This undated photo shows a row of yews along a house foundation in New Paltz, N.Y. With dense, small leaves and readiness to resprout from pruning cuts, yews are easily pruned as a topiary — in this case as a giant caterpillar. (Lee Reich via AP)
This undated photo shows a row of yews along a house foundation in New Paltz, N.Y. With dense, small leaves and readiness to resprout from pruning cuts, yews are easily pruned as a topiary — in this case as a giant caterpillar. (Lee Reich via AP) Credit: Lee Reich

Topiary is the art of growing trees and shrubs as living sculptures – cubes, spheres, obelisks, animal shapes or combinations of these.

The tradition has flourished in various places at different times, but in modern gardens, topiary is rare, unless you count our foundation plantings of clipped yews and junipers – “gumdrop” or “dot-dash” landscaping along home foundations.

SUGGESTED PLANTS

Only certain plants are suitable for pruned topiary. (Topiaries created with wire frames “plugged” with hens-and-chicks plants or embraced by vining plants are a different story, for another time.) The ideal topiary plant is slow-growing, tolerant of repeated pruning, and able to re-sprout from older wood. Especially for smaller topiaries viewed at close range, small leaves are needed to create a surface with a crisp edge.

If possible, select a species or variety whose natural shape approximates its intended shape: Densa yew for a low sphere, or Pyramidalis yew for an obelisk, as examples.

Evergreens generally are used for topiary, but occasionally a deciduous plant such as English hawthorn or European beech is used. A drawback to a deciduous topiary, of course, is that it is bare in winter (although beech does not shed its dead leaves until spring). Deciduous plants generally grow more exuberantly than do evergreens, so also require more diligence to keep growth in check.

Many species of evergreens have been used for topiary. The quintessential ones are yew and boxwood. Some other suitable plants include arborvitae, hemlock, holly and rosemary.

DEVELOPING YOUR SHAPE

In most cases, begin shaping your plant while it is young. You could, however, carve a shape out of an old overgrown yew, much as you would out of wood or stone, because yew grows so densely and sprouts so freely from old wood.

Or maybe a growing plant will suggest a form that you could then develop. You might even juxtapose two plants, or let one grow up through the other to create, for example, a pedestal on which sits a verdant animal.

In any case, topiary lends itself more to bold shapes than to intricate designs whose details are swallowed up between prunings.