You can create attractive animal shapes with the shrubs in your yard. This garden art is called topiary. It utilizes simple techniques that can be attempted by even the most inexperienced gardener. Topiary is not time consuming and the plants used are easy to clip and train. It’s fun, rewarding, and relaxing.
The first step in designing your green animals is growing shrubs that are usually used for garden art. The most commonly used plants for shaping shrubs are boxwood, yew, privet, and ivy. The boxwood is a bushy, evergreen shrub or miniature tree with small, glossy, green leaves. It grows slowly and densely which makes it an ideal plant for designing small animal shapes. Boxwood is very hardy and easily maintained. The yew is a slow-growing evergreen that easily retains shape and angle. Yew can be used to make large animal shapes and the golden yew is especially useful for accenting. The privet plant thrives in shady areas and tolerates a wide range of soil types. It is quick-growing and there are fifty species of the plant. The common ivy is small leafed, versatile and frost hardy. The ivy spreads rapidly and its trailing stems are easy to train on frames.
You will need a few basic tools to assist you with your shrub-shaping. Hand shears and a long-handled pruner are essential for clipping and trimming. A handsaw is useful for cutting through tough stems. Wire cutters are handy for clipping chicken and galvanized wires used in some shaping techniques. A lightweight ladder is helpful for hard to reach places and a small tarp is convenient for collecting clippings that fall to the ground. Another optional tool is a powered hedge trimmer. This tool reduces clipping time but must be operated carefully, as speed might be substituted for accuracy and needed stems can be accidentally cut away. In addition to the tools used for clipping, you will also need lightweight sticks and string to help tie the stems in place.
Begin your shrub-shaping project in the early summer. Look at the shrub with a shape in mind. Sometimes shrubs will suggest design ideas just by their own natural formation. When you have an idea of the animal shape you would like to create, start with basic geometric shapes. Visualize how the design will fit with the animal’s body. For example, a small leafed, bushy, common boxwood plant can be shaped into a bird or rabbit figure by starting with two geometric shapes.
To make a bird-shaped shrub, clip the bush into a spherical or oval figure to form the bird’s body. Strive for basic not detailed shape and use your eyes to guide you as you cut. Clip slowly and carefully using hand shears. Next, secure lightweight sticks at each end of the body outline. These sticks will be guides to help you form the bird’s head and tail. Decide which stems will be used to form these body parts. If required, tie the stems to the sticks with string to hold them in place. As the plant grows through the summer, clip the growing stem at one end into a small circular shape to form the bird’s head. Trim the shrub at the other end to form the bird’s tail using the sticks as your guide. In addition to clipping, gentle twisting might be necessary to retrain the plant’s growth toward the desired direction. Continue clipping and training throughout the following summers. Loosen the ties if they are hindering the growth of the shrub and remove the sticks after the shape has been defined.
Large animals in sitting positions can be created by trimming your shrub into a basic rectangular or square frame. This shape becomes the body of the animal. Once again, use sticks as your guide to determine head and tail placement. If you want to create tall animals in standing positions you will need tall skinny shrubs. The lower parts form the legs. Snip the upper parts of the shrubs to get the beginnings of the animal’s body contour.
Wire frames are also helpful to make animal designs easier. You can purchase the frames from garden suppliers or make them yourself. Create the shapes by bending galvanized wire into the desired animal design. Fasten the wire frame securely into the ground and train the plants to grow inside and over the wire. If you use a fast-growing plant like the privet, it will be necessary to trim your wire model every few weeks.
You can also create animal shapes in sturdy pots and place them in your garden or around your yard. Fill a pot with potting soil. Bend galvanized wire to make a small animal model and secure it inside the pot. Place several plants inside the soil and train them to grow over the model. Another option is overlaying the galvanized wire with chicken wire. Fill the model with moist sphagnum moss, poke several ivy plants inside the moss and train the plants to grow on the wire shape.
Keep your shrubs watered and mulched during dry months. Ensure that the surrounding area is well drained and clear of tall weeds. Check for insects or other pests that can damage the shrubs and ruin your green animals. Some plants grow rapidly and in a short time your animal model will begin to take shape. Other shrubs grow slowly and it might take up to three years before you will see any results. Your patience will be worth the end product. Eventually your garden will be enhanced with eye-catching, green animal figures that you can enjoy with pride.
