Chewy and I made a quick trip out to South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes — my first time there, and honestly I didn’t know what to expect. What I got was one of those places that’s less about specimen collections and more about wandering around and finding things. Paths, surprises, good planting combinations, the occasional “what even is that” moment. My kind of garden.
What I did not expect was trolls.
Thomas Dambo is a Danish artist who builds enormous wooden troll sculptures and hides them in nature — parks, forests, gardens — all over the world. I’ve wanted to see his work for a while. Turns out South Coast has several of them, tucked into different parts of the garden, and finding each one is its own little moment. One is crouched down low, face hidden. One is lying in the dappled shade like he’s been there for centuries. One is sitting up reading a book. And then there’s the one holding a handful of busted old phones — Samsungs, a BlackBerry, the whole graveyard — cradled in his wooden hands like treasure. I stood there a beat longer than necessary because, well, I have feelings about old BlackBerrys.
The installation runs through October, and I’m already planning to go back before it’s gone.
The garden itself is lovely — roses mixed in with cacti and succulents in a way that shouldn’t work but does, big drifts of salvia, an iris or two hiding in unexpected spots, an orange lion’s tail shrub going absolutely feral in the best possible way. We didn’t cover the whole place — quick trip — but enough to know it’s worth a proper visit.
