Topiary – Easy Maintenance Gardening?

Topiary is the art of pruning and trimming predominantly evergreen shrubs to create a decorative shape.

Deciduous shrubs are sometimes used in more informal garden design schemes, or where the skeletal shape of bare branches is used to set off a different composition of winter based planting designs.

Evergreen shrubs and trees provide a rich backdrop and framework to the colours of spring, summer and autumn. During winter they take the leading role in most gardens, and certainly where topiary is the main feature.

The romantic look of a yew tree, pruned to a simple, yet ornamental shape, and covered with a dusting of snow is surely one of the delights of the winter garden.

Topiary in History

Originally, during the time of the Roman Empire, ‘topiarus’ meant gardener, not someone who specifically created wonderful shapes from a shrub. The wealthier Romans became very fond of topiary as an art form in their gardens, never mind peacocks, whole sea battles were created.

We are talking serious art work and pruning techniques here, of course. There were plenty of slaves trained in the art of topiary and caring for the pruned plants in the gardens of Pompeii, Rome and the country estates of the emperors.

So how do we get from the Roman Gardens of Pompeii as described by Pliny the Elder before the eruption of Vesuvius to easy maintenance gardening in the busy twenty-first century?

We’ll run through garden history, particularly although not exclusively, European history, via the Italian Renaissance and the popularity of the formal gardens of the seventeenth century.

Evergreen shrubs have been favoured for training as topiary shapes because they give a constant, basically unchanging structure to a garden.

These trees and shrubs could be pruned, clipped and trained as a geometrical form, such as a pyramid or sphere. Other popular shapes have been and still are animals and birds.

Flowers and heraldic devices, or coats of arms of a noble family have also been created in the past.

And so we arrive at contemporary gardens.

Topiary for easy maintenance gardening

Some of these suggestions are as valid for the more experienced or enthusiastic gardener as well as for those who want an easy maintenance gardening option.

So how do you go about finding the right topiary plants and style for your garden?

Simple topiary shapes, for example, cones, balls and lollipops, suit a wide range of gardening styles. Think of: –

Urban courtyards with box balls topping stainless steel planters;
Georgian houses with a lollipop bay tree flanking each side of the front door;
Cute and kitsch topiary figures are a frequent and traditional part of many cottage gardens;
Front gardens oozing decorative formality with a planting design by Plews

Plants for Topiary

I’ve just picked out a few of the possible shrubs that you are likely to find offered as plants for simple and / or more ornate topiary in your garden. They are all evergreen shrubs, so will give a year round framework to your easy maintenance garden.

Latin name Common name Speed of growth

Buxus sempervirens Box Slow
Euonymus fortunei Euonymous Medium
Hedera helix Ivy Quick
Ilex aquifolium Holly Slow
Laurus nobilis Bay Medium
Ligustrum ovalifolium Privet Medium
Lonicera nitida Shrubby Honeysuckle Medium
Myrtus communis Myrtle Quick
Prunus lusitanica Portugese Laurel Quick
Taxus baccata Yew Slow

Maintaining your Topiary

Assuming you’ve bought a ready-made/ already grown and trained plants the following care techniques should keep them healthy: –

Trim twice a year, spring and late summer to keep the original shape;
Apply a general feed after trimming;
If it is in a pot, make sure the soil is both free draining and water retentive; add a gel or perlite in the potting compost mix if necessary;
Plants in pots will need their soil rejuvenated annually;
Plants in the ground will benefit from an annual mulching;
Water when necessary; use an automatic irrigation system if appropriate

Keep it simple for easy gardening. Animal figures require more careful trimming and pruning than a cone shape. You can invest in a pair of topiary shears if you grow a lot, but otherwise just use sharp scissors, secateurs or garden snippers, depending on the thickness of the stem that you’re cutting.

That all sounds like fairly easy maintenance gardening to me. What do you think? Is topiary dead as a Dodo? Or is it a twentyfirst century go-to for serious gardeners and gardeners with a busy lifestyle?

And if you’d like Plews to design a topiary garden for you, we’d love to do so.

Still not convinced that topiary is an easy maintenance gardening option? Well, keep it between you and me, but if you want a very low maintenance structure, you could look at some of the artificial options. At a distance or used in a shady corner where nothing will grow, they might just work…