Making Your Own Topiary

Summer is in the early stages of its farewell.  As gardens are offering their full bounty, pumpkins and gourds fatten on their vines, and summer blooms begin to fade.  This is the time of year, after a summer full of coneflowers, daisies, and zinnias, that I ponder on how to add interest to a landscape that can become barren and stark in winter months.  I drew inspiration from my summer in Europe, and specifically a wonderful day trip to the palace of Versailles, just outside of Paris.      

Evergreens add year round structure to your landscape, and if implemented in a topiary form, will add additional interest. Topiaries can be purchased at any garden center, usually in varying sizes and shapes.  As topiaries are more costly than their un-sculpted counterparts, creating your own can be extremely cost effective as well as fun.  

Its easy to start your topiary with a juvenile shrub.  These are more simple because a smaller shrub can be molded as it grows.  However a topiary can be accomplished with a grown & established plant as well.  

If you have chosen to topiary a new shrub you might want to check out a topiary form.  Wire forms can be purchased in a variety of shapes, everything from swans to giraffes, giving you the option for many unique topiaried forms to add interest in your garden.  Although it might take a season or two for the plant to fill in the form, you will have a guide to fallow when pruning which makes keeping the shape much easier.  

If your plant is established, adding a form might be difficult.  Instead begin by clipping your shrub into a rough outline, then create your own guide out of thick wire.  Topiary spirals, cones, and balls can easily be sculpted this way.

2. Training 

The first thing to remember when it comes to homemade topiaries is that its a process, a slow {but gratifying} process.  

Remember that when working with a growing shrub, no more than one inch should be pruned off in areas that need to be filled in.  This pruning will encourage additional bushy growth.  

For larger, more established shrubs three inches is the limit.  More pruning than this will cause die back, and will ruin the topiary.  By only taking three inches at a time, your sculpture will begin to take shape, and you wont have to worry about any burnt-looking, dry areas.  

Topiaries are never “finished”.  A growing sculpture needs constant upkeep.  If you have a finished product, or are still working on the training and shaping part, its the same: prune every 3 months.