Topiary and the Art of Training Plants [Hardcover]

David Joyce (Author), Laura Stoddart (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 4, 2000

Topiary and the Art of Training Plants is a complete guide to the art and craft of creating increasingly popular and surprisingly low-maintenance decorative garden effects.

With clear advice and step-by-step illustrations, this book provides a wealth of ideas, including how to:

• sculpt topiary shapes, from balls and pyramids to animals and abstracts, for year-round decorative effect
• rejuvenate neglected trees, shrubs and hedges
• train fruit trees into espaliers, fans, cordons and festoons
• train climbers and twiners to make fragrant, colorful arches and arbors
• create patterns for hedges and knot gardens
• train plants into standards
• shape easy mock topiary for quick results

Topiary and the Art of Training Plants also includes:

• garden plans showing how to incorporate topiary into beds, borders and whole gardens
• an extensive plant directory
• a North American zone map
• a directory of North American sources to locate plants suitable for topiary
• more than 120 full color photographs and 60 watercolor illustrations.

Beautiful, inspiring and comprehensive, Topiary and the Art of Training Plants is a practical gardening guide with the information and value to make it a favorite of gardeners everywhere.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In this guide, gardening writer Joyce focuses on the use of topiaries and other ornamentally trained plants as garden design elements. In addition to aesthetic recommendations, the book offers technical information such as step-by-step illustrations for creating plant sculptures and landscape plans. Although this title--previously published in a U.K. edition--has been adapted to appeal to a North American audience (for example, the appendix includes lists of plant and tool sources in the United States and Canada), all but one of the photographs feature topiaries, hedges, and standards in European gardens. This bias is regrettable, given the notable tradition of ornamental pruning as practiced at Pennsylvania's Longwood Gardens and other public gardens in North America. Recommended for large horticultural collections as an optional supplement to more practical works, such as Joyce's Complete Guide to Pruning and Training Plants (S. & S., 1992. o.p.).
-Brian Lym, City Coll. Lib. of San Francisco
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Shaping plants can entail simple methods, such as guiding a flowering vine so that it covers an arbor or neatly clipping a hedge into a rectangle. The highest form of topiary art encompasses shapes that are more difficult to achieve. Joyce explains the technical steps necessary to achieve an array of plant forms that will function in the garden as living sculptures. From trees grown in cone shapes to ornamental tiered standards and remarkably complex animal forms, the stunning photographs reveal captivating examples of topiaries displayed in splendid garden settings. Joyce's handbook offers an instructive tour that will surely fire up the imagination of keen gardeners. A directory of recommended plants and suppliers is included. Alice Joyce

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Firefly Books (March 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1552094200
• ISBN-13: 978-1552094204
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 10.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,919,315 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Topiary and the Art of Training Plants, April 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Topiary and the Art of Training Plants (Paperback)

As someone who loves the structure of formal gardens and wanting to try to create one on a small scale in my yard, I was very pleased with David Joyce's Topiary and the Art of Training Plants. He assumes his reader has some knowledge of the basics of growing plants, although he does give very general information on preparing beds for topiary plants. The book has sections on the causes and some solutions for established topiary in decline and how to correct a neglected and overgrown hedge. The book explains how to create some shapes in topiary along with step by step illustrations. Regarding hedges, it tells when and how to train widely used hedging plants. The book even relates how to grow pleached screens - training trees with flexible branches. There are sections on creating knot gardens, mazes, and climbers used as screens and canopies. The book gives a directory of a selection of plants for topiary and hedges, along with information on the hardiness, growth, size, maintenance, propagation and problems of these plants. It also lists sources to obtain plants and tools. The book is full of color pictures which will inspire plenty of ideas. It will be a great reference as I design and maintain my own topiary.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful & Has Depth, December 26, 2004

By 

StacyD (Joshua Tree) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Topiary and the Art of Training Plants (Paperback)

David Joyce's book on topiary is well-designed to interest the beginning topiarist, along with those who are more experienced. I've had this book for several years now and I learn something from it every time I refer to it.

I recently used it to try (hack?) my first topiary -- a boxwood bird. Joyce offers dimensions (such as plant size, and height at which to begin cutting), which I imagine would be helpful to those who appreciate precise directions. There are also large and detailed images of different types of topiary, along with sections on espalier and the like. This is a valuable reference in my garden library.