Years of effort are required to shape plants to the desired shapes and sizes. Topiaries in complicated shapes (such as bird and animal figures) are made by first preparing a rough outline with wires and then training the shrub along the frame and clipping carefully (over years) to get the desired shape. Plants used for topiary are evergreen, with dense foliage and mostly woody with small leaves and needles. The commonly chosen species include hibiscus, bougainvillea, yew, holly, privet, myrtle, and box.
With the fall of the Roman empire, topiary survived in monastery gardens. The coming of the Renaissance heralded a revival of interest in all forms of art, and in this era topiary flourished and reached new heights. All over Europe, gardens were developed for pleasure and to reflect their owners’ wealth and power. In France, the emphasis was on box hedges in complex patterns that used topiary for architectural emphasis and structure in designs. In the Netherlands, the increasing wealth of the merchant class and the introduction of new plants through their trading links fostered a passion for gardening, and the Dutch took to topiary with great zeal. Their gardens were packed with bird, animal and human figures as well as more abstract figures. In England, topiary was used to create mazes and labyrinths. The English also took their cue from the Dutch and went on to fill up their gardens with intricate ornamental figures that bordered on the bizarre.
As topiary in England reached its extreme, the 18th century saw a reaction against this art, spearheaded by the writers and philosophers of the day. Writers like Joseph Addison and Alexander Pope severely condemned topiary for deviating from nature. While Addison complained of “trees cut into mathematical figures”, Pope denounced topiary as “a monument to perverted taste”. The death knell for topiary was sounded by Pope’s famous satirical essay on “Verdant Sculpture” that mockingly described unfinished sculptures and deformed figures badly affected by the weather (“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”). After this, elaborately shaped and pruned topiaries were allowed to grow out into their natural forms. By the mid-18th century, most of England’s formal gardens were replaced with normal-looking landscapes.
In the 19th century, there was a revival of interest in topiary, which became popular in the U.S. as well.
Today, the record for the world’s tallest topiary is held by an Indian topiary – a plant in the Samban-Lei Sekpil garden in Imphal, Manipur. This is a specimen of Duranta repens, a shrub growing 61 ft. tall, modelled in the shape of a series of open umbrellas and spheres.
