Topiary, pleached and espalier trees are appearing in more and more gardens. Topiary, pleached and espalier trees traditionally protect buildings and people. As well as being functional, they are now also seen as a stylistic and ambient feature. Because of their sleek shapes, they are perfectly suited to contemporary and classic gardens. By planting them in a repetitive pattern, straight lines and frames can be created outdoors. These remain visible throughout the year. Many plants and trees have to be pruned to remain in shape, but you can also prune plants into a specific shape. A Taxus baccata is very suitable for topiary, and you can often see topiary trees in different shapes in gardens or nurseries. A Taxus is perfect for topiary and easy to prune. The more often you prune a Taxus, the denser it becomes. You can even prune the Taxus down to the old wood. It will then produce new needles from this point. Not only does the Taxus baccata remain green throughout the winter, it is also a slow grower and will therefore retain its shape for a long time. It is, of course, important to keep up with pruning if you wish to maintain the sleek shape. These shapes are also known as ‘Topiary’. You will find many shapes at our nursery, such as domes, beehives, blocks, cones, pyramids, etc. We can provide this shape in many species and sizes.

Your garden or project are the final destination for our plants. We advise that, for good growth and regrowth, the plants are lightly pruned immediately after being replanted. At our nursery, we frequently transplant plants to encourage a compact root system. When harvesting a plant from the open ground, it is inevitable that some roots are lost. An imbalance occurs between the belowground and aboveground parts of the plant. To restore the balance, we recommend lightly shearing hedging plants. After replanting trees and multi-stemmed plants, we recommend slightly pruning back (reducing) the crown. Trees that are not pruned after replanting are more likely to have thin leaves in the first few years, to limit evaporation. Conversely, in trees whose crowns are pruned back, we see faster recovery, less failures and more likely a fuller crown and more secondary growth on the trunk.