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Topiary

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Topiary is the horticultural practice of training live perennial plant
Perennial plant
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

s, by clipping the foliage and twig
Twig
A twig is a small thin terminal branch of a woody plant. Twigs are critically important in identification of trees, shrubs and vines, especially in wintertime. The buds on the twig are an important diagnostic characteristic, as are the abscission scars where the leaves have fallen away...

s of tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

s, shrub
Shrub
A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

s and subshrub
Subshrub
A subshrub or dwarf shrub is a short woody plant. Prostrate shrub is a similar term.It is distinguished from a shrub by its ground-hugging stems and lower height, with overwintering perennial woody growth typically less than 10–20 cm tall, or by being only weakly woody and/or persisting...

s to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, perhaps geometric or fanciful; and the term also refers to plants which have been shaped in this way. It can be an art and is a form of living sculpture
Living sculpture
Living sculpture is any type of sculpture that is created with living, growing grasses, vines, plants or trees. It can be functional and/or ornamental...

. The word derives from the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 word for an ornamental landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...

 gardener, topiarius, creator of topia or "places", a Greek word that Romans applied also to fictive indoor landscapes executed in fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

. No doubt the use of a Greek word betokens the art's origins in the Hellenistic world that was influenced by Persia
Persian Gardens
The tradition and style in the garden design of Persian gardens has influenced the design of gardens from Andalusia to India and beyond. The gardens of the Alhambra show the influence of Persian Garden philosophy and style in a Moorish Palace scale from the era of Al-Andalus in Spain...

, for neither Classical Greece nor Republican Rome developed any sophisticated tradition of artful pleasure grounds.

The plants used in topiary are evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...

, mostly woody
Woody plant
A woody plant is a plant that uses wood as its structural tissue. These are typically perennial plants whose stems and larger roots are reinforced with wood produced adjacent to the vascular tissues. The main stem, larger branches, and roots of these plants are usually covered by a layer of...

, have small leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 or needles, produce dense foliage, and have compact and/or columnar (e.g. fastigiate) growth habits. Common species choices used in topiary include cultivars of European box (Buxus sempervirens
Buxus sempervirens
Buxus sempervirens is a flowering plant in the genus Buxus, native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia, from southern England south to northern Morocco, and east through the northern Mediterranean region to Turkey. Buxus colchica of western Caucasus and B...

), arborvitae (Thuja
Thuja
Thuja is a genus of coniferous trees in the Cupressaceae . There are five species in the genus, two native to North America and three native to eastern Asia...

species), bay laurel
Bay Laurel
The bay laurel , also known as sweet bay, bay tree, true laurel, Grecian laurel, laurel tree, or simply laurel, is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub with green, glossy leaves, native to the Mediterranean region. It is the source of the bay leaf used in cooking...

 (Laurus nobilis), holly
Holly
Ilex) is a genus of 400 to 600 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. The species are evergreen and deciduous trees, shrubs, and climbers from tropics to temperate zones world wide....

 (Ilex species), myrtle
Myrtaceae
The Myrtaceae or Myrtle family are a family of dicotyledon plants, placed within the order Myrtales. Myrtle, clove, guava, feijoa, allspice, and eucalyptus belong here. All species are woody, with essential oils, and flower parts in multiples of four or five...

 (Eugenia
Eugenia
Eugenia is a genus of flowering plants in the myrtle family Myrtaceae. It has a worldwide, although highly uneven, distribution in tropical and subtropical regions. The bulk of the approximately 1,000 species occur in the New World tropics, especially in the northern Andes, the Caribbean, and the...

or Myrtus species), yew (Taxus
Taxus
Taxus is a genus of yews, small coniferous trees or shrubs in the yew family Taxaceae. They are relatively slow-growing and can be very long-lived, and reach heights of 1-40 m, with trunk diameters of up to 4 m...

species), and privet (Ligustrum
Ligustrum
Ligustrum is a genus of about forty species of erect, deciduous or evergreen shrubs, sometimes forming small or medium-sized trees. They are now all known by the common name of privet.-Selected species:...

species). Shaped wire cages are sometimes employed in modern topiary to guide untutored shears, but traditional topiary depends on patience and a steady hand; small-leaved ivy can be used to cover a cage and give the look of topiary in a few months. The hedge is a simple form of topiary used to create boundaries, walls or screens.

