You should start your very first topiary with a simple geometric shape. Pyramids, spheres, and cubes are easier to cut freehand, and they tolerate imprecise cuts better than figure cuts like peacocks or teddy bears. Especially since it can take many years for figurative forms to take on a recognizable form.
Perfect shapes are best achieved with a template
Make simple shapes out of boxwood
Use a template to make the first shape cut. You can buy these ready-made - often they are wire frames that are bought in the right size and put over the box - or you can simply make your own. This also has the advantage that you can adapt the stencil to your book and your own ideas, rather than the other way around, as would be the case with a store-bought stencil of a given shape and size. But before you use the template, first cut the young plants:
- Roughly cut the plant into the desired shape by eye
- Cut a little at a time, but more often!
- The smaller the work steps, the more precise the result will be later.
- On the other hand, if you cut away too much at once, you will end up with irregular shapes.
- Due to the slow growth of the boxwood, these need at least a year to grow out.
- After this first cut, let the box grow.
- After a few weeks, place the cutting pattern over the plant.
- Cut along the pattern lines.
Repeat this step for years to come if you want the box shape to grow and enlarge. When the plant has reached the desired shape and size, simply prune back slightly at intervals appropriate to the shape and plant to maintain a clear outline and dense growth pattern.
Make stencils yourself - Here's how
Cutting templates are quite easy to make. For a cone or pyramid shape, you only need a few canes (e.g. made of bamboo), which you tie together like a tent. The sticks serve as guide sticks when cutting, up to which the boxwood growth is trimmed back. A ball can be cut using a semi-circle shape made of cardboard, styrofoam or other suitable material, or you can bend several wires over the box to form a ball. Simply stick the ends of the wires into the soil or pot substrate.
Shape box hedges
An effective shaped hedge must be evenly covered with leaves. This is not easy to achieve in forms where a lot of leaf shade deprives the lower parts of the plant of light. Don't allow a hedge to become top-heavy, flattened at the top or tapered at the bottom, and bare at the base. Instead, let the hedge run evenly from a narrow tip to a broad base so that it is easy to trim, grows healthily, and is green at the bottom rather than bare from lack of light.
tips
A band helps to trim the shaped hedge precisely and evenly to a height. Stretch a colored ribbon taut at the desired hedge height and use it as a guide when cutting. The band is held by posts stuck into the ground at the sides.