Mowing plants on a personal plot, landscape design and cutting plants, how to make a haircut
The curling of plants, which was called ornamental or topiary gardening, originated in the days of slave-owning Greece and Rome, when slaves or topiary were engaged in this type of art, which made great progress in the art of topia. When the Roman Empire reached its peak, topiary art conquered the entire European territory and quietly existed for several centuries, experiencing ups and downs.
Content
- Decorative haircut plants. Historical reference video
- Requirements for topiary plants. Key Representatives
- Care for topiary plants. Pruning rules
- The main stages of cutting plants video
- Coniferous decorative haircut
Decorative haircut plants. Historical reference
The Renaissance era gave birth to ornamental gardening, which surprised Europeans with shrubs made in the form of centaurs and giants, temples and ships. The entry into the era of classicism, associated with the heyday of the English landscape style, contributed to the fading of topiary art, which did not last long, in view of the constant desire of gardeners to ennoble their site and make it more comfortable.
To this day, the most progressive gardeners continue to decorate their site with figuratively trimmed shrubs in the form of balls and pyramids, and the figures of horses and carriages carved from yew and boxwood surprise the contemplator with their sophistication and refinement.
Requirements for topiary plants. Key Representatives
When choosing topiary plants, it is important to consider several aspects, among which:
1. The desired shape of the finished living sculpture;
2. The color and shape of the leaves, as well as flowers and fruits;
3. The growth rate of the culture and its soil requirements;
4. The requirements of the plant for the illumination of the territory.
When choosing plants for curly hair, it is advised to give preference to slowly growing shade-tolerant crops that are capable of sprouting throughout life and are characterized by a large number of sleeping buds on the trunk.
Topiary plants need continuous care. In order for the plant to maintain the desired bushy shape, once a year it is necessary to cut it and remove the tips of the shoots. For the topiary cutting of plants, yew and boxwood are mainly used, which most closely meet the requirements for topiary plants. If you plan to border the flowerbed with a hedge, you can choose common Dubrovnik or euonymus, small-leaved holly and evergreen honeysuckle. For decorative cutting of shrubs, plants that discard foliage are suitable, among which it is recommended to prefer beech, hawthorn or Japanese azalea. If you decide to do decorative trimming of trees, then you can safely choose ordinary spruce, cotoneaster brilliant, small-leaved elm and thawed western. It is also worth paying attention to the above plants, if there is a desire to fence off your site with a powerful green wall, reaching at least 10 meters in height.
Pyramids, squares, cylinders and balls that can decorate the front entrance to the front garden are considered to be popular decorative forms created in the process of curling plants. In addition to the familiar classics, you can find unusual bushes in the form of a spiral, letters or animal figures.
Care for topiary plants. Pruning rules
The best period for planting topiary plants is the end of spring and the beginning of summer.
Caring for plants implies protecting plants in the winter from falling snow, for which it is necessary to tie tall plants with twine, and cover low ones with boxes.
As mentioned earlier, the main event to care for the topiary is a regular haircut, carried out according to all the rules of ornamental art. For the climate of the middle zone, it is enough to carry it out once or twice a season. If the cutting of plants, which had previously been given an uncomplicated shape, can be done by eye, then to care for complex figures requires the use of a special removable wire frame.
The main advice to the owners of summer cottages, only mastering the decorative cutting of plants, are as follows:
1. The first and main advice is the use of wire frames in the formation of exquisite forms;
2. If you first decided to engage in curly cutting of plants, then it’s better to learn its basics when creating simpler shapes, such as cylinders, cones, balls, pyramids and cubes;
3. If at the end of decorative trimming of trees you expect to get sharp corners and figures with a flat and flat surface, then give preference to small-leaved plants or crops with short needles;
4.Small bonuses for newly-minted representatives of topiary art will be news that a curly haircut can add bright shades to the landscape design of the site, since the young leaves formed after trimming are characterized by brighter shade colors.
The main stages of cutting plants
Decorative cutting of plants occurs in several stages, which can stretch for more than one year. The first step in creating a variety of bizarre forms is to put on a young plant woven from a wire frame, the shape of which depends on the shape you want to get.
As the culture grows and the shoots leave the framework, it is necessary to carefully monitor the growth rate of the plant and cut the shoots and branches as they go beyond the framework. As a rule, the growth process stretches for several years, and all this time it is necessary to trim the bush, giving it the desired shape. It is worth considering that the first haircut occurs before the buds open and require no more than 5 cm of growth in the previous year. Subsequent haircuts should match the haircut level of the previous year. It is important to remember that when trimming conifers, you can’t cut the side shoots in a strictly vertical direction, as ideally a tendency to a slight narrowing should be traced. If this rule is neglected, the lower part of the tree will quickly lose most of the needles.
It must be clarified that regardless of the species of the plant, its haircut should be carried out from the bottom up. It is important to continuously feed the plant with cold water and feed it with vitamins. In order to avoid drying of the bush, it is required to leave several buds on it.
Coniferous decorative haircut
Conifers are considered one of the suitable crops for a topiary haircut. Many conifers, such as yews, spruces, junipers and thuja, are slow-growing, which is recognized as one of the necessary rules for selecting plants for decorative trimming of conifers, and a dense crown of conifers allows you to create real masterpieces of topiary. Moreover, cross-pair microbiota, junipers, spruce ordinary yew and many other conifers respond well to shearing, and their minimum growth rate allows you to maintain the desired shape with minimal pruning.
You can start trimming conifers only a year or two after planting. The main criterion of readiness for pruning is a powerful, well-formed crown. The geometry of the desired object is ideally selected based on the natural data of the plant. For example, a pyramidal thuja is easier to give the shape of a pyramid or cone, and a squat juniper with a round shape is suitable for a haircut with the subsequent formation of a ball. We must not forget that in the period of active growth conifers are characterized by active resin formation, as a result, the cutting time is selected for each plant individually.