Origin


European topiary dates from Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 times. Pliny's Natural History and the epigram writer Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...

 both credit Cneius Matius Calvena, in the circle of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

, with introducing the first topiary to Roman gardens
Roman gardens
Roman gardens and ornamental horticulture became highly developed during the history of Roman civilization. The Gardens of Lucullus on the Pincian Hill at the edge of Rome introduced the Persian garden to Europe, around 60 BC...

, and Pliny the Younger
Pliny the Younger
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo , better known as Pliny the Younger, was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate him...

 describes in a letter the elaborate figures of animals, inscriptions and cyphers and obelisk
Obelisk
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...

s in clipped greens at his Tuscan villa (Epistle vi, to Apollinaris). Within the atrium
Atrium (architecture)
In modern architecture, an atrium is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within a larger multistory building and often located immediately beyond the main entrance doors...

 of a Roman house or villa
Roman villa
A Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...

, a place that had formerly been quite plain, the art of the topiarius produced a miniature landscape (topos) which might employ the comparable art of stunting trees, also mentioned, disapprovingly, by Pliny (Historia Naturalis xii.6).

Far Eastern topiary



Clipping and shaping of shrubs and trees in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 has been practised with equal rigor, but with entirely different aesthetic aims: the artful expression of the "natural" forms of venerably aged pines, given character by the forces of wind and weather. Their most concentrated expressions are in the related arts of Chinese penjing
Penjing
Penjing , also known as penzai , tray landscape, potted scenery, potted landscape, and miniature trees and rockery is the ancient Chinese art of growing trees and plants, kept small by skilled pruning and formed to create an aesthetic shape and the complex illusion of age...

 and Japanese bonsai
Bonsai
is a Japanese art form using miniature trees grown in containers. Similar practices exist in other cultures, including the Chinese tradition of penjing from which the art originated, and the miniature living landscapes of Vietnamese hòn non bộ...

.

Japanese cloud-pruning (illustration) is closest to the European art: the cloud-like forms of clipped growth are designed to be best appreciated after a fall of snow. Japanese Zen gardens
Japanese rock garden
The or "dry landscape" gardens, often called "Zen gardens", are a type of garden that features extensive use of rocks or stones, along with plants native to rocky or alpine environments that were influenced mainly by Zen Buddhism and can be found at Zen temples of meditation.- Overview :Japanese...

 (karesansui, dry rock gardens) make extensive use of Karikomi (topiary technique of clipping shrubs and trees into large curved shapes or sculptures) and Hako-zukuri (shrubs clipped into boxes and straight lines).

Renaissance topiary



Since its European revival in the 16th century, topiary has been seen in the parterre
Parterre
A parterre is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds, edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging, and gravel paths arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern. Parterres need not have any flowers at all...

s and terraces in gardens of the European elite, and also in cottage garden
Cottage garden
The cottage garden is a distinct style of garden that uses an informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants. English in origin, the cottage garden depends on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure...

s. Traditional topiary forms use foliage pruned and/or trained into geometric shapes: balls or cubes, obelisk
Obelisk
An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...

s, pyramids, cones, tapering spirals, and the like. Representational forms depicting people, animals, and manmade objects have also been popular.

Topiary at Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....

 and its imitators was never complicated: low hedges punctuated by potted trees trimmed as balls on standards, interrupted by obelisks at corners, provided the vertical features of flat-patterned parterre gardens. Sculptural forms were provided by stone and lead sculptures. In Holland, however, the fashion was established for more complicated topiary designs; this Franco-Dutch garden style spread to England after 1660.

Decline in the 18th century



In England topiary was all but killed in fashion by the famous satiric essay on "Verdant Sculpture" that Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

 published in The Guardian, 29 September 1713, with its mock catalogue descriptions of
  • Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the tree of knowledge in the great storm; Eve and the serpent very flourishing.
  • The tower of Babel
    Babel
    Babel is the name used in the Hebrew Bible for the city of Babylon.Babel may also refer to:-People:*Isaak Babel, Soviet journalist, playwright, and short story writer*Ryan Babel, Dutch footballer*Markus Babbel, German footballer-Places:...

    , not yet finished.
  • St George in box
    Buxus
    Buxus is a genus of about 70 species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood ....

