the.com/topiary
bushes bullied into being swans by humans with too much patience and a grudge against chaos.
means The art of clipping shrubs and trees into ornamental, often fanciful shapes.
from From Latin topiarius, 'an ornamental gardener,' which itself grew out of Greek topia, 'a place' (the root of 'topic' and 'topography') — by way of topion, 'a little place,' a diminutive used for decorative landscape scenes. So buried in the word is the idea of garden-as-painted-place: the Romans had topiarii who sculpted greenery into miniature landscapes, and English borrowed the term, fully formed, around the late 16th century.
- roman origins
- invented by a friend of Julius Caesar's
- slow art
- a single sculpture can take decades to grow
- living medium
- the artwork keeps growing and must be re-cut
- box blight
- a fungus can erase years of work overnight
- levens hall
- England garden has shapes 300+ years old
levens hall topiary garden — english garden in cumbria with over 100 yew and box topiaries dating back to the 1690s
disney world epcot topiaries — mickey and other character topiaries displayed at florida theme park during flower & garden festival
longwood gardens pennsylvania — delaware estate featuring elaborate boxwood and privet topiary designs maintained since 1906