two decades as a dental assistant, and she later became a notable painter<\/a>, calligrapher, and stained glass artist (the house itself is adorned with her work). But she was also savvy in other ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe graduated\u00a0[with a degree in dental assisting]\u00a0from San Diego City College and wanted to have her own money and her independence,\u201d says Delgado. \u201cMost people didn\u2019t know that she was such a great businessperson<\/a>, and for many years, she managed all of\u00a0[the couple\u2019s]\u00a0properties on her own. She was great at building relationships \u2026 she touched a lot of people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her friend and fellow artist Julie Roth attributes her artistry to her relationship with Harper. The pair met two decades ago at an art class at Oasis in Mission Valley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was just the most encouraging person,\u201d Roth says. \u201cI didn\u2019t know I could paint, but apparently I can. She was a tremendous person.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked Roth what she\u2019d want people to know about her friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer empathy and diplomacy,\u201d she says. \u201c[She had]\u00a0a sharp eye for other talent. She spotted me, but I\u2019m not the only one she encouraged.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sharp eye suggests attention, the same kind it takes to look at a bush and also see a whale. Or a spiral. Or something that doesn\u2019t exist yet, but could.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Casiel Sanchez<\/p>\n

Nothing about Harper\u2019s life suggests someone chasing attention. And yet, she ended up creating something that demanded hers, and she took great pleasure in seeing people enjoy her creations.<\/p>\n

The garden didn\u2019t happen all at once. It grew out of years of travel<\/a>, observation, and collaboration. Harper often traveled without her husband, always returning from trips to Japan, Thailand, and other parts of Asia with ideas and impressions captured through sketches in a notebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe would get creative ideas from her travels \u2026 she\u2019d come back with ideas and pictures, and they\u2019d go about cutting that topiary bush into shape,\u201d Delgado says.<\/p>\n

For the past 25 years, she had the help of her gardener<\/a>, Pedro Duran\u2014who\u2019s still employed by the trust and has maintained the garden since Harper\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n

In the early topiary years, Harper worked closely with Duran in what Delgado describes as a kind of shared \u201clabor of love.\u201d She would share her sketches and together the pair would shape the bushes into something deliberate.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Casiel Sanchez<\/p>\n

\u201cAs she got older, she would increasingly draw her ideas and\u00a0[Duran]\u00a0would\u00a0[carry them out],\u201d Delgado says.<\/p>\n

That collaboration reinforces that her garden was not an act of control, but one of creative collaboration and translation. From memory to sketch. From sketch to shrub. From something seen, somewhere else in the world, to something rooted in the soil of a steep hillside in Mission Hills.<\/p>\n

Harper also made sure that the lawn\u2019s boisterous energy made its way into the house on Union Street. Apparently, she threw legendary parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cFairly regularly, in the late \u201970s and \u201980s, she would host Super Bowl parties<\/a> with 200 people. She had TVs everywhere,\u201d Delgado says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not hard to square that image with the stillness of the garden which, despite the careful pruning and intentional design, is voluminous and nearly vibrating.<\/p>\n

And, damnit, I wish I\u2019d watched some sportsball on her shocking number of TVs and wandered out front to the topiary\u2014slightly wine-drunk with an orange smear of wing sauce<\/a> on the corner of my mouth\u2014to marvel at the leafy hippo and this woman\u2019s elaborately creative life.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo Credit: Casiel Sanchez<\/p>\n

I can hear Delgado smiling as we talk on the phone. He\u2019s going back to his childhood, when he talks about being one of the cousins Harper doted on when he visited.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe adults were inside, and we\u2019d be out in the camper,\u201d he says, \u201cand\u00a0[Harper]\u00a0would come check on us, make sure we were okay. She always had gifts for us. If it was Easter<\/a>, there were chocolate eggs. If it was Christmas, stockings. We were the beneficiaries of them not having kids because they showered us with all their love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knowing this and taking a look at her garden again, you can see it\u2019s not the work of a shut-away curmudgeon. It\u2019s wondrous, inviting, and the right kind of weird.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, she did it for herself and family, first and foremost,\u201d Delgado says of Harper\u2019s Topiary Garden.<\/p>\n

Harper\u2019s one request of whomever buys her home may seem like a focus on basic maintenance, about hedges and upkeep and preserving something visually striking. But it\u2019s really about attention. And maybe, too, about legacy. Not hers, per se, but the legacy of community, relationships, art<\/a>, creativity, possibility, adventure, culture, dedication, and love.<\/p>\n

For now, it\u2019s there for anyone to see, and its future is in the hands of whomever comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edna Harper asked for one thing before she died: that the next owner of her iconic Mission Hills…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":891345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,18473,37443,7721,3549,289900,361355,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-891344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-everything-sd","tag-living-design","tag-mission-hills","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-home-design","tag-san-diego-landmarks","tag-sandiego","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116809753960960398","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}