How to Start a Topiary

Hedge-type shrubs can be grown successfully as topiaries.

The specialized gardening style known as topiary involves training or clipping evergreen or deciduous plants into geometric or whimsical shapes. Topiaries as permanent garden architecture can be created from vigorous evergreen or deciduous shrubs or from evergreen vines trained onto frames. Potted topiaries, which can be brought indoors during severe winter weather, usually start with topiary frames filled with sphagnum moss with plants added and trained to cover the entire frame. In areas with severe climates you can also grow more sensitive shrubs or plants as potted topiaries and bring them indoors in winter.

Things You'll Need

• Shrubs, woody vines or other suitable plants
• Topiary forms or frames
• Sphagnum moss
• Pots for potted topiaries
• Planting soil
• Garden gloves
• Garden shears
• Hand pruners

Instructions

Vine topiaries

1. Choose a topiary frame that suits the space you intend to fill, whether that's a large corner of your backyard or a medium-sized garden pot.

2. Choose a fast-growing vine--or any woody plant that sends out roots along its stem--that suits your climate and your overall purpose. Tough evergreen vines such as English ivy are good choices. Pick a plant you know, and know how to prune, for best results.

3. Fill the topiary form with sphagnum moss, for a fuller three-dimensional effect. Though not absolutely necessary for outdoor topiary--moss can be prohibitively expensive for large garden sculptures--this step does help create a faster topiary. Keep sphagnum moss moist to encourage and support root establishment.

4. Plant vines around the form--the more plants the better, for a full topiary. As the vines grow, train them to climb the form. Vines will eventually cover the entire form.

Shrub topiaries

1. Follow the same general shaping principles involved in vine topiary, but first pot up or otherwise establish the shrub you'll be shaping. Large established shrubs in your yard can be reshaped as topiary.

2. Prune "freehand" if you'd like, but most topiary gardeners place some sort of frame over shrubs, then prune to that form at least until the ideal initial shape is achieved.

3. Take it slowly. If you're cutting back a large established shrub, cut branches back no more than three inches at a time to avoid shock and shrub dieback. To encourage new growth in a bare section, prune very lightly, just enough to encourage bushy new growth.

4. Water and fertilize the shrub or plant just as you would the same plant without topiary pruning.

Tips & Warnings

• Maintain your finished topiary by pruning or shearing vegetation back to the form--or within inches of the form--as needed.

• Create a large number of ivy plants at very little cost by rooting ivy cuttings, either from a few new plants you buy or from ivy already established in your yard.

• Other good topiary plants include boxwood and other hedge-friendly shrubs, creeping fig, woolly thyme, silver thyme, hen and chicks, wandering jew, lily turf, polka dot plant, creeping jenny and black mondo grass.

• Potted sphagnum topiary requires frequent watering--you can soak the entire pot in a bathtub or sink--and regular pruning to develop and keep a full shape.

References

• Gardeningknowhow.com: How to Make Your Own Topiary
• University of Illinois Extension: Topiary
• University of Nebraska Extension: The Art of Topiary
• University of Vermont Extension: Creating Indoor Topiaries

Resources

• Ohio State University Extension: Growing a Rosemary Topiary