Gardening lore has it that the time to trim topiary is after Derby Day. We're often asked about the significance of this timing - the reality is that it's nothing more equine than that the likelihood of a frost being deemed to have passed - across the whole country. While it's a good rule of thumb, gardeners in milder areas may be able to start trimming well before this day, especially given a warm spring.
There's lots of topiary in the garden at B&B HQ so I tend to spread the job out a bit. Having worked my way around the bigger bits I turned,
Topiary Shears in hand, to a raggedy bit of hedge I planted a couple of years ago.
The original plan was to create a nice squared up edging to a bed, but the more I looked at it the more I decided this hedge had other plans of it's own....so I decided to go with the flow and we now have the beginings of a free form hedge edge!
A tip for us cheeseparing gardeners; Box topiary for free........box is very easy to root, so if you have any biggish offcuts like these , put them to oneside.
Then pot them up and you should get a reasonable success rate in creating brand new plants.
A couple more tips on topiary:
Don't trim on a very bright sunny day as it has a tendency to turn the cut edges brown.
Do ensure your blades are sharp before you start trimming - the cleaner the less likelihood of disease getting in.
Fertilise after trimming to give your plants an extra boost.
