CLIPCLIP HOORAY!

With a little patience you can create topiary to rival that of any stately home, says Monty Don

Topiary is a great love of mine. I don’t have a huge amount of it in the garden and I don’t claim to be that good at it, but no matter. It adds hugely to the quality of my garden and my life – and long may it do so. Most of the topiary in my garden are cones, not least because they are easier to create and maintain, but I have seen all kinds of unlikely topiary shapes, such as a steam train, riders on horseback, elephants and a dragon. But I think my favourites are non-figurative, with the acme of all topiary gardens being Levens Hall in the Lake District. Levens Hall is the oldest surviving topiary garden in Britain, although most of the topiary is Victorian in origin as, prior to the 19th century, topiary tended to be more subdued and generally much smaller, with cones, pyramids and lollipop shapes dominating.

I planted the yew cones in front of my house as small hedging plants and cuttings 29 years ago and they look as if they’ve been here for hundreds of years, although the past ten years have been spent cutting them back rather than letting them grow any bigger.

So do not be put off beginning topiary in your garden because it might take too long to reach fruition. Be patient for the first five years, another five is fine-tuning and then, after that, all that is needed is annual maintenance to hold it in shape.

I use mainly yew and box, though box blight has severely reduced the appropriateness of the latter because clipping encourages the blight. Privet is good but needs cutting at least three times a year. Phillyrea latifolia (green olive tree) is highly recommended and I have recently planted two small trees of it that I intend to start clipping this year, so I’ll be able to report back in a few years’ time. But any plant that can

be clipped to shape will do. Evergreen will obviously keep looking good all winter but deciduous plants such as hawthorn, hornbeam or beech can make excellent topiary too.

There are two basic approaches to any shape. The first is to plant a healthy young plant (or plants) and carefully shape and train it as it goes. The second is to cut into an overlarge and overgrown plant and ‘find’ the shape within it. Both have their merits, although in the long run starting with a small plant usually gives better results if you want to do something figurative.

My topiary ‘Nigel’ is formed from three yew plants I had left over from a hedge, and I’ve begun a yew ‘Nellie’ with four cuttings I took a few years ago. ‘Nigel’ is about six years old and fully formed, whereas ‘Nell’ was planted last year so looks nothing like a dog – let alone my lovely Nellie!

If you’re training young growth, remember two things. The first is to start as you mean to go on. This means encouraging shoots exactly where you want them rather than just training the strongest. Small shoots in the right place quickly become bigger, but a shoot in the wrong place, however healthy, will always be wrong.

The second is: be brave. Don’t be frightened of cutting back hard. Everything will regrow and, as with all pruning, the harder you cut back, the more vigorous the regrowth.

Monty with his topiary cones, and (inset) with Nellie and the topiary Nigel