    ; his arm scarce long enough, but will be in condition to stick the dragon
    Dragon
    A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

     by next April.
  • A quickset
    Privet
    Privet was originally the name for the European semi-evergreen shrub Ligustrum vulgare, and later also for the more reliably evergreen Ligustrum ovalifolium , used extensively for privacy hedging. It is often suggested that the name privet is related to private, but the OED states that there is no...

     hog, shot up into a porcupine
    Porcupine
    Porcupines are rodents with a coat of sharp spines, or quills, that defend or camouflage them from predators. They are indigenous to the Americas, southern Asia, and Africa. Porcupines are the third largest of the rodents, behind the capybara and the beaver. Most porcupines are about long, with...

    , by its being forgot a week in rainy weather.


In the 1720s and 1730s, the generation of Charles Bridgeman
Charles Bridgeman
Charles Bridgeman was an English garden designer in the onset of the naturalistic landscape style. Although he was a key figure in the transition of English garden design from the Anglo-Dutch formality of patterned parterres and avenues to a freer style that incorporated formal, structural and...

 and William Kent
William Kent
William Kent , born in Bridlington, Yorkshire, was an eminent English architect, landscape architect and furniture designer of the early 18th century.He was baptised as William Cant.-Education:...

 swept the English garden clean of its hedges, mazes, and topiary. After topiary fell from grace in aristocratic gardens, however, it continued to be featured in cottage
Cottage
__toc__In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cozy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location. However there are cottage-style dwellings in cities, and in places such as Canada the term exists with no connotations of size at all...

rs' gardens, where a single example of traditional forms, a ball, a tree trimmed to a cone in several cleanly separated tiers, meticulously clipped and perhaps topped with a topiary peacock, might be passed on as an heirloom.

Revival




The revival of topiary in English gardening parallels the revived "Jacobethan
Jacobethan
Jacobethan is the style designation coined in 1933 by John Betjeman to describe the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance , with elements of Elizabethan and...

" taste in architecture; John Loudon
John Loudon
John Loudon is the name of:*John Loudon , Dutch foreign minister *John Claudius Loudon , Scottish botanist*John William Loudon , Missouri state senator...

 in the 1840s was the first garden writer to express a sense of loss at the topiary that had been removed from English gardens. The art of topiary, with enclosed garden "rooms", burst upon the English gardening public with the matured example of Elvaston Castle
Elvaston Castle
Elvaston Castle is a country park in Elvaston, Derbyshire, England with of woodlands, parkland and formal gardens. The centrepiece of the estate is Elvaston Castle itself. The castle is a Grade II* listed building but as at 2008 is regarded as a Building at Risk.-History:In the 16th century the...

, Derbyshire, which opened to public viewing in the 1850s and created a sensation: "within a few years architectural topiary was springing up all over the country (it took another 25 years before sculptural topiary began to become popular as well)". The following generation, represented by James Shirley Hibberd, rediscovered the charm of specimens as part of the mystique of the "English cottage garden
Cottage garden
The cottage garden is a distinct style of garden that uses an informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental and edible plants. English in origin, the cottage garden depends on grace and charm rather than grandeur and formal structure...

", which was as much invented as revived from the 1870s:
The classic statement of the British Arts and Crafts
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

 revival of topiary among roses and mixed herbaceous border
Herbaceous border
A herbaceous border is a collection of perennial herbaceous plants arranged closely together, usually to create a dramatic effect through colour, shape or large scale. The term herbaceous border is mostly in use in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth...

s, characterised generally as "the old-fashioned garden" or the "Dutch garden" was Topiary: Garden Craftsmanship in Yew and Box by Nathaniel Lloyd
Nathaniel Lloyd
Sir Nathaniel Lloyd was an English jurist and Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.-Life:Born in the Savoy Hospital 29 November 1669, eldest son of Sir Richard Lloyd by Elizabeth, his wife. He was educated at St Paul's School and Trinity College, Oxford, where he matriculated 9 April 1685. He was...

 (1867–1933), who had retired in middle age and taken up architectural design with the encouragement of Sir Edwin Lutyens
Edwin Lutyens
Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA was a British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era...

: Lloyd's own timber-framed manor house, Great Dixter
Great Dixter
Great Dixter is a house in Northiam, East Sussex close to the South Coast of England. It has a famous garden which is regarded as the epitome of English plantsmanship. - House :...

