Cherry Laurel before prunning

The goal with a poodle topiary is to make the shrub look like a string of balls. You can prune many shrubs into this topiary shape, including Yew, Cherry Laurel, Cypress, Privet, and Pittosporum.

To begin, decide how many balls you would like. Two or three is typical. Then, decide if you would like each ball to be the same size, or if you would like the bottom ball to be bigger than the second, and then the second ball bigger than the top.

It helps to tie a ribbon where you would like to make your pruning cuts. Then, cut the branches below and above the ribbon to clear a space between the balls.

Multi-stemmed poodle topiary

If you have a multi-stemmed shrub, you can keep the thicker branches intact and just cut out the smaller branches and leaves; it will still look like there is space between two balls.

After you have cleared space between the balls, make small pruning cuts to shape as desired. You can attempt to make perfectly round balls, or you can make the balls flat on the top–or be as creative as you like.

The nice thing about working with plants is that if you don’t like how your garden artwork project turned out, the leaves will grow back.

Cherry Laurel poodle topiary

The trees we used for this garden art project are mature Italian Cypress trees that had been kept under six feet—per the home owner’s association rules. They were perfect candidates for practicing how to prune a tree into a spiral topiary! Other trees that are perfect for spiral topiary include Dwarf Alberta Spruce, Green Mountain Boxwood, and Robusta Green Juniper –trees that are columnar or pyramidal.

Materials Needed To Make a Spiral Topiary:

• Rope (string, tape, or even Christmas tree garland will do)
• Clips (clothes line clips, binder clips, bag clips—any type of clip that you have handy)
• Pruning Shears

Step One: Make an Outline for Your Spiral Topiary

Making an outline for spiral topiary

Wrap a rope around the tree to form the outline of the spiral (like a candy cane).

You decide how many levels you would like and how far apart you would like them. (We spaced our garland wraps a little over a foot apart—which made four “swirls” for a 6 foot tree.)

Use clips to help keep the rope in place (to prevent the rope from moving around when you later make the pruning cuts).

Step Two: Cut the Spiral for Your Topiary

Pruning above the rope for a spiral topiary

Use pruning shears to make cuts above the rope. When you make a cut, clear a couple of inches above the rope, all the way to the trunk of the tree. If you’re working with a mature tree, you may have multiple trunks in the center of the tree. You probably want to keep most of the trunks in place—just clear the leaves and small branches off of them. Make your cuts and follow all the way up the rope.

Step Three: Trim Your Spiral Topiary

Trimming a spiral topiary tree

After you have the main spiral in place, you can remove the rope and then trim the tree to make it look tidy. You may want to widen the cuts, round the edges of the “swirls,” make the bottom wider than the top—whatever you need to make the spiral topiary look just right.

If your tree doesn’t look “professional,” don’t worry. Although the process is easy, making a spiral topiary tree look really good takes practice. You can trim and perfect it as it grows. (You can even let the entire plant grow back to its original form if your garden art project turns out really bad.)

by Shannon Mendez

In dealing with your rose topiary or caring for your rose bushes, it is important that you understand its basic needs. Rose topiary or bushes need at least six hours of direct sunlight every day. There are also bushes that can tolerate a shaded area but still need about four or five hours of sunlight per day. You also need rich and fertile soil for your roses. You can make improvements for the soil by mixing animal waste or compost. As we have known, there are many rose bushes varieties. There is always a rose to suit every preference, taste, color or shape or anything that you can think of.

Dealing with your rose topiary or bushes also means dealing with pests problem. Invaders are always a big problem for your rose bushes. These invaders are the different harmful insects that attacked the rose plant, such are: midge larva, cane borer, Japanese beetles, thrips, stem girders, aphids, slug, mites, caterpillars, scale insects, and rose chafer. There are ways in which we can solve this problem on pests control for our garden. In sustaining the life of your rose bushes you have to plan carefully in dealing with this. Also, you have to positively know what kind of insect you will encounter. There are also non-synthetic or chemical based pesticide that you can buy to help you in your pests control problem for your rose bushes. But you have to be very careful in choosing what to buy. Chemical based pesticide is harmful for us, our pets, the wildlife and the environment. Including the so-called ‘natural chemical pesticide’ proper use must be first in our mind. Be sure to read the instructions or directions on the label of the product and follow it strictly. You can also try using the natural way of fighting these bushes invaders – use their own ‘natural enemies’ to get rid of them. There are some garden centers that offer advice or tips regarding this concern for your rose bushes.

