Topiary is the horticultural practice of training live perennial plants by clipping the foliage of trees and shrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes. Sometimes geometric or fanciful, the term also refers to plants which have been shaped as an art form...a type of living sculpture. The word derives from the Latin word for an ornamental landscape.
Since its European revival in the 16th century, topiary has been seen on the parterres and terraces of gardens of the European elite, as well as in simple cottage gardens. Traditional topiary forms use foliage pruned and/or trained into geometric shapes such as balls or cubes, obelisks, pyramids, cones, or tapering spirals.
Topiary at Versailles and its imitators were never complicated..low hedges punctuated by potted trees trimmed as balls, interrupted by obelisks at corners, provided the vertical features of flat-patterned parterre gardens. The art of topiary has been in and out of style in England in the last several hundred years...becoming very popular again in the late 1880s until present day...and have been widely used in all forms...in the formal English castle gardens, Country Manor homes and the simple cottage home & garden.
Sharing with you some of my fave ways to use topiaries...
topiaries in the garden from Karl Gercens |
topiary perfection from gershwinandgertie |
Topiary love at Rue 27 Maison |
Ginny Magher's home in France... |
greenhouse topiaries via anurbancottage |
flowering hydrangea topiary |
beautiful setting from Tone on Tone... |
rustic & chic from inspired design |
topiaries from Tone on Tone... |
Versailles...via the fuller view |
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