The Art of Creative Pruning: Inventive Ideas for Training and Shaping Trees and Shrubs

How do you feel about balls and blobs? Let me put that another way: How do you feel about plants that have been pruned into a variety of shapes, including balls, blobs, cones, pyramids, spirals, and wedding cakes? I won't pretend it's not a controversial subject. The sight of a sculpted shrub gives some people fits. Maybe you're one of them. But if you're willing to keep an open mind, you just might discover that intensively pruned shrubs contribute qualities that few other plants can offer: bold geometry; architecture; whimsy; fun.

To find out whether you might in fact be a latent topiarist, take a look at Jake Hobson's new book, The Art of Creative Pruning: Inventive Ideas for Training and Shaping Trees and Shrubs. The book begins with a survey of the European tradition of topiary, with copious examples from both grand estates and small-scale domestic properties. Here you'll find both the expected balls and pyramids but also flowing organic forms, mazes, arches, pleached hedges, and espaliers. Hobson then takes us to Japan, for an intimate look at the various styles of intensive pruning and shaping that have developed there over many centuries. And just in case you think that practices like cloud pruning don't work in Western gardens, be sure to check out the hornbeams that designer Tom Stuart-Smith used in his prize-winning Chelsea garden in 2008. They're stunning. (The photo is on pages 136–137.) The book winds up with an overview of decorative pruning techniques such as pollarding and stem-exposing. (The excessively modest are advised to skip this latter section.) Throughout the book, helpful photographs and drawings show you how to do whatever it is you may want to do, from a creating simple box ball to training a multi-tiered wedding cake.

Now, I don't expect that you'll run right out and plant a dragon hedge along your property line. But at the very least, careful study of this book is bound to increase your garden design vocabulary, in a good way. And besides, who doesn't want a better batter? (See page 76.)

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