, Sussex, remains an epitome of this stylised mix of topiary with "cottagey" plantings that was practised by Gertrude Jekyll
Gertrude Jekyll
Gertrude Jekyll was an influential British garden designer, writer, and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and the USA and contributed over 1,000 articles to Country Life, The Garden and other magazines.-Early life:...

 and Edwin Lutyens in a fruitful partnership. The new gardening vocabulary incorporating topiary required little expensive restructuring in plan: "At Lyme Park
Lyme Park
Lyme Park is a large estate located south of Disley, Cheshire, England. It consists of a mansion house surrounded by formal gardens, in a deer park in the Peak District National Park...

, Cheshire, the garden went from being an Italian garden to being a Dutch garden without any change actually taking place on the ground," Brent Elliot noted in 2000

Americans in England were awake to the renewed charms of topiary. When William Waldorf Astor bought Hever Castle
Hever Castle
Hever Castle is located in the village of Hever near Edenbridge, Kent, south-east of London, England. It began as a country house, built in the 13th century...

, Kent around 1906, the moat surrounding the house precluded the addition of wings for servants, guests and the servants of guests that the Astor manner required: he built an authentically-styled Tudor village to accommodate the overflow, with an "Old English Garden" including buttress
Buttress
A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall...

ed hedges and free-standing topiary. In the preceding decade, expatriate Americans, led by Edwin Austin Abbey
Edwin Austin Abbey
Edwin Austin Abbey was an American artist, illustrator, and painter. He flourished at the beginning of what is now referred to as the "golden age" of illustration, and is best known for his drawings and paintings of Shakespearean and Victorian subjects, as well as for his painting of Edward VII's...

, created an Anglo-American society at Broadway, Worcestershire
Broadway, Worcestershire
Broadway is a village and civil parish in the Worcestershire part of the Cotswolds in England.Often referred to as the "Jewel of the Cotswolds", Broadway village lies beneath Fish Hill on the western Cotswold escarpment...

, where topiary was one of the elements of a "Cotswold" house-and-garden style soon naturalised among upper-class Americans at home. Topiary, which had featured in very few 18th century American gardens, came into favour with the Colonial Revival gardens and the grand manner of the American Renaissance
American Renaissance
In the history of American architecture and the arts, the American Renaissance was the period in 1835-1880 characterized by renewed national self-confidence and a feeling that the United States was the heir to Greek democracy, Roman law, and Renaissance humanism...

, 1880–1920. The beginning of a concern with the revival and maintenance of historic gardens in the 20th century led to the replanting of the topiary maze
Maze
A maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. In everyday speech, both maze and labyrinth denote a complex and confusing series of pathways, but technically the maze is distinguished from the labyrinth, as the labyrinth has a single...

 at the Governor's Palace, Colonial Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg is the private foundation representing the historic district of the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. The district includes buildings dating from 1699 to 1780 which made colonial Virginia's capital. The capital straddled the boundary of the original shires of Virginia —...

, in the 1930s.

The title character in Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...

's movie Edward Scissorhands
Edward Scissorhands
Edward Scissorhands is a 1990 romantic fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp. The film shows the story of an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands. Edward is taken in by a suburban family and falls in love with their teenage daughter...

is lauded for his skill in the art; a real-life topiary artist is one of the subjects of Errol Morris
Errol Morris
Errol Mark Morris is an American director. In 2003, The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors. Also in 2003, his film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-Early life and...

's Fast, Cheap and Out of Control
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control is a 1997 film by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. It profiles four subjects with extraordinary careers: a lion trainer, a topiary sculptor, a mole rat specialist, and a robot scientist....

.

20th century



American Portable style Topiary was introduced to Disneyland around 1962. Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 helped bring this new medium into being - wishing to recreate his cartoon characters throughout his theme park in landscape shrubbery. The frame allows the plants to grow into every curve with a built in guide. This style of topiary is based on a steel wire frame that is either stuffed with sphagnum moss and planted, or a frame that has shrubbery growing from within as a permanent cutting guide. The sculpture slowly transforms into a permanent topiary then as it grows in.
This style has led to imaginative displays and festivals throughout the Disney Resorts and Parks
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is the segment of The Walt Disney Company that conceives, builds, and manages the company's theme parks and holiday resorts, as well as a variety of additional family-oriented leisure enterprises...

