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hi I'm mercy dagwon the aspiring
gardener and today we're going to talk
about how to trim a topiary now the
thing is is that when you want to do
topiary especially if you're new to it
the first thing you have to do is pick
the right kinds of plants
now boxwood is the most common type that
you're going to find but it's the best
one to start with it's the most
forgiving if you can't kill it without
trying really hard to kill it but what
you want to do is when you go to choose
a plant it's important that you start
with the right shape now what I like to
do is find something that has a lot of
fullness I can go in later and I can
turn away any of these little branches I
want if you want to make say a lollipop
and you want the just a solid stem then
you want to start early by cutting all
those lower branches leaving this globe
and then as it gets taller you just keep
trimming away below if you want to have
a globe on the ground a little gumdrop
we call it then you want to do the
opposite you want to keep cutting from
the top and what's going to happen if
you do that is it's going to keep the
bottom full of foliage so you have to
decide first what is my shape what am I
going to do on the other hand if you
want one of those triple ball-type
you'll slowly train the first one and
then you're going to have to allow some
growth here so you'll have some growth
up here to extend to the next level of
your topiary so pick one it's got lots
of nice foliage the nice thing about box
is that as you cut it it just gets
denser and denser if you get something
with large leaves when you go to trim it
they're going to be chopped off and they
don't look good so those are better for
SPLA
or if you want to do like the umbrella
pines where you leave the needles alone
and you just cut down on the branches
that's fine too but if you want to do
something like this use box or something
similar with the tiny type dense leaf
structure and all you really have to do
this one of course is a little rounded
I've already trimmed it a little before
what you do is every time you see
something like this you trim it just
keep it trimmed and do it
and don't wait till it's way out of
shape and then cut it back because then
you will have bare areas you want to
keep it cut as often as possible use a
nice pair of kitchen or garden shears
like this and I just trim it I use these
throughout my herb garden so that in the
winter when all the herbs die back I
have some greenery so I want to keep
mine round and low to the ground but as
you can see you have a choice decide
what you're going to do and the main
thing is pick the right plant and do it
diligently and it's very simple and
you'll have a topiary
