Garden Design: DIY Topiary 🌳 & A Little Mini Hedge 🌳

Here in my garden in Essex, England I wanted to spend some time sprucing up the front garden.

Firstly, I have two large overgrown and very bushy Lemon Cypress Trees which I have been wanting to turn into topiaries and so that is my main focus for today.

Secondly, I am adding a mini hedge of Euonymus which are very hardy and can look after themselves in my rather neglected front garden.

Shaping the topiaries was far harder than I had imagined, particularly because I did need to make them look as similar as possible, but I am actually very pleased with how they turned out in the end!

The other plants in my front garden are Ilex Crenata ‘Caroline Upright’ and Pinus ‘Summer Breeze’

If you’d like to join my Facebook page, also called The Enthusiastic Gardener, you can find it by clicking this link:

https://www.facebook.com/The-Enthusiastic-Gardener-104622541169305/

I am also on Instagram @the_enthusiastic_gardener

Have fun in your gardens!

Janette, The Enthusiastic Gardener

http://youtube.com/@TheEnthusiasticGardener

Today’s music is available from the YouTube Studio Music Audio Library:

“Moving On” by Wayne Jones.

Good morning everyone. It’s Janette here, enthusiastic gardener and welcome back to my garden in Essex in England. And as you can see, it’s very autuminal now. The leaves are falling off the trees everywhere. But we are not cleaning up the garden today. We are venturing elsewhere, which I’m very pleased to tell you all about. So, we are not in this garden today. We are going to the front garden. The front garden. You hardly ever see the front garden because, well, to be honest, it’s not very inspirational. But today, I have a plan to spruce it up a little bit. and I’ll take you out there and I’ll show you what I have in mind following the success of my spiral toper on the Alberta spruce. I have two lemon cyprress trees which are in the front garden which I’ll show you in a moment either side of the front door and they are getting massive. And when I planted them, which was I looked back, it was October 2021, they were about the size of this one over here about this size. They were. And that one was this big. And I can’t remember when, but I made a little fairy garden, which I’ll find a picture. I’ll show you my little cute fairy garden and which obviously has been dismantled now because that’s how big that one got. Um that was a little fairy garden one and that’s grown that much. Well, these are enormous. And you did say to me when I planted them out there back in 2021, they are going to get huge. And of course you were right. And I have an idea for a little hedge as well, which I went and bought the plants for that yesterday because I’m so pleased with my little hedge in shady corner, which were tiny little plugs. I’ll find a picture of what they look like when I planted them. And I think almost three years ago, and you can see how much they fill out. So, I’m going to do a similar thing out in the front. We’re going to toperize two big lemon cyprress trees. Not quite sure what shape yet. We’ll explain it all. Let’s go out the front. Here we are. There. This is my front garden. Got it on wide screen so hopefully you can see everything. But you can see these were the lemon cypresses which were probably this tall a few years ago and they’ve got enormous but they’re so lovely and healthy and and I’ll talk you through the plants that have survived everything because to be honest it’s neglected. I don’t actually do an awful lot out here. So I have bought these. These are Eonymous. You know how much I love Eonymous. And these are going to be a little hedge all the way along around the corner and again over that little section up there in that little border which I think will look really nice. I just want things that are just going to look after themselves. We have here these are kanata and they’re called Caroline upright. Um, need to clean that up a little bit. And these are beautiful. They are pinus pines. And they are called summer breeze. And they’re just beautiful. They just look after themselves. So we’ve got three of those. We’ve got a little one there and another cranata there. That’s the lemon cyprus. And then it’s just repeated on this side. We’ve got this lemon cyprus and another little eyelet cranata and another pine. As I say, they’re beautiful. So soft and lovely. And I hardly ever water any of this. It just gets the rain. And there is actually a big overhang there. So there’s quite a lot of rain shadow. There we go. That is the front garden. There are a lot of bulbs and in fact I planted 75 a mixture of daffodils the other day last weekend. So they’re in there and we have um little miscanthus and things like that. Might get some tulips and add those. But the main focus of the day is to do something with these two lemon cyprus. This one is slightly taller. So, I think the first thing I need to do is to get them a little bit more shaped. So, I’ve got a starting point. So, I really don’t know what shape these are going to be yet. I could do like little bands with a gap in between, like if you see what I mean. I don’t know. But I think the first thing I need to do is get them looking into the kind of similar shape. That’s what I’m doing first. [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Well, they’re kind of similar. similar. This one’s a bit bigger, but we need to get the heights right. I’m going to follow along the brick line and cut that one off at the same height. Hopefully this one. Is it that one? Hang on. It’s that one. That one there. Okay. If I haven’t done it right, they both are going down and down and down. Do we leave it like this or do we do some sort of a topiary? If you want me to do a topiary, press like on the video. I have to keep my eye on Lotty as well because she’s very good out here, but she’s wandering off. Lotty, this way. Go on. That way. That way. Good girl. Good girl. And if I get in the zone, she might be halfway down the road. Over this way, Lotty. Come on. You got green bits on her. Okay, let’s go for let’s go for a topiary. You got to be in it to win it, haven’t you? What do I do? What do you think I should do? Um, I’m going to stop the filming, sit back, and have a little assess. Hold on. Right. So, we’re going to have bands like this. And then I’ll cut away some of that to leave a gap. Let’s get the first band. Time lapse. Oops. [Music] [Music] Okay, I don’t know if it’s better or not, but Richard is about to come out and he will give his honest opinion. Richard, he hasn’t seen it yet. Richard, what do you think? Hello. Hello. Oh, let’s have a look. Yeah, that’s fine. