How to Care for Topiaries

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to talk about how to care for topiary or how to care for topiaries. Now a topiary is pretty much any type of plant that is grown to be a nice visual design; that's going to be unnatural than its natural growth habits. So it's, a topiary can be pretty much any plant that is grown into another shape to look like an animal or a flower or even a heart. Topiaries started back in the Roman days and it's much related to bonsai that was started in China and Japan but a topiary was more like a large boxwood that was in a nice garden that they would trim into a shape of a horse or trim it into the shape of an eagle or anything really interesting. And so over the years and the centuries we continue to take topiaries into different shapes. And right now a big trend is just taking ivy and training it to look like another shape. And right here I'm trying to make a big heart out of this ivy, ivy topiary and so as long as it keeps growing and get, gets more of a medusa like stems, I just put it back into the container so that it stays more compact and eventually I want this to just be a big bubble and to be a nice heart that's just all ivy. And so take care of it, you've got to make sure and keep it moist just like any other plant; but you don't want it sitting them water 'cause it will rot as well. And many time topiaries are made right into moss and so you want to keep that moss really wet but never too dry either or too wet. And they want full sun; most topiaries are made out of boxwoods or ivies or even holly and they all need full hot sun and they will do really well. And then the best time to trim them is in the winter time and then they'll get new growth in the spring and the summer and as long as you continually trim out the wild medusa like stems or put them back and closer and compact to wrap it back into the topiary, they'll do really well. And you will find that you can have a topiary last many many years and be an instant hit at your garden party.