Topiary in Horsham

Box, yew and formal shapes clipped crisply to suit Horsham’s older houses and front gardens.

Topiary in Horsham looks at home. Plenty of the older houses near the town centre sit behind brick walls with small front gardens, and a pair of clipped balls or a neat yew cone looks right against old brick and hung tiles. Keeping those shapes sharp is fiddly, patient work. We clip box, yew, privet and laurel, with laurel done by hand so the cut leaves don’t brown.

We also keep formal hedges crisp and look after existing shapes, including spirals, pyramids and cones that have lost their edges. Bringing a neglected shape back can take a season or two, but most of them do come back with patience.

Topiary pruning through the year

Most topiary needs one or two clips a year. Box is best cut in late May or early June, after its first flush of growth, with a lighter tidy in late summer if it needs one. Yew is happiest with a single cut in late summer. We avoid clipping in hot sun, which scorches freshly cut leaves, and in hard frost. Small topiary balls in pots need watching in a dry spell too, because pots dry out far faster than open ground.

Topiary in Horsham: box blight, box moth and honest alternatives

Box has had a miserable few years. Box blight leaves bare brown patches and thrives in damp, still air, and a garden on moisture-holding soil with poor airflow gives it every chance. Box tree moth caterpillars can strip a plant in weeks. We’ll tell you plainly if your box is past saving. Yew makes a fine replacement and clips beautifully, and small-leaved evergreens such as Japanese holly are popular too. We’d rather replant than spend years nursing a plant that won’t recover.

Topiary in Horsham: your questions

Anything else, just ring. You’ll speak to the people who do the work.

Can you create new topiary shapes?

We can train existing plants into simple forms like balls, cones and domes over a couple of seasons. More elaborate shapes take years of patient clipping. We’ll be honest about what’s realistic for the plant you’ve got.

My box has brown patches. Is it blight?

It might be, or it could be box moth, drought or frost. Caterpillars and webbing inside the plant point to moth. Blight shows as brown leaves with black streaks on the stems. We’ll take a look and give you a straight answer.

Do you clear the clippings away?

Always. Box clippings especially should go, because infected leaves left on the ground can spread blight. We take every bit with us.