Shrubs up well
Sculpt incredible green living art
SHAPE up your garden with some top topiary and get the neighbours talking.
Topiary is the time-honoured art of clipping and training evergreen trees into something special.
You can buy evergreens ready grown and pop them in a pot or border. But box balls and cubes often come with a hefty price tag so it is a good idea to grow your own.
Buy a shrub with flexible shoots that can be moulded to shape as it grows. Avoid box, because new growth can be eaten by box tree moth caterpillars or devastated by fungal disease.
Buxus microphylla is more resistant, so might be worth a go.
Yew is a good alternative to box for detailed shapes but it is slow growing so if you are an impatient gardener, choose Lonicera nitida or privet.
To create a lollipop tree for the herb garden, try rosemary or lavender.
Peacock
Select plants with a strong central leader if you want to make cones, spirals, lollipops and standards. Add character to a country garden with native plants such as hawthorn, hornbeam or beech. They are easily clipped into squared off lollipops or grown as a pleached hedge on legs.
If you want to sculpt a piece of living garden art but are nervous, make a simple cone using a four-cane wigwam as a cutting guide. Or do a spiral by tying string to the tip of a ready-grown cone. Then spiral it down the base of the plant for a cutting guide.
You could use a wire topiary frame, placed over the young shrub so branches poke through the wires to help guide you.
Sculpt animals or the classic topiary peacock perched on top of neatly trimmed column.
Conifers can also be clipped to give a fluffy cloud effect, perfect for Japanese-style gardens.
Annual pruning encourages bushier growth but it is best done by hand with topiary shears in late summer.
To encourage stronger, healthier growth, remember to apply an annual dressing of Growmore.
Light pruning should be carried out in mid-summer but must not be done from September onward otherwise growth will become frost damaged.