Will Travel For

Who among us can resist a good treasure hunt? Especially when the prize is an object of singular curiosity. Here, three artful adventurers pursue their obsessions from California to north-central Europe.

- CHARLOTTE HARRIS,ADAM ERACE & TED LOOS

Loenhout

Shopping the World's Best Topiaries

I'VE BEEN OBSESSED with topiary since a family holiday in the 1980s. Packed tightly into a VW Golf, we headed to the English Lake District where a wide-eyed child emerged into the wonderland of the iconic Levens Hall, an Elizabethan manor house boasting the oldest topiary gardens in the world. As I tumbled through the eccentric forms, from layered wedding cakes to the proudest peacocks, it seemed not beyond the realm of possibility that a small white rabbit was turning corners just ahead of me. I returned to school yearning for yew and babbling about box.

Perhaps it was a hint, an inkling of my future. Yet I never imagined that my grown-up self would board the Eurostar every autumn and speed out of high-octane London to Antwerp in search of similarly impressive specimens for my clients and their gardens. I've been making this trip for years. You see Belgium is to topiary what Scotland is to whisky-the epicenter of excellence. The warm climate, ample rainfall, and fertile, alluvial soil have fostered a long-standing tradition of horticulture, not to mention generational expertise in both cultivation and artistry.

The lifting season begins in November. This is when the great tree nurseries start scooping out plants as they settle into winter dormancy. Impressive mechanized rootball spades make light work of getting mature yew and box out of the ground; meanwhile landscape designers from across the continent jostle for the best specimens. It's like some kind of horticultural Hunger Games.