Tulcan Topiary Cemetery

In 1936 a Tulcan gardener, Jose Franco, began clipping the cypress hedges of the municipal cemetery into shapes, and his family carried the work on for generations, turning the grounds into what is generally described as the finest topiary cemetery anywhere: long corridors of green arches, walls of clipped niches, and figures drawn from pre-Columbian iconography, Inca and Aztec faces, animals, geometric masks and columns, cut into dense living cypress and maintained continuously since. Franco is buried in his own creation under the epitaph that the cemetery is so beautiful it invites one to die. It is a working cemetery at 2,950 metres in a cold border town, and the topiary is free to walk.

What you actually see

• Pre-Columbian faces in cypress - Inca and Aztec forms cut into hedge.
• Green arch corridors - the clipped avenues through the grounds.
• Franco's own grave - the gardener buried in his work.
• Ninety years of continuous clipping - the family trade since 1936.

When to go

Year round; Tulcan is cold and often grey at any season. One to two hours. Mornings are quieter. It is a working cemetery, so funerals take precedence.

Honest expectations

Tulcan is a functional border town with little else and a reputation for being cold and dull. It is an active cemetery; mourners deserve space. Overcast light flattens the topiary in photographs.

Nearby

The Colombian border crossing is north; El Angel lies south.