Pruning is very important for your rose bushes as this will encourage healthy growth and will produce more blooms. Pruning is usually done every year for rose bushes and for most varieties of roses except for the ‘climbers’. In pruning, you just have to remove dead twigs or old dried stems or to train the plant’s growth in another manner.

As just plain rose enthusiasts or rose lovers would say that your garden is not complete if you don’t have roses or rose bushes in it – is true. Give it the proper care, it can offer you back the best healthy blooms to beautify your very own place and gives you too pure joy.

By Bobbi Schultz

Bobbi Schultz is a rose gardening expert. For great information on rose bush care, visit rosesguide.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bobbi_Schultz

The art of Topiary seeks to control the growth, to form from it the shapes we desire. Also to control the extent of growth annually in order to maintain those shapes once they have been achieved. The practise is to increase the surface density of the pieces – to promote a very even and close finish on the exterior and hopefully a strong and relatively rigid structure beneath.

With most species used for topiary and in most climatic zones, there are definite seasons of growth (spring and summer) and a dormant period (autumn/fall and winter). Aesthetically, the topiary pieces look best when trimmed to the tight lines of their allotted forms. This means that they look at their best just after they are clipped and before fresh new growth blurs the outlines of the shapes once more.

To maintain the creations at optimum sharpness of outline for the longest period is achieved by cutting the growth off at the end of the growing season. This is a popular technique used most often in large collections where maintenance must be kept to a minimum because of the shear number of pieces and the amount of work involved. In UK conditions most clipping work is tackled in late summer. Therefore this then gives the longest period of time – right round until the following May/June in which to view and enjoy the tightly clipped shapes.

When topiary is still in its formative stages, clipping is generally undertaken more than once each year to provide the best results. This may be particularly necessary where the species used is very vigorous in growth and continually blurs the outline, or when very finely detailed features need to be maintained. In these cases, trimming may be required every four to six weeks.

Beware of trimming in adverse weather conditions. Severely cold, frosty conditions would not be the appropriate time to trim. Some varieties such as Box (Buxus sepervirens) can be severely damaged if cut during icy periods. With this species it is traditional to trim after the last possibility of night radiation frost has passed – normally at the end of May/beginning of June. Any new growth made thereafter has time to harden sufficiently before cold conditions return in the winter.

Many gardeners are temped by good spring weather to trim in April. Unfortunately the plants are immediately prompted to produce fresh growth, which is often killed or severely damaged by hard late spring frosts during May. Clipping too late in the growing season also prompts the dangerous production of tender new shoots. Old box growth however, is of course relatively hardy.

Yew is generally clipped more than once a year for a tighter, more controlled effect. A trim of the first big flush of new growth can take place in July.

A second tidying cut to any new shoots produced is undertaken in September. With this species, if a single trim a year is made, then any time after the end of August will do, but preferably before the worst winter conditions begin. Early, rather than later clipping, should always be the aim.

Shrubby honeysuckle (Lonicera nitida) and Privet (Lgustrum aquifolium) species are such vigorous growers as to need repeated trimming during the growing season. While Beech (Fagus silvatica) and Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) require only a single trim from late August to stay neat. Their golden Autumn/Fall foliage should be retained through much of the winter to enhance their decorative effect.

Holly (Ilex aquifolium) and some other large leaved evergreens are often trimmed in late spring and perhaps again in late summer. These species often have very large leaves, which may look unsightly if trimmed using hedge clippers. They are often tackled more slowly, removing individual shoots with secateaurs.
Never be too ambitious when embarking on topiary; an identifiable sphere, cone or small bird shape is better than an unidentifiable mass! Although topiary experts are often able to create simple forms without the aid of a frame, for novices a wire frame will give guidance for successful clippings. Today we are able to purchase frames of all manner of shapes and sizes. After choosing the desired shape, place the wire frame into the ground or container, over and around an existing shrub and clip around the frame using topiary shears. It is then a matter of clipping the new shoots that grow beyond the framework.

Creating topiary is not something that can be executed in neither a weekend nor a season; it may take up to 10 or 15 years to achieve its true potential. Moderately young evergreen shrubs that are naturally full, fairly fast growing and shear well produce the best topiaries. Other suitable trees and shrubs are: Bay (Laurus nobilis), Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa), Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), Juniper (Juniperus), Thuja (Cupressus plicata) and Yew (Taxus baccata). One solution for those who loose patience with anything that takes time to fruition, is to purchase a container-grown specimen, grown and shaped to maturity by the nursery, though naturally they come at a price!

About the Author

By: Juliet S Sadler

Information on watering grass can be found at the Plants And Flowers site.

(ArticlesBase SC #784044)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ – The Art Of Fashion With Topiary