The Full Monty
Monty muses on topiary – where the wildness of nature meets the artistry of the gardener
Monty on the skill and beauty of topiary
Ido not indulge much in regrets. I have, of course, made a ridiculous amount of mistakes in almost every aspect of my life, but they have almost invariably taught me something and, anyway, to err is human. But had I my time again, I would have been more of a topiarist. I am not entirely without form. Until very recently we had 67 large box balls, 38 box cones and 28 large yew cones to topiarise. Now, all but three of the box balls have been lost to blight, but the various cones remain. (As I write, I wonder if there is something in the shape of a cone that allows better airflow, and therefore a less comfortable home for box blight spores, than a ball or a hedge?). However, whenever I visit a garden flowing with clipped shapes and forms I immediately feel both at home but also a sense of failure – as though I’ve not fulfilled the potential I ought to have in this corner of my horticultural life. What’s provoked this crisis of clipping confidence are the eight limes I have just planted for pleaching here at Longmeadow. I first planted – 24 years ago – around 50 Tilia platyphyllos and T. cordata specifically for pleaching. I’d intended to buy all T. cordata but I got the order muddled up and only realised after I had planted them. (Longmeadow was mostly created on such mistakes and incompetence.) Fortunately both of these are native remnants from acient woodland (i.e. pre human management) that you can still find in hedgerows as shoots from stools over a thousand years old. They also avoid the problem of aphid drip and bee infestation that the common hybrid T. x europaea is prone to. This new batch of eight trees is creating a new area that will have a table in the middle for eating, and be surrounded by four beds filled with apothecary herbs and, on three sides, by pleached limes. The 24-year-old ones are now established, and as knobbly and wrinkly as elephant legs, whereas the new ones are notional – more framework than pleach. But I had forgotten how much I liked all the paraphernalia and process of it all: setting up the frame, tying and starting the training. I like the way it is about constructing an object. The process of training anything – whether it be cordon gooseberries, stepover apples, or a clipped yew image of your dog – is not just a means to an end but the thing itself. When I lie awake in the night and revisit all my favourite gardens around the world – relishing them in that half-waking, half-dreaming state – invariably, the gardens that linger longest in my mind are pleached, espaliered, cordoned, fanned, and above all clipped. I am thinking of Jacques Wirtz’s private garden near Antwerp, Juan Grimm’s in Chile, Le Jardin Plume in Normandy, Babylonstoren in South Africa and La Louve in Provence. All this shaping and training does not have to mean formality – tightly clipped lines can be tremendously effective when following the rhythm and flow of landscape. But a garden can walk that fascinating line between man and nature, where delight only springs when the balance and harmony is right. Too much control and it can become sterile; too much untrammelled nature and you have no garden. The answer to this conundrum? Clip. Clip, shape, prune, tease and train – and repeat. So I must practise what I pleach! I must plant more shrubs and trees, not to nurture them into unrestrained maturity, but to cut them more often and more inventively. I need to clip and shape and tie and sculpt, to unify the essence and spirit of nature while extolling the artistry of man. And anyone who shares my obsession with kit, especially cutting kit, will understand why this means I need to order another pair of very expensive Japanese shears.
I need to practise what I am pleaching. I need to clip and shape and tie and sculpt