, and Mosaiculture (multiple types and styles of plants creating a mosaic, living sculpture
Living sculpture
Living sculpture is any type of sculpture that is created with living, growing grasses, vines, plants or trees. It can be functional and/or ornamental...

) competition worldwide includes the impressive display at the 2008 Summer Olympics
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...

 in China. Living corporate logos along roadsides, green roof
Green roof
A green roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage and irrigation systems...

 softscapes and living walls that biofilter air are offshoots of this technology.

Artificial topiary are another off-shoot similar to the concept of artificial Christmas tree
Artificial Christmas tree
Artificial Christmas trees are artificial pine and fir trees manufactured for the specific purpose of use as a Christmas tree. The earliest artificial Christmas trees were wooden, tree-shaped pyramids or feather trees, both developed by Germans...

s. These topiary mimic the same style of living versions, often as indoor plants for home decoration. Patents are issued as well in both style, design, and concept on the construction of different types of topiary trees.

Notable topiary displays







Australia

  • Railton, Tasmania
    Railton, Tasmania
    Railton is a town situated 20km inland from Devonport on the north-west coast of Tasmania, Australia's island state. At the 2006 census, Railton had a population of 900. It was first known as Redwater Creek and became known as Railton after the construction of a tramway line in the 1860s...

     known as Railton Town of Topiary (Railton, Tasmania)
Railton is a part of the Kentish Municipality, Tasmania's "Outdoor Art Gallery". Railton's topiary is one facet of the outdoor art gallery. There are many topiaries underway in various stages of growth.

Asia

  • Mosaiculture 2006 (Shanghai, China)
  • The Samban-Lei Sekpil
    Samban-Lei Sekpil
    Samban-Lei Sekpil is the world's tallest topiary. Created by Moirangthem Okendra Kumbi, it is modelled in the shape of a series of open umbrellas and spheres....

     in Manipur
    Manipur
    Manipur is a state in northeastern India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. Manipur is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west; it also borders Burma to the east. It covers an area of...

    , India
    India
    India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

    , begun in 1983 and recently measuring 18.6 m (61 ft) in height, is the world's tallest topiary, according to Guinness Book of World Records. It is clipped of Duranta erecta
    Duranta erecta
    Duranta erecta is a species of flowering shrub in the verbena family Verbenaceae, native from Mexico to South America and the Caribbean. It is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant in tropical and subtropical gardens throughout the world, and has become naturalized in many places...

    , a shrub widely used in Manipuri gardens, into a tiered shape called a sekpil or satra that honours the forest god Umang Lai.
  • Royal Palace
    Bang Pa-In Royal Palace
    Bang Pa-In Royal Palace , also known as the Summer Palace, is a palace complex formerly used by the Thai kings. The palace is located on the Chao Phraya River bank in Bang Pa-In district, Ayutthaya Province...

     at Bang Pa-In in Thailand
    Thailand
    Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

  • The Terrace Garden in Chandigarh
    Chandigarh
    Chandigarh is a union territory of India that serves as the capital of two states, Haryana and Punjab. The name Chandigarh translates as "The Fort of Chandi". The name is from an ancient temple called Chandi Mandir, devoted to the Hindu goddess Chandi, in the city...

    , India, has topiaries in form of animals by Narinder Kumar Sharma as attraction for children.

Europe

  • Cliveden
    Cliveden
    Cliveden is an Italianate mansion and estate at Taplow, Buckinghamshire, England. Set on banks above the River Thames, its grounds slope down to the river. The site has been home to an Earl, two Dukes, a Prince of Wales and the Viscounts Astor....

     (Buckinghamshire, England)
  • Levens Hall
    Levens Hall
    Levens Hall is a manor house in the county of Cumbria in northern England. The first house on the site was a pele tower built by the Redman family in around 1350. Much of the present building dates from the Elizabethan era, when the Bellingham family extended the house...

     (Cumbria, England)
A premier topiary garden started in the late 17th century by M. Beaumont, a French gardener who laid out the gardens of Hampton Court (which were recreated in the 1980s).
  • Topsham railway station
    Topsham railway station
    Topsham railway station is the railway station serving the town of Topsham in the English county of Devon. It is the passing place for the otherwise single-track branch line from Exmouth Junction to Exmouth...

