| Topiaries: Formal Gardening on a Small Scale |
| Add a living touch of elegance to your garden or patio. |
From "Dirt On Gardening"
episode DDOG-112 |
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If you're looking for a simple, inexpensive way to add a touch of formality to your garden, consider growing topiaries. Whether you’ve received one as a gift or picked one up at the nursery, here are a few useful tips on how to care for and maintain topiaries.
Topiary Facts- Topiary is the art of shaping plants, by careful pruning, into fanciful shapes or forms.
- Topiary plants are frequently grown in containers and require frequent pruning and shaping.
- Keep topiaries in a protected location away from full sun and wind. A partially shady patio is perfect for most types of topiary.
- If your topiary does dry out, submerge the entire pot to re-hydrate the soil.
Topiary Care Basics - Keep the soil moist on most topiary plants. Ivy, boxwood and evergreens will turn brown on the edges of the leaves if allowed to dry out between watering.
- Prevent the pot from sitting in water. Standing water in the saucer will cause root rot. Fill the saucer with gravel to keep the roots up, out of direct contact with water.
- Fertilize during the growing season. Avoid over-fertilizing topiary plants, because you want to prevent excessive growth. A slow release fertilizer applied in the spring is all that most topiary plants require.
- Keep stray branches and vines tucked inside the form.
- Train vines back onto the support frame. You may need to tie woody vining plants onto the form with twist ties.
- Prune long or rapid growth back to the main body of the topiary using bypass pruners. Pruning promotes bushy growth, which will fill out a topiary and make it appear lush.
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