Making Topiaries

Topiaries are basically the decorative shapes in garden made by clipping or trimming shrubs. They are a common feature in most of the gardens now. These topiaries add interesting touch to the garden. One can design different topiaries based on various themes in the garden-be it geometrical shapes, stars, animal shapes or any such shape. The word Topiary is basically derived from a Latin word which is used for an ornamental landscape gardener. Given here are the basic steps of making your own topiaries. Also, given here are tips for maintaining your wonderful Topiary.

Basic Ways Of Making your own Topiary

There are several plants which you can use for making Topiaries. Few of them are herb rosemary, hollies, ivies, boxwood, lantana, fuchsia, and hydrangeas.

Incase you are planning to make topiary the basic things you will need are- a plant of your choice, peat and perlite, pruning shears, staking ties and fertilizers.

First of all plant a rooted cutting in 50-50 mixture of peat and perlite.

Now relocate it to a 3-1/2-inch pot with the help of sterilized potting soil when it gets completely rooted. You can crop its shoots from the sides to encourage a vertical direction growth.

Now stake your plant closely with ties. Allow it grow in a sunny pot with plenty of watering for about two months.

Make sure you start properly trimming it when it grows 2 feet tall. You should trim off its primary vertical shoot first of all.

After the upward and side growth is controlled, cut out the bottom two-thirds of the plant of all its shoots, leaving only the top one-third and its branches that would be used for shaping.

Now at this stage loosen its ties to allow its diametrical growth. Now make sure to turn the plant weekly.

Keep pinching it off on a regular basis to give it a bushy structure.

You should repot or trim its root if it shows tendencies of becoming rootbound.

Maintaining Topiaries

Keep in concern that you provide moist soil to the topiary plants. In case you have selected plants like Ivy, boxwood and evergreens they will soon start turning brown if you do not irrigate them properly.

Try to avoid over watering of the plants. Avoid placing the pots in water because they will cause the rottening of the roots. Though you can put the pot in the saucer with gravel in it and keep the root upward to avoid its direct contact with water.

Incase there is a problem of drying out, you can try soaking the pot partially simply to moisturize the soil.

In order to avoid weeds and insects and give it generous greenery, use fertilizer and insecticide in small quantity and during the springtime. Also make sure that you avoid excessive use of fertilizer.

Regular trimming is mandatory if you want to keep your topiaries in shape. You can trim its long growth with bypass prunes.

You can also do an arrangement to keep the weak stems in shape if possible by tying. You can also tuck in the stretched branches and weak stems of the plant.