THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Plants for Topiary
Want to know the best plants to use for topiary? Here is the common palette, and included are a few trees that love to be pollarded, or espaliered, or can take being cut to the ground or have their leaves stripped from the stem…
… not all of these plants will give you the classic topiary forms, but they may be worth experimenting on and discovering how they can be pruned and what impression they leave you with when they are!
Box
Yew
Holm Oak
Holly
Azalea
Ilex crenata
Bay
Thuja
Hebe
Portugese laurel
Pines (including Scots pine)
Robinia
Olive
Osmanthus
Fig
Lime
Privet
Rosemary
Eleagnus x ebbingei
Eucalyptus
Hazel
Willow
Plane
Myrtus apiculata
Alder
Cornus
Gingko
Pittosporum
Rhamnus
Beech
Hornbeam
Berberis
Lonicera
Phillyrea
Pyracantha
Photinia
Cupressus
Chestnut
Pyrus
Ash
Rhododendron
Podocarpus
Cinnamomum
Juniper
Aucuba
Acer
Hawthorn
Viburnum
Prunus – lots of fruit trees take to being espaliered!
Elder
Buddleia
Conifer
Laurel
Abies
Cedar
Chaemycyparis
Oak
Pieris
Camellia
Cryptomeiria
Choisya
Tree ferns
Bananas
Bamboos
Yuccas
Lyonothamnus
Magnolia
Oleander
Euonymous
Choisya
Palms
What to clip with?
We hope you can add to the topiary palette with your own experiments – happy clipping!
EBTS Boxwood Growers Forum
Through the European Boxwood and Topiary Society I worked with Chris Poole and Sue Mesher, members of the EBTS board, and we set up a Boxwood Growers Forum. This was to discuss how to make sure this wonderful topiary plant stays in the public conscioussness – we know many growers, suppliers and distributors have stopped selling it as the cost of replacing boxwood that has blight, or is nibbled by the boxwood caterpillar, makes it unviable to offer to clients and gardeners. But Boxwood is a phoenix plant, and there are ways to deal with the problems associated with Buxus. …
Modern Topiarist @ Garden Masterclass Poland
My video on Modern Topiary for Garden Masterclass has been translated into Polish, for the keen gardeners (and happy pruners!) of Garedn Masterclass in Poland. Tickets for the first showing and q and a were available here. But it will become available on the Garden Masterclass Poland website at some point in the near future – so if you are a keen clipper and want to know more, but speak Polish and not English, then I suggest you visit the website and get watching. (Of course, if you don’t speak English, you may not be able to read this…. hmmm… …
Topiary Hotline
The European Boxwood & Topiary Society are to run a Topiary Hotline for keen gardeners and people who love to clip. Date is tomorrow, April 16th 2024, and you can get a ticket for the Zoom meeting here – Topiary Hotline. Run by Chris Poole and myself, we set this up as an antidote to the huge amount of questions we have to answer about topiary throughout the summer. The plus is that their is an excitement around topiary and pruning. The problem is we need to help people in a better way… … so we will be giving people …