     (Devon, England) An example of topiary lettering.
  • Canons Ashby
    Canons Ashby
    Canons Ashby is a small village and civil parish in the Daventry district of the county of Northamptonshire, England.Its most notable building is Canons Ashby House, a National Trust property. The parish church is a surviving fragment of Canons Ashby Priory.It is situated one mile from Moreton...

     (Northamptonshire, England) A 16th-century garden revised in 1708
  • Stiffkey
    Stiffkey
    Stiffkey is a village and civil parish on the north coast of the English county of Norfolk. It is situated on the A149 coast road, some east of Wells-next-the-Sea, west of Blakeney, and north-west of the city of Norwich....

    , (Norfolk, England)
Several informal designs including a line of elephants at Nellie's cottage and a guitar.
  • Hidcote Manor Garden
    Hidcote Manor Garden
    Hidcote Manor Garden is a garden located on the outskirts of the small village of Hidcote Bartrim, near Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England and owned by the National Trust....

     (Gloucestershire, England)
  • Knightshayes Court (Devon, England)
  • Great Dixter Gardens (East Sussex, England): Laid out by Nathaniel Lloyd, the author of a book on topiary, and preserved and extended by his son, the garden-writer Christopher Lloyd
    Christopher Lloyd (gardener)
    Christopher Hamilton Lloyd, OBE was a British gardener and author. He was the 20th Century chronicler for the heavily planted, labour-intensive, country garden.-Life:...

    .
  • Much Wenlock Priory
    Much Wenlock Priory
    Much Wenlock Priory is a ruined 12th century monastery, located in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, at . The foundation was a part of the Cluniac order, which was refounded in 1079 and 1082, on the site of an earlier 7th century monastery, by Roger de Montgomery...

    , Shropshire
  • Drummond Castle Gardens (Perthshire, Scotland)
  • Portmeirion
    Portmeirion
    Portmeirion is a popular tourist village in Gwynedd, North Wales. It was designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975 in the style of an Italian village and is now owned by a charitable trust....

     (Snowdonia, Wales)
  • Parc des Topiares (Durbuy
    Durbuy
    Durbuy is a Walloon city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Luxembourg. On 1 January 2007 the municipality had 10,633 inhabitants. The total area is 156.61 km², giving a population density of 67.9 inhabitants per km²....

    , Belgium)
A large topiary garden (10 000 m2) with over 250 figures.
  • Château de Villandry
    Château de Villandry
    The Château de Villandry is a castle-palace located in Villandry, in the département of Indre-et-Loire, France.The lands where an ancient fortress once stood were known as Colombier until the 17th century...

    , France
  • Villa Lante
    Villa Lante
    Villa Lante at Bagnaia is a Mannerist garden of surprise near Viterbo, central Italy, attributed to Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola).The villa is known as the "Villa Lante"...

     (Bagnaia, Italy)
  • Castello Balduino (Montalto Pavese, Italy)
  • Guggenheim Museum
    Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
    The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art, designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, built by Ferrovial, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. It is built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Atlantic Coast. The...

    , (Bilbao
    Bilbao
    Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...

    , Spain
    Spain
    Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

    ): A huge sculpture of a West Highland White Terrier
    West Highland White Terrier
    The West Highland White Terrier, commonly known as the Westie, is a Scottish breed of dog with a distinctive white coat. The modern breed is descended from a number of breeding programes of white terriers in Scotland prior to the 20th century...

     designed by the artist Jeff Koons
    Jeff Koons
    Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....

    , which is thought by experts and scientists to be the world's biggest topiary dog.
  • The Tsubo-en Zen garden in Lelystad, Netherlands is a private Modern Japanese Zen (karesansui, dry rock) garden that makes extensive use of so called O-karikomi combined with Hako-zukuri (see above).
  • Gardens of the Palace of Versailles
    Gardens of Versailles
    The Gardens of Versailles occupy part of what was once the Domaine royal de Versailles, the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover some 800 hectares of land, much of which is landscaped in the classic French Garden style perfected here by...

     outside Paris, France

North America

  • Hunnewell Arboretum (Wellesley, Massachusetts
    Wellesley, Massachusetts
    Wellesley is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of Greater Boston. The population was 27,982 at the time of the 2010 census.It is best known as the home of Wellesley College and Babson College...

