Topiary
トピアリー / Roman era– / 17th century peak / Technique / Garden Styles
Plant sculpture made by clipping evergreens into geometry and animals. Because decades of growth belong to the design, no sculptural technique is slower.
At a glance
Visual cues
- Clipped geometry
- Beasts and emblems
- Evergreen density
- Decades as working time
Best used for
- Giving a garden an evergreen backbone that survives leaf fall
- Answering the axis of a gate or terrace with architectural geometry
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Dictionary entry
- Type
- Only evergreens that rebud densely after cutting, yew and box
- Composition
- One form standing alone, or identical forms at equal intervals
- Material
- Two clippings a year, young growth guided by frames
- Caution
- An ambitious animal abandoned mid training loses its outline, the figure stops reading, and only the missed clipping shows.
- Further study
- Levens Hall since the 1690s / the Roman topiarius / the modern topiary revival
Related entries
- Parterre (パルテール（刺繍花壇）)Same Garden Styles lineage.Compare Topiary and Parterre
- Hedge Maze (迷路園)Same Garden Styles lineage.Compare Topiary and Hedge Maze
More from Garden Styles
Continue through styles in the same Garden Styles family, prioritised by shared effects.
- Chinese Scholar Garden (中国文人庭園)Shared effects: Calm / Luxury / Play.
- Karesansui (枯山水)Shared effects: Calm / Luxury.
- Kaiyū Strolling Garden (回遊式庭園)Shared effects: Calm / Luxury.
Browse all Garden Styles entries
Cite this entry
The dictionary is meant to be linked to. Take whichever form fits where you are writing.
- Link
- https://indexstyle.org/styles/topiary
- Markdown
- [Topiary — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/topiary)
- HTML
- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/topiary">Topiary — IndexStyle</a>