 The following is a production of New Mexico State University. We're here today at Ghana-Walska Lotus Land in Santa Barbara, California. Virginia Hayes shows us this spectacular garden. Virginia, how did this garden become established and what's its purpose? Well, we're here basically because Ghana-Walska, who created most of what you see around us, decided to grow a garden and then leave it for the rest of us to enjoy. There's an older history here. It was a nursery for a number of years in the 1880s and then it was just a private estate, but Ghana-Walska owned it for over 40 years and created the gardens that we're going to see today. You see a beautiful water feature here. Yes, this pond was actually here in the 1920s, but Madam-Walska did her particular touch to things, which was to dramatize everything and added all the shell features. And around it, we've got plants which don't use a lot of water. We see aloes here. That's right. This is the aloe garden. And these aloes are from what part of the world? They're not from this part? Most aloes are from South Africa and a few from Madagascar and other parts of Africa. Our collection is mainly from South Africa with a few Madagascans. Really dramatic. I like this one. It looks like a tongue. Yes, this is called alo-plicatilis. If you look at the way the leaves fold together, it's sort of like a braid. Oh, okay. And then everyone's familiar with the aloe vera. That's right. And you've got some of that here. We do have that, not right where we are, but the interesting thing is that most of these succulent aloes have the same medicinal properties that aloe vera is famed for. I didn't know that. They are not hardy, probably below 20 degrees. They may survive a few hours in the 20s, but we're essentially frost-free here. So much of the Southwest can actually grow these. I've seen them in Phoenix and Tucson. But we get into the higher desert. It's going to get too cold, so there are houseplants here. Good medicinal houseplants. That's right. There's another tall one right there. Yes. This is aloe spectabilis. That's beautiful. And it is spectacular. It is. They're trees. Exactly. And they get much larger actually in their native habitats than they would here. And these I like. They're nice mound formers. They're kind of nice green here. Aloe brevifolia. That's spectacular. And I understand you've got a world-famous garden with other plants in it here as well. That's right. We have an amazing cycad collection. That's something we ought to see. Okay. Cycad. Now the Sego Palm is a cycad, but it's really not a palm, is it? Right. It's one of the 10 or 11 genera in the cycad family. Mm-hmm. That they look like palms a little bit. A little bit. Over here we've got fan palms, but I've seen a lot of palms that look like these cycads. Right. And so it's easy to see that they're confused. And I say they've got cones on them. Right. They don't have flowers. They evolved long before flowers came on the scene. So they're more like a pine tree. Exactly. Than a palm. Exactly. The interesting thing about them is that they have male cones on male plants and female cones on female plants. Okay. And normally where they grow, the pollination to produce seeds on those female cones would be done by little insects. And this is really here as a scientific collection now, isn't it? Well it started, of course, as one of Madame's collections, just for visual impact, which it certainly has. It does. But because she was able to get these plants so many years ago in the 60s and 70s, she was able to amass a pretty impressive collection of all the genera that grow throughout the world. So they've moved into a bunch of blue ones. Yes. These are adapted for desert climates in Africa and show off that blue coloration that's often seen in those kind of plants. And over the other side, it's really green but tall. Yes. A lot of these actually grow in sort of understory of a forest. And this one grew in South Africa in the forest and is now extinct in the wild. These are some of the offspring of the last plants that were removed over 100 years ago. That's part of your scientific work then to actually propagate these and hopefully preserve the germ plant. Exactly. These, unfortunately, are all male. We don't have females of that species. And you have to hand pollinate, don't you? Right. Right. Look at the cone on that. That's spectacular. Yes. You've only showed us two of the many fabulous gardens here, but they're spectacular. Thank you. You're very welcome. The preceding was a production of New Mexico State University. The views and opinions in this program are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the NMSU Board of Regents.