Autre topiaire

Topiary trees and shaped plants

Standards, balls, screens and umbrella-trained trees in photinia, holly, Japanese holly and laurel, for topiary beyond bay, box and olive.

Bay, box and olive have their own pages. This collection is for everything else that's been trained and clipped into a shape. Nearly all of it is evergreen, so it holds its outline through the winter, and most of it is just as happy in a large pot as planted out in the garden.

Photinia 'Red Robin'

Photinia is the plant we offer in the most shapes. The new leaves come through bright red in spring, and again after each trim, before they turn green. We have it as bushes, lollipop standards, flat screens on a single stem, pleached trees for planting in a line, and umbrella (parachute) shapes that give you a canopy above head height. 'Little Red Robin' and 'Robusta Compacta' are more compact, and 'Pink Marble' has leaves edged in cream with pink new growth.

Holly and Japanese holly

Ilex crenata, or Japanese holly, has small, dark leaves and looks a lot like box, which is why plenty of people now use it for balls and cloud shapes instead. It isn't troubled by box blight or box tree caterpillar. Our traditional hollies include 'Golden King' and the gold-edged 'Aureomarginata' as standards, and 'Blue Maid' as a clipped ball.

Other evergreens

Viburnum tinus (laurustinus) standards flower through the winter, when little else does. Portuguese laurel makes a neat, dark green specimen, and the range also includes yew. There's a fig, too, if you'd like something deciduous with fruit.

Topiary sculptures

Several of our living sculptures are listed here, including the Liver Bird, the eagle, the swan, the seagull and the cannon. Each one is grown over a steel frame made in our New Forest workshop. The full range is in ready made topiary.

Caring for shaped plants

Clipped plants in pots dry out faster than you'd expect, so water them well from spring to autumn. Feed with a slow release fertiliser in spring and trim once or twice in summer to keep the outline sharp. Every plant comes with free plant food. If you need help choosing, get in touch.