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it’s better than what it was. Yeah. Yeah. Unique. Now I’ve got to do the other one the same. That’s the trouble. That’s all right. Does it have to be? Is it all right? Yeah. Oh, do you know what, Rich? Let’s have a look from a distance. It’s different, ain’t it? Well, what I would do Yeah, I would make that a bit thinner. Yeah, because Yeah, that’s quite thick. Okay, Richard thinks this is too thick. So, maybe if I just take off some of these lures. Let’s do that. Right, I’ve made his few little suggestions. I’ve thinned that one out a bit. And uh well, it is what it is, as they say. So, she went inside. I hope we seem to have lost our dog. But yes, it’s okay, isn’t it? It’s interesting. And let’s just see from a distance. from a distance. Yes. Okay. Now, I’ve got to do the other one, but I am going to do that after a cup of coffee. So, I’m going to show you the final result. Or shall we get Richard to do this one? Richard, do you want to do this one? Oh, we’ve lost Oh, Lotty, come on. Lots over this way. We’re going for a cup of coffee and then daddy’s going to do this one. Daddy ain’t doing that. Right. I’m here going to sit down and have a little coffee and a little regroup. It does look nice out here. It’s very very autumal now. Still got some roses and the golden falls. Won’t be long before all those leaves have gone. That’s the Laura petalum. That’s my chimerops palm treky carpus. Beautiful star jasmine. The red one. Lots of leaves. So, I’m just gonna have a little break, a cup of coffee, and that was more difficult than I imagined, but I think the second one is going to be harder because I’m trying to make it look the same. And I’ll show you the finished result, I think. So, then I can Yeah. put my mind to it. Right. We have the reveal of the second one. What do you think? Well, it didn’t take me long. It didn’t take me as long as it took you, but it would do. But we’ve got two here. Two uh leaders. And we did consider taking one away, but Richard thinks it looks interesting. Yeah. No, it’s it’s better like that. It doesn’t exactly match this one. Let’s have a look at both of them. But I think they look nice. Do you, Rich? They’re fine. It’s a makes it more interesting. Yeah, they were getting out of control. They were, but I must just hasten to add that one. A little trim. Just what you have to do for these. These are pines. And every year you just have to do this. It’s like the brown. They always want to Yeah. No, it’s just some of the the old leaves. You could just pull them out. So, I can go through and do that. Literally just a couple of snips. What are you going to do? No, it’s going to stick that. No, no, no, no. You just do this. Yeah, but I was just going to make it round. No. Okay. Needs to needs to uh do its own thing. What do you think? That’s fine. They’re fine. Yeah, that’s the extent of my garden. So, they’re both done and uh it was a lot harder than I imagined, but I’m glad I’ve done it. They were just great big old bushy overgrown shrubs which needed something doing to it. So, it’s a little bit of fun and uh I’m no topy master, that’s for sure. But let’s plant this will be so a dodle easy compared to that. going to plant the yonomous hedges and I’ve got my spacings already for me because I’ve got little bricks along the edge. I bought 30. So, I’m going to have one and then two spaces of bricks and then another one. And it’s just going to be a lovely little low hedge all the way around there. That little bit there. Well, I have 30. So, this is where I’m having them. We’ve just got them in this far. And so I’ve got them on one brick and then I’m going to have two gaps and then another one there. They’re a little bit rootbound as you can see. So each one I’ll just tease the roots a little bit, break the roots. And it’s not the best of soils. doesn’t really get looked after. I think these will be ideal because they’re tough and I think it’s going to look beautiful. And as I say, I can’t have boxwoods because of the boxwood caterpillars that we get in this area, which is a shame because I love boxwoods. But I made a vow. And I don’t often make vows, but I made a vow never to plant boxwoods again, unfortunately. Oh, dear me. So, so we go one, two, and then another one here. I think this is just going to look so cute. And if you can’t grow boxwoods like me, then there are good alternatives. These eonymous are wonderful. You can also get eyelets cranata. They’re wonderful alternative as well. So there’s lots of alternatives if you’re unfortunate like me and you can’t have boxwoods. It looks beautiful already. [Music] That’s it. all nice and watered in. And I love it. Here’s what this side looks like. I think it’s very pretty with a little hedge and very interesting with the topies. I like them. I think it looks cute. Better than it did. Let’s have a look from a distance. Yeah, better from a distance. Yeah. Not too bad. Well, that’s it from me. I’ve had a wonderful time this morning doing my topies. Um, I don’t know what you think. I think it looks better than it did. And my lovely little hedge, which I think is just the perfect addition because it’s lowmaintenance. They can look after themselves. And I know from experience that these little eonymous hedges, they’re tough and strong. So, that’s good. So, thank you so much for watching. I’m Janette. I’m the enthusiastic gardener. I hope wherever you may be in the world, you’re having a wonderful time in your garden. Thank you so much for watching. Take care, everyone. Bye.