This Hound Can’t Hunt, and the Swans Can’t Fly : Topiary: The garden art began in Europe 300 years ago and is relatively rare in the United States. But more and more visitors come to the parks to experience the peace of another age.

The horse and rider vault over a gate as a pack of hounds race across a lawn in pursuit of a hapless fox.

But this hunter will never catch his quarry: He’s been molded from yew branches at the Ladew Topiary Gardens.

According to topiarists, the art of molding shrubbery into decorative shapes first appeared in Europe about 300 years ago. Only a handful of topiary gardens exist in the United States, and the Ladew gardens are among the more imaginative.

They are located on a 225-acre estate in Harford County, about 26 miles north of Baltimore. The estate was used as a hunting retreat by Harvey Smith Ladew and has been carefully preserved since his death in 1976.

Ladew inherited a family fortune from the leather business, bought the property in 1929 and began renovating and expanding the 18th-Century farmhouse.

“He loved the gardens so much that even when he was very ill, he’d have them take him out in his golf cart,” director Lena Caron said.

An avid fox hunter, Ladew decorated the rooms of the house with hunting motifs, including a pair of gilt mirrors adorned with foxes and hounds and an Irish marble mantel with a carved hunting scene. Several signed photographs from the Duke of Windsor, who hunted with Ladew, are on display.

While on a trip in England, Ladew saw a hunting topiary scene and decided to recreate it at his Maryland home. Landscaping was a true passion for Ladew. He designed more than a dozen gardens on 22 acres of his estate.

On the north side of the house, bordering an expansive lawn, sculpted swans swim over an undulating sea of green yew. In another sculpture garden, sea horses, birds and unicorns are poised atop tiered hedges.

Visitors can rest in the shade of a giant parasol of pink roses and purple wisteria, or watch ducks swim in a water-lily pond.

Others may prefer wandering along the banks of a meandering brook as it winds its way through the iris garden. A topiary Chinese junk topped with red sails is anchored at the bottom of the garden under the watchful eyes of a green Buddha.

Mary Magness of Bel Air said she took her mother to see the gardens as a refuge from the hubbub of the city.

“To get out and walk in manicured nature is a real treat,” she said. “Most of us are using Chemlawn to fight weeds and grow grass. When you walk through here, you just say, ‘Wow, the possibilities.’ ”

At another of America’s topiary gardens, in Portsmouth, R.I., grounds manager Chrisse MacFadyen Genga spoke of the main problems in providing these sculptured Edens for public view.

“It’s incredibly high maintenance,” she said. “Once you’ve finished one, you have to turn around and start trimming again.”

But interest in topiary, she said, appears to be on the rise. “From the phone calls we get throughout the year, it’s becoming more popular.”

The Ladew Gardens can attest to that. Between 35,000 and 40,000 people visit annually from mid-April through October, as well as during three days in December when Ladew’s farmhouse is lavishly decorated for the holidays.

Ladew gardeners are also familiar with the problems of maintenance. Indeed, Ladew tried to bequeath the land to the state and county before his death, but officials said it would be too expensive to maintain.

So Ladew set up a private foundation to care for the property. Today, more than 100 volunteers work at the site.

“Most of them were women who lived around here,” said M. Hamilton Whitman, a spokesman for the gardens. “They worked and worked and worked. The place was not in very good shape when he died, and they brought it back.”

But popularity has its price.

“At this point,” said Philip Krach, one of five full-time gardeners at the estate, “we’re dealing with the desire for more visitors with the wear and tear that they cause.

“As we get more people, we can afford to fix things up more. But with more people, there’s more maintenance.”

Maintaining 60-year-old topiary is a challenge, Krach said. The shapes are growing too large for the spaces they’re in, and some of the hedges are dying.

“They’re a growing thing, and we’re trying to keep them in scale,” he said. “And nothing is immortal. Trees die just like people.”