    )
140-year-old topiary garden of native white pine and arborvitae.
  • Ladew Topiary Gardens
    Ladew Topiary Gardens
    Ladew Topiary Gardens are nonprofit gardens with topiary located at 3535 Jarrettsville Pike, Monkton, Maryland. The house and gardens are open April through October weekdays and weekends; an admission fee is charged. The gardens were established in the 1930s by socialite and huntsman Harvey S...

     (Monkton, Maryland
    Monkton, Maryland
    Monkton is an unincorporated community in northern Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It has a population of about 4,856 people. It is in area, with approximately...

    )
A topiary garden in Maryland established by award-winning topiary artist Harvey Ladew
Harvey Ladew
Harvey Smith Ladew II was an American topiary enthusiast, and a fox hunting enthusiast, who created the Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton, Maryland.-Biography:Ladew was born in New York City to Edward R. Ladew...

 in the late 1930s. Located approximately halfway between the north Baltimore suburbs and the southern Pennsylvania border. Ladew's most famous topiary is a hunt, horses, riders, dogs and the fox, clearing a well-clipped hedge, the most famous single piece of classical topiary in North America.
  • Topiary Garden at Longwood Gardens
    Longwood Gardens
    Longwood Gardens consists of over 1,077 acres of gardens, woodlands, and meadows in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, United States in the Brandywine Creek Valley...

     (Kennett Square, Pennsylvania
    Kennett Square, Pennsylvania
    Kennett Square is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known as the Mushroom Capital of the World because mushroom farming in the region produces over a million pounds of mushrooms a year...

    )
  • Columbus Topiary Park at Old Deaf School (Columbus, Ohio
    Columbus, Ohio
    Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...

    )
A public garden in downtown Columbus that features a topiary tableau of Georges Seurat's famous painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte - 1884 is one of Georges Seurat's most famous works, and is an example of pointillism.-Overview:...

  • Pearl Fryar
    Pearl Fryar
    Pearl Fryar is an African-American topiary artist living in Bishopville, South Carolina.Born in Clinton, North Carolina, Pearl was the son of a sharecropper. Since the early 1980s, Pearl Fryar has been creating fantastic topiary at his garden in Bishopville, South Carolina. Living sculptures,...

    's Topiary Garden, (Bishopville, South Carolina
    Bishopville, South Carolina
    Bishopville is a city in Lee County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 3,670 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Lee County.-Geography:Bishopville is located at ....

    )
  • Green Animals, a topiary garden outside Providence, Rhode Island. One of the subjects of the documentary Fast, Cheap and Out of Control
    Fast, Cheap and Out of Control
    Fast, Cheap and Out of Control is a 1997 film by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. It profiles four subjects with extraordinary careers: a lion trainer, a topiary sculptor, a mole rat specialist, and a robot scientist....

    (1997) was George Mendonça, the topiarist at Green Animals for more than seventy years: "it's just cut and wait, cut and wait" Mendonça says in a filmed sequence..

Popular culture

  • In the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp film Edward Scissorhands
    Edward Scissorhands
    Edward Scissorhands is a 1990 romantic fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp. The film shows the story of an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands. Edward is taken in by a suburban family and falls in love with their teenage daughter...

    , Edward proves to have a natural gift for topiary art. Numerous creative works are shown throughout the movie.
  • In the Stephen King novel The Shining
    The Shining (novel)
    The Shining is a 1977 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The title was inspired by the John Lennon song "Instant Karma!", which contained the line "We all shine on…". It was King's third published novel, and first hardback bestseller, and the success of the book firmly established King...

    , topiary animals that move when people aren't looking are a point of fright for the Torrance family.
  • In the children's novel The Children of Green Knowe
    Green Knowe
    Green Knowe is a series of six books written by Lucy M. Boston, published between 1954 and 1976. They feature a very old house, Green Knowe, which is based on Boston's then-residence, The Manor in Hemingford Grey, Cambridgeshire. Some books in the series feature a boy called Toseland and his...

     by Lucy M. Boston
    Lucy M. Boston
    Lucy M. Boston was an English children's writer. She is best known for the six books in the Green Knowe series .-Biography:Boston was born in Southport in Lancashire in 1892 and died in 1990...

    , an overgrown topiary figure of Noah
    Noah
    Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...

    plays a sinister role.

Further reading

  • Hadfield, Miles. Topiary and Ornamental Hedges: Their history and cultivation. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1971. ISBN 0713611936

External links