Best shrubs for balls
Neat or shaggy, massed or solo, topiary balls and mounds provide striking contrast and structure to all types of gardens, from cottage to formal. STEVE FALCIONI explains how to get started
When I was younger, I ran a gardening business in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs and, without fail, every day involved clipping hedges, spirals, balls and other shapes. The enduring popularity of topiary work is easy to understand when it looks so good, but it’s also an incredibly rewarding skill to master. So, let’s bump your gardening talents up a notch and look at how to create your own clipped balls.
Topiary balls are often associated with formal gardens, where they add an air of restrained elegance. The geometric shapes and sharp, clean surfaces are the perfect fit for a garden that is all about control and symmetry. Position them in garden beds, as part of hedging, or as sentinels either side of a path or doorway.
Topiary balls don’t need to be restricted to only formal gardens, though. Use them to add contrast in an otherwise relaxed cottage garden, or to give a structural edge in a contemporary-style garden, where you might view them as living sculptures on their own or among soft, wispy ornamental grasses. They can add whimsy, too, when positioned in a way that implies they have rolled out of place – such as onto a lawn.
Clipped balls are also perfectly suited to pots, where they can add structure and formality to courtyards and walkways.
Or, again, topiary balls can provide a contrasting element when clustered with pots of blousy flowering plants. Ultimately, you’re limited only by your imagination, so have fun with them!
STEP 1 Select a plant
Not all plants are suitable for turning into a topiary masterpiece. The best ones are those that produce dense growth and respond well to regular pruning. These of course include a lot of classic hedging plants, so that’s your starting point.
Next, consider the leaf size of the plant relative to the size of the ball you want to create. For small balls, it’s difficult to get an even, spherical shape if you’re using a plant that has large leaves. You’ll easily see the cuts on leaves, and have a bumpy surface. So for small balls, choose plants with small leaves, to achieve a beautiful smooth shape. If you want to create a larger ball, you can get away with using plants that have larger leaves.
The other thing to think about is the speed at which the plant grows. A fast grower will quickly develop into a ball, which is good news if you’re in a hurry. However, it also means you’ll need to prune more regularly to maintain the shape. Conversely, slow-growing plants might need clipping only once or twice a year. Sounds great, but the downside is it will take several years for the balls to develop to their full size. It’s a trade-off between patience and how much ongoing clipping you want to do in the future, so choose your plants wisely.
STEP 2 Grab your tools
As a beginner, reach for some sharp hedge shears. They are lightweight and easy to control, and present less risk of slicing away too much compared with a motorised hedge trimmer. There’s time enough for the power tools when you’ve got some experience under your belt!
STEP 3 Start clipping
To create a ball, you need to start training the plant from when it’s reasonably small. When selecting your plant at the nursery, look for one with dense growth all the way (or close) to the base. Once a plant drops those lower leaves, and bares its stems, it’s virtually impossible to get them to grow back unless you cut back very hard, which some plants won’t tolerate.
Turn the pot or walk around it several times to help visualise the spherical shape hiding within the plant, then start clipping. Most plants are taller than they are wide, so initially you’ll probably need to trim off more from the top and less from the sides to make the ball shape.
Take off only small amounts at a time, and keep rotating the plant or walking around it to check your progress from all angles. You need to regularly step back from the plant and view the shape from a distance as well.
If you’re having trouble visualising the ball shape, get a length of wire and make a circle to hold against the plant. Some people find moving this around the plant helpful. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect on your first try (or ever). Your skills will improve over time.
Once finished, fertilise your plant, then wait for the next flush of growth and prune again. With each trim, don’t cut it back to the original size – allow the ball to remain a little bit bigger. Leave 1–5cm of growth on smaller balls and 5–10cm on larger ones. Each time you prune, it encourages the plant’s branches to divide, resulting in a beautiful dense ball over time.