Otago Peninsula
The best plants for topiary in Margaret Barker’s Larnach Castle garden.
Why do we seek to improve a plant by shaping it into topiary? The practice of topiary in gardens goes back at least to Roman times. Buxus sempervirens, a native plant to southern and western Europe, was extensively used for clipping into hedges and balls. Since then, the popularity of topiary has fallen in and out of favour as the centuries have passed.
Nowadays there are plenty of box balls – just like those of the ancient Roman Empire – providing year-round anchorage and structure to numerous New Zealand gardens. We are following in a 2000-year-old tradition from the other side of the world.
Here in New Zealand, we don’t have to do as the Romans did, clipping buxus time after time.
There are plenty of other choices including our own native plants which could be tried to add the distinctive aura. But you never know where a pittosporum might pop up.
In the south of France, I once visited a garden called La Chevre d’Or. Across the garden on a high terrace was an allée of tall and slender pencil cypress. In front of the dark cypress was a mysterious, gleaming white ball which, inevitably, drew me forward. I discovered that the ball was clipped Pittosporum tenuifolium
‘Irene Paterson’, a New Zealand stranger in a foreign land.
When I came home, I acquired this particular pittosporum and clipped it to shape. New growth after clipping is a shining white. Since then, the ‘Irene Patterson’ in the garden at Larnach Castle has been clipped twice annually for 25 years and still looks fresh.
There’s a profusion of pittosporum cultivars. Dwarf forms are best for clipping into balls. There is the wellknown Pittosporum ‘Golf Ball’ which now comes in several varieties with gold- or silver-edged leaves. Pittosporum
‘Tom Thumb’ is an old favourite with deep bronze, almost black foliage which is enhanced by the new growth being, temporarily, a bright, fresh green.
At the outside entrance to our ballroom, we have planted horopito, or pepper bush.
Pseudowintera colorata ‘Red Leopard’ sit in sandstonecoloured cubic tubs. This is a selected form with golden leaves heavily spotted with red. The tubs are in sun but we also have this form of the pepper bush growing in the shade where its colouration is even more pronounced.
This was the most asked-about plant at the New Zealand Garden at the 2004 Chelsea Flower Show.
Larnach Castle head gardener Fiona Eadie has lifted coprosmas that had germinated under the trees from seeds dropped by the birds. She planted these right in front of the castle and clips them twice a year. With their small leaves and dense growth they are stupendous, textural topiary balls.
I decided that a great big beech ball would enhance the space where the giant cedar came down until its replacement grew.
I asked a friend, “What do you think of that idea?”
They said, “it would look awful!”, thinking I meant a beach ball, the colourful thing that you play with by the sea.
When kept clipped as either a hedge or topiary, European beech Fagus
sylvatica retains its autumn leaves right through the winter, making a charming russet statement. ✤